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the-next-emperor:
The myth of Meng Jiang Nü. 孟姜女哭长城。
Two families are presented in the beginning of the myth; the Meng family and the Jang family. Those two families were neighbors and both happened to be childless. One day the old man Meng planted a gourd vine and but after a while, it started growing to the neighbor’s side. The families decided then to split the gourd vine into two pieces and to their surprise, they found was a baby inside it. The two families started to quarrel about who this baby belonged to and finally the decision was that both of the families were the child’s parents and that is why her name is Meng Jiang.
Later on, Meng Jiang decided to marry a man called Fan Xiliang, but soldiers came and took him on their wedding day, because he must help to build the Great Wall. After a year without any news from him, she decided to go there and look for him, unfortunately that is when she found out Fan Xiliang had worked to death. His body was under the Great Wall, like the others who had died of the work.
Meng Jiang began to wail loudly and hit the wall. A huge chunk of the Great Wall collapsed, revealing countless mounds of human bones. Meng Jiang Nu bit her own fingertip, testing each skeleton with her own blood, praying for a sign - if the skeleton absorbed the blood, it was her husband’s. When she finally found Xiliang’s bones, she clung on to them and wept.
In the end, the angry Emperor of Qin Dynasty heard the news and wanted to see who dared to destroy his project and when he saw Meng Jiang, he immediately fell in love. She was so beautiful that he wanted to marry her, but she told him she would only accept this marriage by three conditions. When the emperor finally accepted them and did as she told him to, she scolded the emperor and cast herself into the ocean.
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