Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 3 - 2017 | Page 267

energy that would give me the chance to choose my desired resting place, I couldn’t help feeling guilty at the famished
looks on the villagers’ faces as they watched their food being withered again.
I knew what I had to do. As a final present or gift, to return all the generosity the villagers of Shanghai had shown
me, I decided to embody the stone wall. I could magically sustain it for centuries to empower the stone, so it didn’t
break. This way, I was essentially immortal until the rock crumbled, which would take a long time. My consciousness
and power would remain inside the block of stone. But as a nature dragon, my power – and hence the power of the wall
– would relied upon the energy of the nature within the village.
With my help, Shanghai prospered and turned into a thriving city. The walls were as strong as a diamond, able to
withstand any attacks. Eventually, the pirate raids stopped and Shanghai flourished once more. Over time, I found that
Shanghai was part of an even larger country, called China.
One day, much later, someone decided to take down the Wall of Old Shanghai. I was stunned – why weren’t the
citizens of Shanghai opposing? They hit the walls with powerful machines, and I had to use all the energy to resist the
force. They went home disheartened and unsuccessful. At night, I realised that eventually, even if I took all the energy
from every plant in Shanghai, I would run out of energy much sooner than the people operating the machines would
give up. I hadn’t realised how taxing it was to endure such an attack and half the plants in Shanghai were on the brink of
death. At best, I could struggle against it for a few more days. So I channelled all my strength into a single section of the
wall and soon and the rest of the wall disintegrated to dust.
After many attempts of destroying the wall, the workers decided to leave my section of the wall standing as a
cultural landmark. So there I remained, watching over the city of Shanghai.
In just a few decades, Shanghai’s nature suffered greatly, due to air pollution from smoke and smog and I could
only watch helplessly. I lost most of my remaining power and only a few traces of my consciousness remained. I can
barely concentrate enough to review my story and I am falling asleep, within wall, too frail to stay awake. Someday,
maybe nature will return and I will wake up once again.
Decades later, a landscape architect beamed at the newly designed and improved Shanghai. It was filled to the
brim with nature, and all the pollution gone. He heard a reverberating noise and instinctively glanced towards the
remaining few meters of the Wall of Old Shanghai. He had always suspected there was something atypical about the
timeworn wall. It was no regular wall. It was… rising? Yes, it was rising! The entire wall was rebuilding itself, with rocks
that were new and polished. Ancient and previously dusty – now immaculate – pieces of rock rose from the ground and
flew to complete the wall. All the towers were rebuilt, everything shimmering under the sun. He saw a transparent,
almost invisible green form rise from the rock and caught his eye – a dragon? The dragon had striking azure eyes and it
spoke to him.
“At last, nature is restored, Shanghai is protected and I can sleep in peace.”