A roar.

Profound and prolonged.

Moli imagined a dragon soaring in the sky.

Not a medieval beast that torched villages and harmed lives, but a Chinese dragon.

Yes, a dragon. 

Its body stretching for miles, its golden scales gleaming, its gossamer whiskers floating in mid-air, its claws strong. A dragon that directs wind and rain, a dragon that sends lightning and thunder.

Of course, Moli had never seen a dragon, but she had interacted with one many times in her imagination. 

A few months earlier, Moli's fascination with dragons had become a topic of conversation in her house. Her grandfather had teased her from time to time with the story of Lord Ye, who loved dragons. 

Lord Ye was a man from an ancient era in China who was obsessed with dragons. He had collected many dragon-themed artefacts and even carved dragons on the pillars in his house. One day, a dragon who had heard about Lord Ye's fascination decided to pay a friendly visit. As soon as the dragon appeared, Lord Ye escaped in shock, yelling for help. 

Moli had told her grandpa that she would never run away if she saw a real dragon. She wondered if dragons could speak human languages. 

On her birthday, her uncle had gifted her a complete illustrated edition of The Classic of Mountains and Seas. She was awestruck at the many mythical creatures and natural wonders as she flipped through the pages. She was so absorbed with her reading that she wore her slippers the wrong way. 

Another roar.

Moli closed her eyes, not daring to move. 

She had heard that a dragon's roar was like a cow's moo.

Rumour had it that Moli's great-grandmother had seen a real dragon. More than once, Moli had pestered her grandma to tell her the story of the dragon, and her grandma always began like this:

"It was the summer of 1934. My mother was only seven or eight years old. A fellow villager said a dragon had fallen to Yingkou and needed their help. The whole village went to rescue the dragon. Some carried jars of water, some took gourds, and some took straw mats. When they got there, they poured water onto the dragon and used the mats to keep its skin moist. You know, many said that saving a dragon was a remarkable feat that could bring fortune to people for several lifetimes. The villagers had also invited Buddhist monks to chant mantras. It rained so heavily that the river swelled. Then, one day, the dragon soared up into a storm and disappeared. Sometime later, I couldn't say if it was a month or a week, the villagers heard that the dragon had crashed. Some elders cried because that was a bad omen."

Every time Moli heard this story, she recalled the 'whale fall' she had once seen in a documentary – when a whale dies in the ocean, its body gradually sinks to the ocean floor and provides nourishment for other sea creatures along the way. 

If there is a whale fall, could there be a 'dragon fall'?

Do dragons die?

She had searched many times online for information about the 'dragon fall incident'. Some said that the 'dragon' was a stranded whale; some said it was a scheme invented by the invading Japanese army to cause panic, and some said...

Someone was talking.

The phrases 'closed-loop', 'ecosystem', and 'dimensionality reduction' drifted into her ears. Moli opened her eyes and adjusted her mask, her breath cooling on the tip of her nose. She rose and looked back. Two rows of seats away, several adults with masks and face shields were conversing. 

The aisles of the flight cabin were cold and empty. 

In between the roar of the plane's engines, Moli could vaguely hear the words 'KPI' and 'growth forecast'. Someone had also said 'tofu'. 

Perhaps someone was hungry...

Moli checked the remaining flight time on the seat screen. Five more hours to go...

"Moli. Don't cry. You are a strong girl."

She remembered her grandmother's words. 

Someone explained the meaning of 'tofu'; it meant the 'top of the funnel'.

What a funny phrase. Moli looked over at her mother in the next seat, sleeping soundly, her fingers curled around the edge of her jacket. 

Moli had been interested in words and languages before she became fascinated with dragons. Whenever she heard or saw a word, whether it was in Mandarin or English, she tried to paint a scene in her mind. 

Once in class, her English teacher, Miss Warner, was explaining the word 'bank'. 

Moli raised her hand and told the class to imagine the word. 'B' is a pebbled riverbank, 'a' the handrails on the bridge; 'n' was an arch of a bridge, and 'k' is an estuary where birds tread water catching small fish.

Miss Warner interrupted her and said that was not necessary. The class only needed to remember 'bank' as a financial institution and not a river feature. 

