Tales of the Great Wall
Rachel Lin, Group 3: Fiction, Maryknoll Convent School Secondary Section
t seemed almost unreal that here she was, standing at the top of the Wall, with the wind whipping through
her hair and the dryness creeping up her face, just a little over a thousand years after her husband had been
taken away and tortured to make this monument.
Monument, she scoffed. More like a slaughterhouse for the poor and the underprivileged of the
old. She recoiled slightly at the thought of the bones, blood and sweat that she was stepping on, imbedded
in the ancient stones.
Standing there, she closed her eyes. The memories came flooding back in an instant, flashing in her
memories.
Tears streaming down her face, screaming herself hoarse for him to come back as they took him
away—
“
You’ll pay!” she had shrieked hysterically, her children cowering in fear, clutching at the patched and
frayed robe she wore. “You’ll pay for your horrible, horrible deeds! Karma will come to those who do wrong.
You can’t escape your fate forever!” She cried in a deranged yell, her eyes wild with anger and pain.
“
Lian, hush, I’ll be home soon—” he tried to comfort her, straining against the smirking guards,
looking so smug, with those hateful grins on their faces.
“
We both know you’re not coming back, Jin,” she whispered, her voice breaking. He gave her a small,
forced smile. “Everything will be alright Lian. Trust me. I’ll make this right. You have to trust me,” he said,
before being pulled away roughly by the guards.
That had been the last time she saw him. Her children got sick from a plague that killed most of the
nation with it soon after, leaving her alone and penniless. Wandering into a forest searching for herbs to cook,
she came across a medicine woman in the heart of the woods, who was willing to provide shelter and meals if
she were to work for her. Lian had, of course, agreed without a second thought. She had nothing left to lose.
It had been the medicine woman who taught her the secret to immortal life, the life she had been
granted for her years of service. An ancient recipe handed down generations and generations, the medicine
woman entrusted her with the secret as she felt her nearing her own demise. The palace guards took her two
nights later.
It was more of a curse than the blessing the medicine woman had made it out to be. Throughout her
long life, she had seen countless live and die—she could never remember when. Time seemed so pointless now
that she had all the time in the world. This thought brought her back to why she was on top of the Wall in the
first place.
It was the death of a friend. A real friend, her first since the night she took the potion more than a
millennium ago. She, who had not known loss for so long now, felt the renewed pain and horror of losing a
treasured one. Standing on the stones and rocks of the Wall, she opened her eyes to stare out into the clear,
almost crystalline blue of the sky. It was rarely ever this blue.
She hoisted herself onto the nearest rock outcropping, careful not to lose her balance. It was one thing
to go, but it was quite another to go with style, and this type of leaving was one she intended to achieve.
She stretched out her arms and threw back her head, breathing in the stinging cold air.
Jin. I am with you now.
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