Broken, Meng Jiangnu continued heading toward her village. I'll die now happily, because without Xiliang, there's no reason for me to live. She had left the magic bowls by her husband's body and hadn't eaten in six days, yet she wasn't hungry. She knew what she must do and she didn't need food to do that.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"What happened here? Where is my wall? Why has the work stopped?" Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi was livid, and the remaining slaves and guards knelt before him in fear, knowing they would soon be bodies in Emperor Qin's tomb, knowing their lives and souls were doomed for all eternity unless someone could come up with a plan to calm the emperor's wrath.

"Majesty, the woman Meng Jiangnu has a pact with the devil. She terrorized the guards, screaming for her husband so loudly that the wall collapsed. When she found his body, she left us and headed south; I believe she's going back to her village."

"One woman did all of this? She must have a pact with the gods. If she is that fearsome, I want her; her blood and my blood shall become one."

The emperor quickly dispatched a hundred soldiers south, chasing Meng Jiangnu, traveling non-stop until they found her.

"I know the emperor will torture the bitch in front of her family; he'll pour hot oil down her throat and rip out her fingernails; he'll skin her alive and have the horses pull her body through the streets of Xian."

If she's lucky, Peng-Heong thought, she will die quickly.

But the emperor had no such plans for Meng Jiangnu. He had been looking for someone as fearless as she to be his alter ego and he believed this woman had been called out by the gods. I'll marry her and we'll have a dozen children. I've searched the land for a woman like Meng Jiangnu for twenty years, now I shall take her as my wife.

Sixteen hours later, the guards returned to the emperor at his camp by the Great Wall with Meng Jiangnu in ropes. "We dragged her from the south, mighty Emperor and she offered no resistance; she's still in shock." And then, as if to bait the emperor, he added, "Nothing can harm her, majesty, she feels no pain." Jee-Hoon whacked Meng Jiangnu across her face and she stood passively, staring at the emperor and his guards as if they were headless chickens in the market.

"This woman has no fear," Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi exclaimed. "Release her, take her to my quarters and bathe her. Give her the finest raiment in all of China and have my other wives prepare her for me. I will take her back to Xian and marry her. She will be my wife."

None of the guards could believe what they heard. Mighty Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi was going to take a commoner-a destroyer and a reckless bitch-as his new wife.

"Has the emperor gone mad? What's to become of us? What's to become of our land?"

"The emperor knows a goddess when he sees one and this woman is a sorceress. The emperor has always been charmed by seers and now he has his own."

The next day, Meng Jiangnu, dressed as a princess, was led onto Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi's barge, which would take her to Xian so they could marry in the imperial city.

But Meng Jiangnu knew her life was over and she had no desire to spend another moment with the murderer who had ravaged her husband, taken her kin from her village, and destroyed her life. Meng stepped to the side of the barge and dove into the water before anyone knew what she had done or where she had gone. It's better to die for my husband than to live with a beast.

And there, in the middle of the river, a giant mountain formed-and another, somewhat smaller, rose beside it.

"Look, it is Meng Jiangnu and Fan Xiliang. They have come back as mountains; surely, they must have been gods!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In fact, Meng Jiangnu and Fan Xiliang did come back countless times throughout the centuries; their bodies became mountains, but their souls were reborn a hundred times.


On to Chapter Thirty-Six
Opening the Door
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News of the Avalanche
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