The Ghost of Meng Jiang Nü
Joyce Leung, Group 3: Fiction, Shatin College
he Great Wall looked the same. I shook my head in amusement as I glanced around once more. There
seemed to be no tangible difference between the wall my husband of one night, Qi Liang, had died
building and the one that stood now. It still jutted out from the mountains, proudly standing albeit its
dilapidated state, and my husband was still dead because of it.
I am Meng Jiang Nü. My story has been widely spread throughout China, so I will speak of it
no more. I have haunted the Great Wall for two thousand and two hundred years already, yet Guan Yin has
decreed that I am to haunt the wall until another takes my place. Until another girl loses her loved one to the
wall, and dies.
“
Jin Mei, smile!” I looked down to see a girl smiling happily at the camera as her sweetheart clicked
the camera. They looked so young, so innocent that I did not stop to think as I gently rained plum blossom
petals on them. It was the wrong thing to do. I knew that as soon as the girl – Jin Mei – lifted her head up in
surprise, then shock, as she beheld the cloud of pink floating down unto her and her sweetheart.
The moment between them was ruined, and Jin Mei hurried over to the boy, trying to get him to leave before the
petals touched either of them. “Tze Long, we have to leave! Move, you big oaf!” Jin Mei’s voice rose in her
panic, until she appeared to be yelling at him.
“
Why do we have to leave, Jin Mei?” Tze Long sounded confused as he started walking reluctantly to
the nearest beacon tower. “It was so beautiful there, and I wanted a picture of you standing in the plum blossom
petals!”
The two started arguing, and I felt a pang of sadness as I realized that, once again, I had destroyed a
perfectly good relationship. It was part of my curse, that I, who committed suicide for my love, could only
witness other loves, other relationships so like mine, breaking – fracturing – like mine did.
“
Meng Jiang Nü’s there, that’s why!” Jin Mei’s loud voice carried clearly over to my ears, and I
listened curiously for her next words. “Do you want our relationship to be doomed? Is that why you were so
reluctant to leave, Tze Long?”
“
Jin Mei!” Now Tze Long’s voice was loud as well as he tried to defend himself from a crime he did
not even know of. “How could you accuse me of that – have I not proclaimed my love to you for the entire
world to hear? It’s your doubt – always your doubt – that destroys everything beautiful!”
I felt a pang of anger as I heard Tze Long’s unfair accusations towards Jin Mei. She had only been
trying to do the best for their relationship; everyone who had heard of my story also knew that I brought bad
luck to lovers – the happier they were at the start, the angrier they were at the end. I could already feel Tze Long
and Jin Mei’s love start to unravel; past lies and doubts now surfaced on Tze Long’s face. Jin Mei saw it too,
and I could tell that it was tearing her apart.
“
Tze Long…look, we’ll go back out if you want!” Jin Mei grasped both his hands in her own as she
pleaded, but he shook them off. “I’ll never doubt you again, Tze Long! I know you love me!”
“
How can you know I love you, when I love you no longer?” Tze Long’s tone was cold as he spoke to
her; the lone tear rolling down Jin Mei’s cheeks seemed not to affect him the slightest, though even I could tell
that she did not often cry. “I’ve had it with all your doubts, your endless complaining. Why can’t you be more
like your sister? You don’t see her dragging me about on some silly superstition.”
“
I’m sorry! Tze Long, please, forgive me!” The girl was opening sobbing now, though Tze Long still
started walking away from her. Her cries seemed to bounce off an invisible shield around him, and her desperate
attempts to retain his hand were met with nothing but cool contempt.
Outside, the rain had started, but that did not seem to deter him from leaving the beacon tower.
“
Jin Mei, I rue the day I met you.” With those final words, he prepared to leave her life forever. I was
angered beyond reason, and without thinking beyond teaching him the lesson he so deserved, I tripped him as he
walked out of the tower.
What I did not expect, however, was that the pounding rain made the slick floor much, much more
slipperier than it should be. Tze Long tripped, then lurched forward as he attempted to regain his balance. He
came precariously close to the fortified wall, then away again. Jin Mei was screaming at him, running to him
despite the rain, but her weight was nothing compared to his.
Together, they seemed to inch closer and closer to the edge of the wall in the strange dance of the
unwilling. They wouldn’t have gone over the wall – they shouldn’t have gone over the wall – except for the gust
T