Yang abruptly stood up from the ground. He flung a solid punch into the guard’s face. The guard
landed on the ground, bleeding. Yang hit the guard on the side of his head. One hit after another. Blood soaked
the dry, stony ground.
“
Hey, stand up and FIGHT!”
The guard did not move.
Yang looked up from the body.
The crowd edged backward in fear and surprise, everyone was silent.
Yang looked back onto the way he went up to the Wall.
The next thing he knew, he was running down the million steps of stairs, down to the road of the
palace, in his once clean, but now dyed red clothes and hands.
Qin Yin shouted in anger.
“
No, I do not understand! Father! Why must you do this to me?”
“
You have committed a sin, my daughter. You have disgraced our family! Do you have no shame?”
“
Shame? All I did was fell in love with a farmer’s son, is that what you call shame, my father?” Yin
clenched the steel bars with her shacked hands, “What about the time you buried men alive in the ground? The
time when you killed MY mother, and threw her in here, just like me? Do you call that shame, you diabolical
beast?” Her eyes were full of tears.
“
Guard, punish her.”
The man in a uniform raised the whip in his hand.
“
No, father! Have you no mercy?”
“
Mercy, prisoner Yin,” The emperor looked down from the stairs to the exit, unperturbed, “Does not
belong to vermin like you.”
A wail of pain came from the prison cell when the emperor shut the door.
Yang climbed over the walls of the palace.
There were no guards to be seen.
He did not know where Yin is.
But he ran.
Qin Yin did not know how many hours passed since she had sat on the piles of hay. The wheel of
time was lost to her. It was only a countdown to her death. Night or day did not matter. It did not matter at all.
The door creaked open.
A man in a general’s uniform stood on top of the stairs.
“
The emperor orders you to be hanged in the yard.”
Yang heard a shrill scream. A moment later, all was silent.
He sprinted with his full strength to the direction of the scream.
In a yard, a throng of guards gather.
In the middle, laid the still body of Qin Yin.
Yang bolted to the Yin.
He knelt down to touch her, but a sudden throbbing pain emerged from his chest.
“
I knew you would come.” The emperor snickered. “I knew you were going to try and save her.” He
pulled out the sword out of Yang’s chest and held up the bloodstained blade in his hand. “But you failed, didn’t
you? You failed to rescue her. She is dying, and so are you.”
Yang did not look back. He carried Yin on his shoulders and walked out of the yard, hands clutching
the hole on his chest.
“
YOU LOST!”
Yang ran.
He did not have any time left.
The guards edged forward, ready for a chase.
“
No haste, my fellow men.” The emperor held his hand out to stop them, “he’ll die anyway.”
Every step he thought was his last. Up the stairs, up the walls, they crawled. Until they reached the
tower where they first met, Yang could move no more.
Yang fell. The princess fell with him. They laid on top of each other, not speaking. Yang hugged Yin
tight as he felt himself weak.
Blood was seeping out of his wound. When the guards caught up and came, they found two bodies on
the ground. Not moving, pale, but red.
Both in each other’s arms.
Crowds of people climbed the Great Wall with laughter. Cameras were held to take pictures from the
great height they were on.