Ash (Yan Hui) Fanfiction - Ash in the Sink (Read for Free)

Aug 26, 2026

2,225

Set in the universe of Feng Nong's original novel Ash (or so-called Yan Hui) , this Ash fanfiction follows Hui Leuk Tou after his flatmate Mok Fei Foon suddenly vanishes, leaving behind altered corporate records and an unwashed tea mug. Obsessed with tracing every movement, Hui uses unauthorized keys and surveillance to uncover Tinping Group's hidden compliance scandal. But as his compulsive search drives away Fei Huan and threatens innocent lives, Hui must face a painful truth: information is not entitlement. To heal, he must learn to relinquish control before silence consumes them.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryStory & Novel

FormatPDF

AccessFree to download

Ash in the Sink: An Ash Fanfiction

Chapter 1 — The Flat Keeps Its Shape

Chapter 2 — Practical Measures

Chapter 3 — The Hours Without Sleep

Chapter 4 — The Record That Would Not Open

Chapter 5 — The Wrong Door

Chapter 6 — Ash in the Sink

Chapter 7 — What Fei Huan Refuses

Chapter 8 — The Price of Being Useful

Chapter 9 — A Door Left Unlocked

By the time Hui Leuk Tou reached the flat, the rain had thinned to a grey mist clinging to the estate walls.

He stood outside the door with one hand in his pocket, feeling the spare key press against his knuckles. A strip of transparent tape circled its head, folded twice so it would not scrape against the other keys. He had made that alteration himself. Fei Huan had never seen it.

The corridor light buzzed, went dark, then returned when the sensor caught his movement. For a moment the door looked bleached and harmless.

Hui unlocked it.

He had expected the flat to hold the remains of a quarrel: a lamp left burning, a cup abandoned beside the sink, perhaps a message typed but never sent. Something carrying the heat of a person who had stormed out and might come back once the anger had worn itself thin.

The door opened on the usual arrangement.

The narrow table stood against the wall beneath the window. Two chairs faced it, one pulled slightly away. The laundry rack filled the strip of floor between the sofa and the balcony door, damp shirts hanging too close together. A convenience-store receipt lay beneath the television remote. The air conditioner was off, but the room still held the stale warmth of the afternoon.

Nothing had been overturned. Nothing appeared to be waiting for him.

He closed the door and listened.

The flat had kept its shape.

That was the first wrong thing.

Mok Fei Foon’s slippers were not by the entrance. One lay beneath the shoe cabinet, its sole turned towards the wall. The other was gone. Hui crouched and touched the bare patch of dust where it had been.

He had noticed the missing slipper that morning, but then he had believed there would be a sensible explanation. Fei Foon had gone downstairs. He had gone to buy cigarettes, though he was trying to quit. He had gone to see Fei Huan. He had left because Hui had said something that could be repaired later.

Now the absent slipper seemed to have made a decision.

Hui stood too quickly and struck his shoulder against the doorframe. Pain settled into one precise spot. He was grateful for it.

His phone showed three unread messages from Tinping Group and one from a delivery service. None came from Fei Huan.

Hui opened their conversation and typed:

I’m back. Let me know when you’re free.

He read the sentence. It seemed mild, almost careless. He added:

No need to come here. We can talk somewhere else.

That made it worse. It sounded as though he were granting permission.

He deleted the second line and sent the first.

The message changed from blue to grey.

Delivered.

Hui placed the phone face down.

In the kitchen, the rice cooker was empty and dry. A plastic container sat open in the refrigerator, its lid balanced on the edge. Three slices of luncheon meat had gone pale at the corners. When he opened the door, cold oil rose in the air. He closed it.

The cupboard held two packets of instant noodles, a jar of coffee, and the small tin of tea Fei Foon disliked but drank when there was nothing else. Beside the kettle lay a torn strip of paper covered in numbers. Hui picked it up. The final four digits belonged to a locker at the office.

He turned the paper over. There was nothing on the back.

His phone buzzed.

For one sharp second he thought it was Fei Huan. The message came from a Tinping Group liaison.

Can you provide Mok Fei Foon’s last confirmed movement? Factual details only. Time, location, transport if known.

It was a work number, but the wording carried the careful chill of an instruction. Hui saw the office in his mind: fluorescent panels, glass partitions, the reception desk where nobody raised their voice, even when asking someone to leave. Tinping Group could make a question sound like a form already completed.

He replied:

Last seen at the flat on Tuesday evening. I don’t have a confirmed departure time.

He did not mention that Fei Foon had stood by the window with his phone in his hand. He left out the argument about the message from Tinping Group, and Fei Foon’s words: Stop reading over my shoulder.

