New Tales of the Great Wall
Sik Yi Poon, Group 3: Fiction, Heep Yunn School
kept on climbing without stopping. Every step here was uneven and rocky. It was expected though, since
all of these were made without any machines and tools, only by human hands and fleshes.
So here I was, standing in an outpost of the famous Great Wall. I panted, watching everything in an awe
through the large holes of the outpost.
As I began to get drowned into such beautiful and breath-taking scenery, everything went black
suddenly. My heart was beating incredibly fast; my stomach turned crazily. A pain shot through my head. I was
afraid and helpless. I shouted for help, but no one seemed to answer.
*****
I woke up, finding myself on a bed made of straws and wood. Subconsciously, I sat up straight and found
that there was an Asian old woman standing in front of the wooden door. The woman was frowning with tears
rolling down her wrinkled cheeks.
"
Um... Sorry... Where am I?" I asked the old lady.
The old woman frowned again, eyeing me suspiciously. She stared at me as if I had spoken some alien
language.
"
Are you okay, young lady?" she asked, in Mandarin.
Oh now I understood. "I am okay, thank you for asking," I said softly, in Mandarin, and asked, "Can you tell
me where am I?"
"
You are now in my cottage, darling," she answered me calmly, and continued, "Darling, you are a foreigner,
right? And what are you wearing? With that piece of cloth?"
What did she mean by 'that piece of cloth'? It's a T-shirt and everyone knew that in the 21st century... The
thought of it hit me. What if I wasn't in the 21st century?
"
Uh, can you please tell me what year it is now?" I questioned the woman anxiously.
"
What do you mean, darling? We are all in the Qin Dynasty," She replied like it was the most obvious thing
ever.
The woman was weird. There was something in her eyes which told me that she knew something. Every time
I spoke, she would look at me so intently like she could see through me.
"
His majesty is asking for someone to volunteer to help him with constructing the Great Wall," she
murmured suddenly. Her eyes blurred with tears, full of anxiety. She sounded very vulnerable.
So what did she mean by 'volunteer'? I clearly remembered that my History teacher told us that the emperor
ordered all the men to build the Great Wall.
The old woman seemed to hear my question. She said, furiously,
"
Of course not, Celeste! His majesty is a
kind-hearted emperor! People volunteered to help the construction, trying to prevent invaders from the north!
He deserves to be respected, not accused!" Her breath hitched and her eyes were burnt with rage.
I felt totally shocked: how did she know my name?
Suddenly, she became aware that she had said too much. She quickly recovered herself and tried to act like
nothing had happened. And which, I did not give in.
"
Ooookaaay, miss, you don't need to tell me how you know my name. But the thing you said about the
kind-hearted emperor, Qin Shi Huang, this... confused me because I learnt that he was bad!"
In the split second, lightning flashed over the sky, with a rumble of thunder followed. I stared at the sky,
flashes of lightning zigzags illuminated it, with deafening thunder that hurt my ears.
People from other cottages quickly ran out of their small houses and spread some covers over their crops
preventing them from the damage of the approaching storm.
I turned my head to stare at the old woman. She looked at the sky peacefully, like she had expected it to come.
When she noticed me watching her, she pointed at the sky with her crooked finger, and hissed, "Watch,
Celeste."
A moment later, a shadow of a gigantic creature appeared behind the clouds. The thunder roamed louder as
ever. As it emerged, the black clouds moved aside, granting its entrance. The shape of the giant animal became
clearer and clearer. And finally, it fully exposed itself in front of me. The fearsome creature had gold glittering
and shimmering scales on its body. The claws and the teeth were extremely sharp and terrifying. I could not
figure out the name of this animal, it looked like a giant snake though.
I turned and looked at the woman again. She was still very calm. And when I asked her what the creature was,
I