Ninety-seven percent. That is not a majority, that is basically everyone. Out of the owners left in the burned-out blocks of Wang Fuk Court, all but 45 have taken the government's buyout and signed the papers. The authorities have now put a deadline on the table for the rest: take the deal now, or the government moves ahead without you.

Look, I get holding out. Your home burned down in April, you lost people, you lost photos, you lost the flat you paid off over twenty years, and now some official is handing you a number and a form. Of course some people want to sit with that a bit longer. But 97 percent of your neighbours have already said yes, and the project cannot rebuild a site with forty-five empty question marks sitting in the middle of it. The government has picked a date. After that date, holding out stops being a negotiating position and starts being the only thing left standing in the way.