Time Off

"Ming Tin But Yut Yeung"

Cast includes:  Felix Wong, Monica Chan, Mark Kwok, Charmaine Sheh, Cheung Kwok Keung, Tse Tin Wah

The story introduces Chow Ka Chuen (Felix Wong) as a  construction site worker (he's in charge of removing and installing underground drainage pipes).  In the series he plays a stubborn man who always yells at his children (a daughter & son). Therefore, Felix's relationship with his children is not so good.  Felix's wife had left him and his two children.  Also, there is Chan Lik Hung  (Mark Kwok), who comes from a lower class family and is a successful architect. Yee, also called Ada (Charmaine Sheh), is Ah Lik's wife and is pregnant with their child.  Mark (Cheung Kwok Keung) is Yee's older brother.   

Felix and his daughter, Man, always gets into an argument.  One day, he was going home to celebrate his daughter's birthday and even bought her an expensive present and cake, but there was an accident at the construction site.  Felix had told his crew not to take a job.  Lik and construction site manager had a problem with the drainage system so they needed someone to fix it.  The construction site manager offered a higher wage to the team to fix the problem.  Earlier, Felix told his team that the water was rising up and it would be dangerous to go in it and fix the sewer system.  One of his crew members didn't listen to him and it caused him his life.  The worker, Sai Jai Ming, died underwater as a result of being caught in some rope.  Felix was angry at the construction site manager for forcing his crew worker to do the job.  He took an oxygen tank and hit the manager on the head with it.   

Lik was worried that he would get in trouble with his job because of the accident and the death of the crew member.  Eventually, he was forced to resign his position at the company.  Lik was in a bad mood so he went out to a bar and got himself drunk.  He drove through the streets and hit a man with his car.  The man died as a result of Lik's carelessness. 

Felix is released from the police station but he has to report there every morning.   Felix and his crew go to the company to demand compensation for the death of Sai Jai Ming, but the security guard stopped them before they had a chance to see the owners.  Felix is charged with the hitting incident at the site.  The construction manager is in a coma for seventeen days.  Felix goes to the hospital to take a look at the person he injured.  At the court hearing, Felix admits he is guilty and doesn't want the hearing to continue.  He is sentenced to nine months of jail. 

Mark (Cheung Kwok Keung) recommends a lawyer for Lik.  Lik decides to sell his stock in order to cover the costs of a good lawyer.  Yee asks her mother (Yung Yee from KS) to borrow money for Lik's lawyers, but she doesn't have the money.  Instead, Yee's father lends the extra money to Lik.  Lik has no choice but to admit to his wrongdoing after consulting his brother-in-law and lawyer. Lik is sentenced to six months of jail time at the hearing.  His wife faints in court and is sent to the hospital.  His wife has surgery to remove a tumor and in the process loses the baby.

Lik goes to jail and is not used to it the first few days.  He does not talk to the other inmates and is always teased by them  Lik kept worrying about his wife's condition and wanting to call her but the prison guards wouldn't let him make the call.  His wife was also worried about him but Ada's mother kept her from visiting Lik in jail.  Ada's mother made up all sorts of excuses to stop her daughter from going.   Later, Ada has a chance to visit Lik in jail after she leaves the hospital. 

Felix and Lik were put in different cells until Felix and another inmate got into an argument which caused him to switch to Ah Lik's cell.  After awhile, Felix and Lik's relationship gets better after they help each other out.  Later, Jackie Tam (Monica Chan) is introduced to the inmates as a social service worker.  She has just returned from the U.S. and goes to work for one
of her mom's friends.  Monica goes to the prison to visit the inmates frequently.  She is very friendly to the inmates and tries to help them in anyway she can, sometimes going way overboard.  Each time she speaks to Lik, he's mentions his wife whereas Felix doesn't have anything to say to Monica .

