On Dad’s left hand is a long scar. Whenever he is drunk, he will tell me about it. It is his pet story, told and retold countless times. I am never tired of Dad’s narration, though.

That was about 30 years ago. Freshly graduated from the Provincial Police Academy in Wuhan, Dad was a junior officer in the local police force. One day his squad got instructions from their superiors to take part in an important operation. Dad’s assignment in the operation was to follow some suspicious men. In the following days, the targets were behaving very weirdly. One day they left their hideout with some bags.

After running a check on their gear, Dad and his mate went on the mission. They tailed the gang all the way until the yobs arrived at a secret place, where a pack of other men were waiting for them. One of them started to examine the contents of the bags the yobs were carrying along. Unluckily one of the guys on watch detected the existence of my father and his partner in hiding. He gave a signal to his accomplices right away.

Dad felt they could not wait any more. “The time to act is now,” he said to himself. If they did not take action right away, the gang would escape. Dashing out of their covert, Dad and his mate charged at the gang. The sudden emergence of Dad and his partner sent the guys into a panic. Father tried to apprehend the head of the gangsters. The two of them ended up wrestling with each other. In the process, the head produced a knife, but Dad showed no fear. After a violent struggle, he finally got the man under control. Unexpectedly Dad felt a sharp pain in the left hand. Blood oozed out instantly. Although hard pressed onto the ground, the suspect had still managed to push the knife into Dad’s left hand.

Seeing their head arrested, the gang members threw in the towel gradually. After they were all securely handcuffed, the support officers who had come to Dad’s assistance frisked the bad guys before they went through the bags the gang members had been lugging. They were full of drugs. The suspects proved to be drug traffickers.

Later on, Dad was promoted because of bravery in action. It turned out that the gang had had guns stored in their hiding place. Luckily, they had not toted them along that day. Otherwise, things would have gone nastier.

It has been over 20 years since Dad suffered the wound. Already chief of the local police force, today he does not need to be on the beat every day, confronting criminals in person. The scar on Dad’s left hand is his honour. The scar story never fails to inspire awe in me at Dad’s heroic deed. It convinces me as well that to achieve a goal there are efforts and sacrifices to make.