name down in history.” he leered.
The man screamed again and kicked at the guards who had pinned him down. As he was pulled out of the
door, he yelled, “One day I will have my revenge on you, Qin! I will have revenge on you for inflicting a wound
on my family and I! I will have my sons and daughters end your reign! I will…”
Emperor Qin waved his hand dismissively, and two soldiers closed the door behind the screaming man.
The emperor smiled his cruel smile.
…
The wife of the tortured man was named Meng Jiangnu. She ran to the westernmost part of the Great Wall
to look for her tortured husband, only to hear that he had already died. When she got wind of the tragic news,
she cried down part of the Great Wall with infinite tears of sadness and anger. She was then forced to marry
Emperor Qin. She killed herself, but not before she commanded her sons and daughters to avenge their father at
all costs. They helped end the Qin Dynasty, but they did not live a happy life, and neither did their descendants.
Even when the ephemeral reign of Emperor Qin’s son had ended, the wound inflicted on the hearts of the
Kongs remained open and raw. The wound had been there for generations, and it never healed. All the Kongs
still had this wound, painful and obvious, upon their hearts.
Until recently.
2012
A.D.
The man, Kong, picked up his plow and recalled the last part of his family story. He could feel the
millennia-old wound heavy against his joyless heart.
He trudged off towards the direction of the sunset, his heart empty of hope or happiness.
A young woman in a white dress approached him. Her torn dress was too short for her, and her features
were winded. Despite her obvious poverty, her face shone with love, and her features lightened up with ecstasy
at the sight of the man. She smiled, and dimples adorned her rosy cheeks.
She ran until she stood in front of the man. She spoke in a soft, melodious voice.
“
Kong,” she said.
The man looked at her, and was mesmerized, for the millionth time, by her beauty and her mirth -
something the man did not have.
The lady in front of him was his wife. They had known each other since their childhood, but something
about her felt very different today.
She was wearing a jade pendant, a pendant that Kong vaguely recognized.
He struggled to remember where he had seen it before.
His heart jolted when he finally recalled the memory.
The man, Kong, had seen a portrait of Emperor Qin before. The portrait was old, but he could still make out
a beautiful jade pendant with words engraved on it around the emperor’s neck.
His spouse was wearing the same pendant!
‘
She must be a descendant of the king,’ he thought. And yet he could not really believe himself. He had
known this person for decades. Wouldn’t he have know if she was the descendant of an emperor?
He decided that she was. The pendant was obviously a family heirloom - a family heirloom that she had
kept from him all these years. It was, without doubt, the same pendant - they even shared the same text: Qin
Sheng.
His fists clenched tightly, yet he could not bring himself to strike upon the face of the angelic person in
front of him, who was so clearly the descendant of his ancestor’s nemesis, Emperor Qin.
Kong’s wife cupped her smooth hands under his face.
She laughed, and her laugh was very unlike the one that Emperor Qin had let out more than twenty centuries
ago.
“
You know who I am now, don’t you?” she asked him.
Kong nodded, not sure how to react.
“
My family sent me to you when we were both children. They wanted to restore amends. I have decided to
trust you, and so I am here to apologize for my ancestor, Emperor Qin. I have come to close the anger and
hatred that had existed between our families for two thousand years.” As she said those words, her face blushed
pretty pink from the satisfaction of fulfilling a lifelong wish.
Her wonderful words were like soothing balm poured over a painful wound, like fresh stream water poured
over parched soil.
The descendant of Emperor Qin wrapped Kong in an embrace, and they both knew that a millennia-old
wound had been closed.