Lady Meng Jiang
Julia Tsang, Grou
top running! Stop! Thief!”
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p 1: Fiction, St. Margaret's Co-educational English Secondary & Primary School
The Qin soldiers were chasing a man running along the Great Wall. When they were far
y, I snuck into the wall through a hole. A gold bottle on the ground caught my eye. I believed
the soldiers were chasing after it.
I decided to check out what was inside the bottle. It looked like something you could drink -
maybe some kind of juice. Ew! It tasted like … stir-fried scorpions! I tried to spit it out, but it was too late.
Suddenly, I felt a prickle, like a cactus spike cutting into my skin. Because it was getting dark, I quickly went
home. I was just in time to see a flock of jackdaws flying off into the sky.
“
S
“
Wow, I wish I could be a jackdaw,” I said, “Gliding must feel good!”
There came the prickle again! When that sharp pain wore off, I looked to see if there were any cuts … no!
Wait! My hands had transformed into wings! Grabbing a copper mirror, I froze, shocked. I had become a
jackdaw. Maybe the juice had given me the superpower to transform into anything I wanted!
On my way home, I saw a woman carrying a heavy black sack towards the Great Wall. I thought she was
lost, so I turned back into a human to help her.
“
Why are you in such a hurry?” I asked.
“
My name is Meng Jiang. My husband Fan was captured by the Qin soldiers and forced to build the Great
Wall. I’m very worried. As it’s getting cold, I came from far away to bring him winter clothes.”
I decided to accompany her on her hard journey. Maybe I could offer some help with my superpower.
We finally found Fan among thousands of poor workers on the Wall. Unfortunately, he was terribly sick
because of the endless work. I came up with a plan to help him escape from the cruel soldiers. I told him to hide
and transformed myself into his dead body lying on the ground.
When Meng Jiang found him she broke out into sobs. When I became myself again, I had to wait until
Meng Jiang could speak again. She must have thought I was a zombie! I told her that her husband was still alive
but they had had to escape really quickly. Then I created chaos for them to flee and to teach the soldiers a lesson.
I changed into the legendary dragon Chein Tang, who was 1000 feet long. With a whack of my tail, the Great
Wall split into two.
The magic juice made me immortal. After several thousand years, I read a book called How Lady Meng
Jiang Broke the Great Wall. After I finished it, I laughed. She didn’t break the Wall, I did! Anyway, whatever
the book said, I believed what really happened was that she and Fan found a nice place to start a new life, and
lived happily ever after.
***