New Tale of the Great Wall
Angus Leung Tze Lap, Group 2: Fiction, Renaissance College
ong time ago, there were two magnificent and powerful dragons on a huge land called Asia. One was
gold dragon. It had a pair of magical horns and could create monsoons and lightening. The horns were
covered with sparkling golden ash. The body was covered with gold scales like an amour. The other
one was a silver dragon. His ice horns could freeze everything. His tail was so powerful that it could
break everything. The tail was shimmering and decorated with the coldest ice flakes. Silver Dragon protected
the nomads in the North; however Gold Dragon was worshiped by the farmers in the South.
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The nomads were horse-riders. They were strong and warlike. They made a living by raising sheep and
cattle. But freezing winter, heavy snow and horrible sand storms in the North always made nomads’ lives very
difficult. However, the climate in the South was very nice and very suitable for farming. The Southern people
were much richer than the Northern people. So the nomads started to ride to the South in groups to rob the
farmers and took their food. At beginning, it was robbery, but later it became battles.
The nomads crossed the mountains and rivers to the South, with their sharp swords and poisonous arrows.
They killed men, women even children. They burnt houses and took all the food. The farmers violently fought
back. The Gold Dragon was so angry for the crimes that nomads did. He stood up to fight with nomads. The
nomads asked the Silver Dragon for help. So both dragons joined the fighting. They nearly broke all the
mountains and overturned all the rivers and seas. The dead bodies of people and animals were everywhere and
the blood turned all the rivers red.
The Jade Emperor in the heaven was woken by the earth-shaking noise. He looked down and saw the
horrible scenes. He was very shocked and angry. “I will destroy all of them since they do not like peace”, Jade
Emperor thought. He decided to punish both the people and dragons. He waved his left hand, then the rivers and
seas started to flood. He stepped his right foot, then the volcanoes started to erupt here and there and earthquake
also shake the ground. All the nomads and farmers had no place to escape. They were frightened, screaming and
begging Jade Emperor for mercy.
The dragons saw their people were suffering and felt sorry for them. Now they cooperated with each other
and tried all their best to save as many people as they could. But they were too exhausted after battles. Finally
they fell down from the sky and lied on the ground. They were dying.
Jade Emperor came to them. He said, “Now you know, war can destroy everything. No matter what, war is
not solution to conflicts.” “Yes, Jade Emperor, now we know that war cannot help anything. We hope our people
will not make same mistake again”, the dragons said. Jade Emperor whispered a magic spell, so the broken
bodies of dragons turned into fortifications, lying on the border between nomads’ country and farmers’ country,
from east to west. “Now you can protect your own people forever”, said Jade Emperor.
After that, the nomads and the farmers made peace. Their dragons guarded them from then on and we call
them “Great Wall”.
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