The first story of *Chungking Express* centers on two lonely individuals who cross paths in Hong Kong's bustling, anonymous urban environment: **Cop 223** (He Qiwu, played by Takeshi Kaneshiro) and a mysterious **Woman in a Blonde Wig** (played by Brigitte Lin).
Here are the specific details of what happens in the first story:
### Cop 223's Heartbreak and Obsession
* **The Deadline:** Cop 223 is heartbroken over a breakup with his girlfriend, named May. He decides to give her a deadline of **May 1st**—which is also his birthday—to return to him.
* **The Pineapple Cans:** To symbolize this deadline and his expiring love, he starts obsessively buying cans of pineapple that expire on May 1st. He reasons that if the love has an expiration date, he can move on once he eats the last can. When May 1st arrives, he consumes all 30 cans of pineapple, symbolically ending his period of pining.
* **The Pager:** He frequently calls May's family and leaves vague, circular messages on his own pager, which he treats as a means to stay connected to her, but ultimately he receives no reply from May herself.
### The Woman in the Blonde Wig and Her Drug Scheme
* **The Disguise and the Business:** The nameless woman, wearing a distinctive blonde wig, dark sunglasses, and a trench coat, is an international drug smuggler. She is trying to manage a large drug operation involving a group of South Asian men who are meant to be her drug mules.
* **The Betrayal and Pursuit:** Her scheme goes disastrously wrong when her business partner betrays her, and the men she hired (who had swallowed packets of narcotics for transport) disappear into the labyrinthine **Chungking Mansions**.
* **The Vengeance:** The woman spends the first part of the story desperately tracking down her missing couriers and confronting those responsible. In one scene, she briefly kidnaps a young girl in an effort to get information about the missing men, but she is unable to carry out any threat and instead buys the child a sundae before letting her go.
### The Fateful Encounter
* **The Meeting:** On the night of April 30th—the night before his May 1st deadline—Cop 223 is in the **Bottoms Up Club**. He decides that he will try to fall in love with the first woman who walks in. The woman in the blonde wig, exhausted and distraught from her failed operation, enters the bar.
* **The Shared Night:** Cop 223 tries to talk to her, offering her a drink, which she refuses, instead opting for a large quantity of Scotch whiskey. They end up going back to a budget hotel room together, but their connection is non-sexual. The woman immediately falls asleep, fully clothed, while Cop 223 spends the night watching old movies on TV and ordering two chef salads. He never actually touches her.
* **The Quiet Farewell:** Before leaving the hotel room on the morning of May 1st, Cop 223 takes off the woman's shoes and shines them, giving a small, tender moment of care to the sleeping stranger.
### Conclusion and Resolution
* **The Separate Paths:** After Cop 223 leaves, the woman wakes up and, having resolved her business, later tracks down and shoots the drug baron who set her up.
* **Happy Birthday:** As Cop 223 goes jogging to symbolically "dry out" his tears and get over May, his pager beeps. He receives a simple, cryptic message from the woman in the blonde wig that simply says, "**Happy Birthday**."
* **Moving On:** This small gesture from a stranger he barely knew provides the closure he needed. The story concludes as he realizes that his obsession has passed and he is ready to move on with his life, just as he bumps into the character who will lead the second story, Faye, at the Midnight Express food stall.