Beijing, 301 Hospital.
"Soaring rose ninety thousand miles, a sharp sword piercing the clouds and shaking the heavens."
The television commentator's voice filled the ward.
Qi Shaoheng leaned against his hospital bed, watching Soaring shrink into a tiny black speck. His eyes suddenly reddened.
He took out his phone, opened his photo album, and scrolled back for quite a while.
An old photograph appeared on the screen.
He was still very young in the photo, standing beside a table with his chin barely above its surface.
Qi Zhenhai sat to his left, holding a pale wooden model.
Shen Jingyi held a freshly bent strip of thin wood, checking its fit against the model's back.
He was also reaching out to brace the model's side, as though afraid it would fall apart.
The toy, assembled from several thin wooden panels, had yet to be painted. Fine pencil lines were still visible along its sides.
Its nose was low and pointed, its back slightly raised, and both sides tapered toward its belly. It looked a little like an aircraft, but it had no wings.
The model actually bore a striking resemblance to the Soaring he had just seen on television.
Qi Shaoheng still remembered waiting for his father to attach its wings.
But even after a long wait, when his father had already started sanding the details, he still had not brought out any wings.
"Dad, Dad, what is this? A plane? But why doesn't it have wings?"
Qi Zhenhai stopped working, picked up the model, and said with a smile,
"Because its body has a different shape. When air flows past it, that can lift it up too."
Little Qi Shaoheng felt both sides of the model again, not quite understanding.
"But all the planes in the sky have wings."
"Because