He did not include Hui’s answer.

If you stop hiding things, I won’t need to.

The argument was not factual.

The liaison responded almost immediately.

Was anyone else present?

Hui stared at the question.

He typed Fei Huan, then erased the name. He typed No, but stopped before sending. Fei Huan had not been in the flat, yet the question was not really about bodies in a room. It asked who might have influenced what happened next.

No one confirmed, he wrote.

The cursor blinked below the reply. He waited for another question. None came.

Near the balcony door, a smear of ash-coloured dust marked the white tile. It might have been residue from a shoe or the remains of a dead insect. Hui rubbed it with his thumb. The dust gathered into a dark crescent beneath his nail.

He went to the window.

Rainwater had collected on the outer ledge. A torn receipt clung to the glass, its printed ink run into black threads. The balcony smelled of wet concrete, detergent and the drain below. Somewhere in the estate, a child cried with steady, exhausted force. A television laugh track rose through the wall, then stopped.

The balcony latch was locked.

He ran his fingers along the window track and looked inside the plastic storage box beneath the laundry rack. Old cables, a broken umbrella and two empty phone cases filled it. Fei Foon’s winter scarf lay folded into a square. Hui pressed the cloth between his fingers. It was dry.

Without admitting it, he had expected some new trace in the fabric: grit, rain, the smell of another place.

He went into the bedroom.

The bed had been made, though not neatly. Fei Foon pulled the blanket over the mattress whenever he wanted to avoid being accused of leaving it messy, always leaving one corner loose. A charging cable hung from the socket beside the bed. The phone that belonged to it was gone.

Hui opened the drawer. Socks. Receipts. A spare bank card in an envelope. No phone.

Three shirts were missing from the left side of the wardrobe. So were a pair of black trousers and the grey overshirt Fei Foon wore when he wanted to look unremarkable. Hui counted the remaining hangers twice before forcing himself to stop.

The clothes could mean anything. A meeting. A visit. A plan to stay elsewhere for several days.

His reflection appeared in the wardrobe’s narrow metal strip, his face broken into sections by the polished surface. People left with clothes all the time. They travelled. They cooled down. They needed a night away from someone.

On the desk sat an unwashed mug.

It was Fei Foon’s, white with a blue line around the rim. Tea had dried at the bottom. If Fei Foon meant to leave permanently, he would have washed it. If he intended to come back, he would wash it later.

Hui carried the mug to the sink.

He scrubbed until the ceramic squeaked. The sound travelled through the pipes. In the flat above, someone dragged a chair across the floor. The scrape paused, then began again.

He washed the plate beneath the mug, then the kettle, then the two bowls stacked beside the stove. There was no reason to clean any of them. His hands continued after the reason had gone.

The phone stayed silent.

At 8:17, he called Fei Huan.

The call rang four times before going to voicemail. Hui did not leave a message. He called again. This time it rang twice.

He pictured Fei Huan seeing his name and holding the phone away from his body, waiting for the ringing to stop. People did that when they were angry. They made silence deliberate, placing it between themselves and the person who had offended them. No apology could cross it without permission.

Hui put the phone down.

“Fine,” he said to the empty room.

His voice sounded too loud. He went to the sofa and sat with both feet flat on the floor.

Fei Huan was angry. That was all. Angry because Hui had asked too many questions. Angry because Fei Foon had disappeared and Hui had made the panic about himself. Angry because Hui had entered the flat without asking.

The last thought arrived cleanly and refused to leave.

He had used the key at 6:40 that morning, before going to the office. Fei Huan had given him the original months earlier, when the lock jammed and Fei Foon was away. Hui copied it after returning the key. He had called the copy practical. The building’s locks were old. Emergencies did not wait for consent.

The taped key lay on the table.

Hui picked it up and weighed it in his palm. It was almost weightless.

At 9:03, the liaison called.

Hui answered without greeting.

“Where are you?”

“At the flat.”

A pause. Behind the liaison, someone spoke through a glass door. The voice was flattened by distance and office walls.

“We need a fuller account.”

“You have the time and location.”

“We have a report from Tinping Group. We’re asking what you personally know.”

Hui looked towards the bedroom. The open wardrobe held the remaining shirts in a dark, orderly row.

“Fei Foon left some clothes.”

“Which clothes?”

“Three shirts. Trousers. An overshirt.”

“Did he take his identification?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re at the flat.”

Hui tightened his grip around the key. “I haven’t searched everything.”

“Search only for information relevant to his last confirmed movement. Do not access company systems, staff files or building records without authorisation.”

“I didn’t say I would.”

