Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 12 | Page 350

The New Tales of Old Shanghai
Po Leung Kuk Choi Kai Yau School, Kok, Karina – 11
M
y twin brother Chang sat silently on the luscious green grass, reading a book. I ran over to him, sitting
down on a stone stool. “Chang, what’s the story of the girl who ventured over the wall?”
“You’ve asked so many times about Yang, don’t you just hate hearing that story?” Chang lamented,
pushing his glasses further up his nose. “You are constantly bothering me about it. You should memorise it and
read it to yourself every day,” Chang snickered.
I narrowed my eyes at him and pounced on him tickling his sides. “Okay, okay, I’ll tell you,” Chang gasped
between breaths. I sat down and waited patiently for him to begin.
“In 1554 during the Ming dynasty, the city wall was constructed, mainly to keep threats away from the main
city, Shanghai. Locals were not permitted to leave – they would receive death penalties, but high class nobles or
traders could go safely. The story started a long, long time ago...
***
Yang’s brother, Ying frowned. Yang was pestering him about the wall. “Yang, why do you keep asking?
Are you thinking about sneaking out? Let me tell you – never attempt that – those soldiers and guards are
merciless. Once you are discovered, you could be publicly hanged.”
“Whatever,” Yang waved him off, “I would never think about something so risky.”
“You better not,” Ying warned Yang for one last time before slinking away to do his chores. Really, she
was thinking about running away – the thrill of these “adventures” in the middle of the night made her more and
more excited.
“Ying, Yang, it’s dusk, come back in,” their mother hollered into the backyard. Yang raced back into the
house, up the stairs and into her room. She sat on her bed, watching the sun slowly fade into the horizon as
nighttime fell upon them.
As the chatter in the house slowly fell silent, she extinguished the candle in her room, pretending to be asleep.
This is a risk, but it certainly should be worth trying, Yang thought to herself in the eerily silent dark.
Sticking her head out of the window, Yang checked for anyone roaming the streets at night. There were a
few patrol guards here and there, but they couldn’t possibly see her. Her house was a few blocks down to the wall,
she would have to slip through the alleys to reach it. Yang squeezed through the window, and nimbly climbed
down the slippery, grey tiles, scaling down and landing on the rock-hard pavement. As quickly as she had come
down, Yang hid in a dark corner of the street, away from the sight of the guards.
She ran, panting, down the stairs of a dark alleyway towards the towering north gate. She was going to head past
the tower and reach the north east part of the wall, where there were little to no guards on patrol. Just as she was
about to grab a loose brick, a tug on her boyish shirt held her back.
Yang whirled around, face to face with a handsome strange boy about her age, smiling mischievously. The boy
shook her gently.
“I’m Heng, and you are?” the boy asked her.
“Aren’t you going to tell on me, for trying to escape?” Yang trembled, getting more scared by the second.
Heng stared at her, surprised. “Of course not, I came here to have an adventure too!” he laughed quietly at Yang.
He quietly sneaked the grappling hook out of his backpack, and Yang gasped in surprise as he swung the grapple
up into the moonlight sky and hit the top of the wall with a silent “clang”.
He lifted himself on the thick rope, gesturing for Yang to wait as he scurried up the wall like a professional wall
climber. When he was nearing the top, he hoisted his leg over the wall. Yang was still halfway up when the guards
approached, walking below the both of them. Yang shrouded her face with her raven black hair, and Heng
crouched low behind the thick wall. The guards were talking in a low whisper, and soon they disappeared and the
two came out of hiding.