Later, Lik is released early from jail for good behavior.  He has a difficult time finding a job after leaving prison but later finds an architect job in China.   However, his boss later finds out that Lik served time so he fires him.  When he returns to HK, he catches his wife with Cheng Chi Sing and thus believes they are having some kind of romantic relationship.  They are actually good friends (they used to date each other in high school).  Charmaine was hired by Cheng Chi Sing to redo his mansion while Lik was in prison.  He also lent three million dollars to Charmaine to help pay off her mortgage on her apartment but Lik refused to accept the money and even gave it back to Cheng Chi Sing.  Eventually, they were forced to sell their apartment.  Later, they decide to get a divorce because their relationship takes a turn for the worst.

Felix is unable to find a job after he is released from jail.  At home, Felix's temper gets worse and he takes it out on his two children.  Eventually his children are afraid to be around him so he decides to move out.  Monica helps him find a job and a place to stay.

Lik and his wife end up signing the divorce papers after some conflicts caused by Ada's mother and brother.  Ada's mother and Mark didn't like Lik in the first place so they set up a plot to force him to sign the papers.  Later, Charmaine had no choice but to sign the papers, too.  Afterwards, Lik had to sell his apartment and move into the same place as Felix - a place intended for recently released jail mates.  Lik was so unhappy with his life that he spent most of his time drinking.  He even tried to commited suicide but was rescued by Felix and Monica, who encouraged him to start a new life.

The place where Monica works has an ongoing program that supplies funds for a "jailmate company".  The company helps recently released jailmates find a job such as providing cleaning services for businesses at a lower cost.  However, due to numerous incidences, the company now has no more business and was on the verge of closing down.  Monica persuaded her boss to keep the company running and let her be in charge of it.  Later, Monica persuades Thomas (Charmaine's younger brother - Tse Tin Wah and is pursing Monica) to find a company willing to give jobs to ex-convicts.   Thomas happens to work for Cheng Chi Sing's company so Monica ends up signing a contract with them.  By coincidence, Charmaine works for Cheng Chi Sing too.   Lik happens to bump into his ex-wife on his first day of work.  Charmaine was surprised that Lik was working at this type of job - cleaning the company. 

Later, Felix starts to have feelings for Monica as they spend time together.  On the other hand, he notices how Lik and Monica are better suited for each other since both of them are college graduates.  Lik and Monica eventually go out on dates. As for Charmaine, she begins to date Cheng Chi Sing after he relentlessly pursed her. 

However, her feelings for him aren't 100%. She feels awkward around him and mainly dated him because she felt bad that he was being so nice to her.

Charmaine's older brother doesn't want Lik cleaning the company. Charmaine's mom and older brother want Cheng Chi Sing and Charmaine to get together because he's rich. Also, they were illegally stealing money from Cheng's company. They want Lik out of the way. Therefore, "Thomas" turned on the vacuum humidifier that Lik was using when he was out of the room. The steam from the vacuum cleaner caused the sprinklers to go off and all of the computers and floor plans that Charmaine was working on were destroyed. This got the "jailmate company" in serious trouble.

The inmate that was Felix's enemy from jail was released. After Felix saved him, they became friends and he moved in with the rest of them. Before this guy went to jail, he worked with distributing newspapers. He decided to go into this business again and with the help of Lik's ex-father-in-law, they were able to acquire a zone to distribute newspapers in. At first, the business was unsuccessful. However, Lik was able to come up with another plan and soon they earned profits and were doing quite successfully. However, the mafia in that area wanted half of their profits but the group refused to give it to them.

Felix's ex-wife returns and they went out for dinner. Lik and Charmaine went to his mom's house for dinner to help celebrate her birthday. Monica had gone with Lik but she left because Lik's mom thought she was just the social worker and urged Monica to help get Charmaine and Lik together again. After dinner, Charmaine offered to drive Lik back to the office because he couldn't get a taxi. At Lik's office, the mafia (the ones that wanted half the profits) had started a fire. Lik was trying to put out the fire and Charmaine urged him to leave. The bookcase fell on her just as the episode ended…

Lik and Charmaine end up in the hospital, but neither of them was seriously hurt. As always, Charmaine's mom yelled at Lik for causing her daughter to get injured and ordered him out of her room. However, Charmaine's father ( who has always been on Lik's side from the beginning ) allowed him to stay. During the 2-3 days that Lik was at the hospital, he took care of Charmaine. His relationship with Charmaine turned to the better ( they held conversations about their past, recalling the time when they first met and dated). Monica began to have doubts about her and Lik's relationship. She could tell that Lik still has feelings for Charmaine.

