“
And what’s sacred about them?”
“
Can’t you see the connections they make?”
“
Well they are all... elemental?”
“
They are all dynamic. The River moves, Shadows change, Candles melt, Time never freezes. You are
too. You changed over the course of your journey! It was said that once all the riddles are answered, the Wall
would be saved.”
“
Does it have something to do with the fact that I have been falling for ages?”
“
It has everything to do with it! The wall is disappearing!”
“
What?”
“
The wall is disappearing due to erosion -- which is caused by you.”
“
Me?”
“
Not you, you! You, humans! Pollution is destroying this treasure. This is why you must go back and
warn someone about the Great Wall’s fate!”
“
Someone? But who? And why me?”
She smiled in a very tender way.
“
It happened long ago. The architect got buried into the Wall.”
“
Wow! Disgusting! But why?”
“
The emperor was a little bit... paranoid. He feared the architect would give the plans to his enemies or
something. The architect’s wife came to the tower where her beloved husband was buried and she cried. She
cried for days and days and her tears started to form a river underneath the Wall. Ever since, that river’s been
flowing.”
Did I imagine it or did I really see tears starting to fall on her bony cheeks?
“
The river is still flowing but is being polluted by a nearby battery factory.”
“
Hey! Is it my Dad’s company?”
“
Yes. The acidic water in this underground river slowly dissolves the tower’s stones. When this tower
falls, the whole wall will tumble down.”
“
What can I do?”
“
It’s your Dad; you have to convince him to stop polluting the river. You have to go back and do
something.”
She looked at me again with this tenderness I had seen before, smiled and said:
“
You are the great great great great... granddaughter of the architect.”
“
What?”
“
Sometime after my husband was murdered, the emperor killed our whole family. Me, our children... A
neighbor of ours had pity on our baby girl. He hid her and sent her to England. She ended up as a slave and had
a child with her British master. Her descendants have lived in England ever since. With time, the Chinese genes
have faded away but you share the architect’s blood. You are our blood and our chance.”
Her face started to fade.
“
No! Wait! What must I do now?”
“
I made a river by crying, you can do anything by trying...”
She was gone. I stared in despair at the blurry walls around me as I kept falling. Slowly, the green
turned darker until it was pitch black. I closed my eyes and suddenly, I stopped falling.
Noise. Voices. I opened my eyes and saw my parents staring at me, their foreheads creased with worry.
“
Macey! Didn’t you hear us? We called you for ages!” I straightened up, got up and said in a
determined yet calm voice: “Dad, we need to talk business.”
http://dan.hersam.com/riddles.html
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