“You asked two people in Transport to check his card activity.”

“So?”

“So that is not your decision to make.”

The liaison’s voice did not sharpen. That made it harder to resist.

“Is this a missing-person case?” Hui asked.

“We have not classified it.”

“Because he hasn’t been gone long enough?”

“Because the information is incomplete.”

Hui walked back to the window. The glass reflected the room over the black rain outside.

“He is not careless.”

“I understand.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I understand that you’re close to him. I also understand that your interpretation is not a record.”

The sentence entered the room and stayed there.

The refrigerator motor clicked on. Cold air moved through the kitchen vent.

“Send me what you have,” Hui said.

“We’ve already sent the request.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“We’ll contact you if something is confirmed.”

The call ended.

Hui held the phone to his ear a moment longer. In the dark window, his reflected hand seemed to be gripping Fei Foon’s shoulder rather than a device.

He set the phone down and reopened the thread with Fei Huan.

The latest message had arrived the previous night, at 1:12 a.m. Hui had read it then, but the words had not settled. He enlarged the screen.

Don’t come over tonight. I need time.

That was all.

He had replied at once:

Time for what?

There had been no answer.

Hui read Fei Huan’s message again. It contained no accusation, no insult, no instruction to stay away forever. The absence of those things felt like proof that anger remained underneath, waiting for him to press in the right place.

He typed:

I’m not coming over. I’m at the flat. Fei Foon may have taken some clothes. Call me when you wake up.

He stopped before sending.

Fei Huan might be asleep. He might be avoiding Hui. He might be in danger. The possibilities arranged themselves in a line, each less reasonable than the one before it, and Hui could not tell where reason ended.

He sent the message.

At 10:26, he changed the sheets.

At 10:49, he checked the door lock.

At 11:08, he checked it again.

The action became a measurement. If the bolt sat fully inside the plate, nobody had entered. If the key stayed on the table, nobody had used it. If the room preserved its arrangement, then the disappearance had not yet become permanent.

He placed the key beneath the receipt with the locker numbers. Then he moved it to the drawer. A minute later he returned it to the table, where he could see it.

Near midnight, he ate half a packet of noodles standing beside the sink. The broth was too salty. He drank water from the tap and watched a small black fleck circle the drain before vanishing.

A message arrived from an unknown number.

Hui Leuk Tou?

He did not answer.

The number called. The phone vibrated against the tabletop, intimate and mechanical, a small demand repeated by a machine. When it stopped, the flat seemed to expand around him.

He looked through the peephole.

The hallway was empty. A mop bucket stood beneath the fire-hose cabinet, water spreading from its wheels in a thin, shining fan. At the far end, the lift opened and closed without anyone stepping out. Its bell sounded once.

Hui remained at the door.

A footstep passed on the other side, slow enough to make him hold his breath. It paused outside the neighbouring flat. A key turned. A woman coughed. A television came on.

He opened the door.

The corridor smelled of wet umbrellas and someone’s late dinner. The caretaker’s trolley stood beside the lift, its metal frame beaded with rain. At the end of the corridor, the stairwell door settled into its frame with a soft hydraulic sigh.

No one was there.

Hui went back inside and locked the door.

He slept on the sofa at 2:14. Or he lost consciousness. In the dark, there was no difference.

At 2:47, the lift bell sounded again.

FAQs

What is the plot of Ash in the Sink: Ash Fanfiction?

The story follows Hui Leuk Tou in the wake of his flatmate Mok Fei Foon's sudden disappearance. As Hui compulsively investigates altered corporate records at Tinping Group, he uncovers an unauthorized paper trail, straining his relationship with Fei Huan and confronting the destructive nature of his own need for control.

What are the central metaphors and themes in Ash in the Sink: Ash Fanfiction?

The story explores obsession, boundaries, and grief through metaphors like ash in the kitchen sink, illicit spare keys, and altered corporate records. It illustrates that demanding complete access to another person's life is an act of intrusion rather than care.

Which main characters appear in Ash in the Sink: Ash Fanfiction?

The primary characters include Hui Leuk Tou, an obsessive analyst searching for answers; Mok Fei Foon, his vanished flatmate who altered company records to protect a colleague; Fei Huan, a close friend setting firm boundaries; and Lau Wai-sze, a former clerk entangled in the compliance breach.

How does Ash in the Sink: Ash Fanfiction connect to the original Ash universe?

It serves as an atmospheric expansion of the Ash universe set against the urban backdrop of corporate Hong Kong, deepening character dynamics while exploring themes of psychological suspense, personal boundaries, and ethical accountability.

Aug 26, 2026

2,225

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