front of him was barely a human, but still a worker, still Ming. And Mei—He left her lying far on the cold floor.
He closed his eyes and sighed.
Something was tugging on his trousers.
His eyes snapped open, seeing Ming looking up with difficulty.
‘
Well, you’re not dead yet.’
He was about to leave Ming to the workers. They stood afar, but they often glared at him. He knew they
would try to heal Ming. He thought he did enough already—at least he thought so.
‘
You…you will receive your retribution one day… You will regret this one day. One day…’ Ming smiled
eerily. ‘One day.’
At that instant, ire and hatred rushed through Tou’s veins, filling his head. He screamed, and without
thinking, slammed the whip heavily into Ming’s skull.
Ming stifled, and puffed his cheeks. He wriggled for a second, and moved no more. He died with his eyes
bulged, and an eerie smile.
For a second, Tou felt like the king of the world. He had won. His eyes gleamed nefariously
in the wind, viciously filled with glee. But suddenly, there was a trace of fear deep inside his heart. He didn’t
know why. Beside him, Mei screamed with sorrow, and all of the workers lowered their heads even more,
weeping silently. Slowly it became clear that, because of his own jealousy, he had separated a couple, and killed
one of them.
He had killed Ming.
Deep inside his mind, he started to scream.
-2006
AD-
Dante woke up, shrieking, clutching onto his pillow.
He had an appalling dream of killing someone called Ming on the Great wall. Shivering, beads of cold
sweat seeped and oozed into his skin: how could he dream something like this, a nightmare—he didn’t want to
think of it. Jittering, he turned off his alarm clock and wobbled up from his bed: he still had to work, somehow.
Maintaining
security and providing help for visitors on the Great wall—it’s a serious matter.
After a quick breakfast, Dante pranced proudly onto the Great wall again. This was a glorious morning,
with lots of visitors. He smiled, but frowned when a boy took a piece of chalk and was about to draw on the
wall.
‘
What are ya doing, buddy—‘He hoisted the small child up, and tapped on the boy’s ebony hair. ‘We
should never ruin this cultural preservation, buddy.’ The child puffed his cheeks, and scurried away to his father.
The father saw what his child was about to do, and taunted his son, then grinned, revealing his face…
The face of Ming.
Dante’s heart sank and his jaw dropped, paralyzed by that face. The face, that face… It was the same face
from his dream, the face of the person he had ‘murdered’. He simply could not believe it: this was just…
preposterous. How could it happen? It couldn’t…It SHOULDN’T…
‘
Um, sir? ’
He heard someone call him behind. He stumbled, walking backwards absently—
Something was not right. He felt like stepping into nothing.
He looked down. He realized that he was falling—he was trundling down from the stairs. He was
bumping into everything with affliction: he thought he was falling apart; suddenly, the image of the person in
his dreams floated into his mind—Ming in his dreams, covered with blood, smiling, dead. The sentence flashed
into his thoughts. You will receive your retribution one day… You will regret this one day…
For the second time of the day, he started to scream.
‘
I’m so worried about you!’
She flung her arms around him, scared as a small kitten in a storm. ‘What happened? I thought…I thought
it was you who fell down…’ She trembled.
‘
I don’t know. That security guard glared at us, then…’ He explained with difficulty, ‘Then someone
called for help, but he wasn’t aware of the stairs behind him, and he…’ He swallowed, ‘He rolled down the
stairs.’
‘
But why?’ She embraced her husband and son.
‘
I don’t know, but I told everything I knew to the police anyway.’ He sighed. ‘That man, how unlucky he
was. The police told me he died. It’s just—sad. They said his name was Dante Tou—‘
‘
Then?’ She asked like an innocent child, beaming in his eyes.
‘
Then…’ He kissed her on the forehead. ‘That tourist who called the security guard—poor guy—he just
wanted to ask the guard to help him take a photo, but his simple request lead to the guard’s death.’ He sighed