The Voice of the Great Wall
Yu Hin Leung, Group 3: Fiction, Renaissance College
mmm… errrr…” an eerie sound filled the night, spreading its gentle beauty throughout
Mutianyu Village. It seemed as if the sound came from nowhere, a diaphanous speaker singing
its uncanny melody, swaying in tune with the flowers that danced in the wind.
The villagers in Huanghuacheng village had learnt to both fear and respect this echo that resonated throughout
the mountains, as they knew that every note represented each and every drop of sweat and tear of the millions
who had sacrificed for the construction of the Great Wall. This sound was the voice - the voice of the Great
Wall.
“
E
In Eastern China during the Ming Dynasty, a small village of two families, the Qing family and the
Huang family, lived as agrarians, cultivating the fertile land for food. All the families wanted to achieve in their
lifetime was to lead a happy life and see their sheep grow old. The days passed, each one no different from the
day before…
One day, this all changed.
It was 6:00pm, and Yuwen and Yuanzhi, lay their feet on the grassland, basking in the warm sunshine.
Brushing their jet black hair like a comb, the soft wind murmured inarticulate words in their ears. The flowers
swayed in the zephyr, waltzing to the sound of the breeze. Before long, the blazing sun had crossed the sky and
was about to dip its head under the hills to give way to the stars.
“
Clop, clop, clop,” the steady sound of many horses drew near, kicking up the dirt on the plains so that
the valley looked like it had been hit by a sandstorm. Puzzled, the two friends stood on tiptoe, gazing curiously
at the spectacle beneath them. They counted no less than 50 soldiers mounted on horses, each carrying a long
sword which gleamed in the sunlight. They watched as the soldiers tied their horses on a wooden pole next to
the village huts located on the wide plain below. Ah Mee and Ah Yan, the boys’ mothers, came out to greet the
soldiers and to inquire about the purpose of their unannounced visit. After a few minutes of intense conversation,
the boys’ mothers’ hands flew up. They shook their heads in protest, retorting with inaudible words. The
soldiers surrounded Ah Mee and Ah Yan and grasped their hands, not letting them move. Something was clearly
wrong.
Yuwen and Yuanzhi rushed down the steep incline to their mothers. When their mothers saw them,
they let out a scream of despair and beckoned for them to run away. The soldiers looked up to see who was
coming. When the general, the only soldier still on a horse, saw the boys, he nodded his head, instructing the
soldiers to catch them.
The boys stood rooted to the spot for a few minutes before taking to their heels, sprinting away, hell for
leather. The soldiers, older and fitter, were gaining on them. Yuanzhi, the faster of the two, tore into the nearby
forest to hide. When Yuwen was about to barge into the forest to catch up with Yuanzhi, he felt a hand grasp