After finding out about Charmaine's hospitalization, Cheng Chi Sing returns early from his business trip to L.A to visit her. He proposed to Charmaine, but she did not accept his proposal saying that she still needed time to think. Lik then drops by Charmaine's room to tell her he was leaving the hospital. Meanwhile, Monica was in her car waiting for Lik to come down. However, she got pissed and left him. Lik did not even realize that Monica wasn't downstairs waiting any longer.

Cheng Chi Sing had a conversation with Lik. He offered Lik a position as project manager (same sort of position he held earlier before going to jail) at his company. Cheng Chi Sing wanted to give Lik an equal opportunity to go after Charmaine as well as to take that extra challenge. (Besides, Cheng Chi Sing sensed that there was something wrong with the construction project that his company has been working on, but he didn't know specifically what was wrong since he doesn't have that much experience with the technical aspect as he does with the business aspect). Lik accepted the position after thinking it through. At first, Monica wasn't too happy about it, but later she came to realize that Lik only loved his wife. Therefore, they broke up and became good friends.

Felix's ex-wife wanted the kids back. At first, Felix was reluctant to let his ex-wife have custody of the kids. However, after an incident (in which his son almost got ran over by a car in order to run from Felix), Felix decided that it would be better for his children to be with their mother. During this period of time, Monica was by Felix's side consoling him. Not long after, the two started going out.

Charmaine's two brothers were embezzling funds from Cheng Chi Sing's Company. Cheng Chi Sing was starting to get suspicious about the development of the project which he left Charmaine's two brothers in charge of. Therefore, Lik was also put on the project. Charmaine's two brothers wanted Cheng Chi Sing to continue with the construction of the building, but Lik objected to the decision saying that there was something wrong with the foundation of the building (if this part of the construction isn't done correctly the entire building could collapse killing many people). The only way to correctly prove Lik's theory was to actually take a sample of the soil underneath the construction site but this was actually considered a very dangerous task. Felix offered to help Lik and the rest of their inmate friends are there to support them.

Charmaine's two brothers thought of every possible way to prevent Felix from obtaining the sample underground. First, Charmaine's younger brother,"Thomas" (played by Tse Tin Wah) accused one of Felix's inmate friends of stealing his watch. Thereafter, they were all taken to the police station and were questioned. However, Felix's inmate friend admitted to taking the watch (thinking that it was no one's since it was left in the public bathroom ) and the rest were released. Not long after they return to the construction site, Felix was able to obtain the sample from underground. He also told Lik that the chemicals of the foundation wasn't correct. When Felix's old co-workers tried to pull him out from underground, the broads that were holding up the only opening collapsed. Lik tried to help but fell underground with Felix, who had been making his way up. The opening was covered with mud and the two had a 30 minute oxygen tank before they ran out of oxygen and died. Felix and Lik's inmate friends, Charmaine, along with other firefighters tried to dig the two out from underneath. Then, it started to pour. The firefighters, afraid of a mud slide, stopped the rescue, but the rest of the people continued to dig. With them digging on top and Lik and Felix climbing up, they were able to escape safely.

Because of this incident, Cheng Chi Sing realized that Charmaine still loved Lik. Therefore, he wished them all the best and told them he was returning to L.A. to continue with his business there. He left Lik in charge of his business in Hong Kong. Charmaine's brothers were sentenced to 2 years in prison. As for Felix, his kids realize that they don't want to leave him. At the end, Felix and his ex-wife were on good terms. His ex-wife felt that with Felix dating Monica, her children were in good hands.

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