Moli retorted, "Textbooks cannot include everything that matters in life! If someone went to the South Bank in London and saw the words, would they think they were in a big bank?"

After class, Miss Warner summoned Moli and asked her why she had embarrassed her in front of the whole class. Moli was unhappy for a long time. 

However, she soon had a chance to get even with her teacher. 

In their after-school activity a week later, the class had played Scrabble with Miss Warner. And at the end, Moli spelt the word 'anus' and gained enough points to win. Before anyone else could ask what the word meant, Miss Warner dismissed the class, saying their session was over. 

Recalling that afternoon, Moli snickered in her seat.

The plane had met turbulence, and the seatbelt indicator lit up. Moli resettled into her seat. Her movements might have woken her mother. 

"Maggie, I've just learned a new word called 'tofu'. Do you want to know what it means?" Moli asked as she buckled her seat belt. 

"Get some more sleep."

Moli pretended to close her eyes. 

The small group meeting down the aisle was over, and the only sounds left in the cabin were the mechanical notes and the footsteps of the flight attendants returning to their seats.

Before Maggie had become Moli's mom, she had run into Morris while studying on a postgraduate course in London. Their encounter was somewhat clichéd and began with a mix-up of their umbrellas. Then a union and a separation.

While Morris worked as a historian touring Central Asia, Maggie and Moli had returned to China. Then Maggie had met 'strategy' at work.

Moli first learned about 'strategy' from a picture book. It meant 'plan of attack'. She had once taken notes that, in one month, her mother had said the words 'strategy' and 'product innovation' at home more than she had called Moli's name. But as bad as 'strategy' was, Maggie had stayed, while Morris kept himself busy researching history. 

Moli didn't like history.

She didn't like memorising chronologies, dates, and names of historical figures.

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, the adults always said that they were witnessing history.

She didn't want to witness such history. 

Moli remembered an older girl she had met at the 'Big Whale' last summer. The Big Whale was a metal artwork near Moli's neighbourhood, right on the shoreline. It depicted a mother whale with her child and reached up to three storeys tall. 

The first time Moli met the girl on the beach, she had also taught Moli a new phrase in English – 'longshore drift', which means the process of how sand drifts along the coast. Moli tried to picture this word. A grain of sand, longing for the shore, only to drift far away with the waves.

The summer ended, and the Big Whale sister left to study in the US and was never heard from again.

"Umm..." Moli heard Maggie sighing.

Some time ago, one of the foreign teachers at Moli's school had sent a group email to all the parents and students. Her mother sighed after reading it.

The subject line of the email was: YOU SHOULD APOLOGISE FOR THE VIRUS!

Before Moli could read any further, Maggie had logged onto Zoom and sent her away.

The school staff and parents had gone to great lengths not to let the children see the email, but still, someone took a screenshot and spread it in their secret chat groups. After reading the email, Moli felt for the first time that words can hurt people deeply.

Moli's uncle, a clinical neuroscientist, told her: "Moli, we don't need to apologise, but we must say thank you. We need to thank everyone who cared for everyone else's lives and health. A big thank you to all the medical staff, the workers who built the emergency hospitals, the volunteers who delivered food and essential supplies during the lockdowns, compatriots overseas who raised money, and foreign governments who donated masks and goods. When we were in great need, many people lent a helping hand, and we will do our best to help them. Yes, we had first reported the virus in Wuhan. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Spanish flu did not originate in Spain. Japanese encephalitis was only so named because it was first reported by a Japanese doctor. Now, increasing evidence has suggested that the virus had quietly spread in other countries before we identified it. We have found many cases where the virus stayed on the packaging of frozen food items. Could it be that the virus came to Wuhan through cold chain logistics? Conclusions should only come after global investigations, and not before." Her uncle paused. "Is it not the case that the Chinese character for 'human' is two strokes supporting each other? This is not the time to point fingers at each other; this is the time for us to hold hands."

Time to hold hands. Moli remembered one time when she was still small. Her parents took her for a walk in Hyde Park. 

They held her hands, Maggie on the left and Morris on the right. They watched the swans and shared a vanilla ice cream in a cone.

When was the last time they had held hands? 

She could not recall.

Now, on their way to Morris's funeral, Moli regretted deeply. 

Now her dad had become a part of history.