Fiction: Group 1
The Tale of River Delta Girl
St. Paul's Co-educational College Primary School, Cheung,WaiYin Kristie - 9, Fiction:
Group 1
ong time ago, there was a gigantic pearl in the middle of a river. Years after years, it turned into a tiny
girl called
Zhenzhu
. People would come to the river just to see her beauty and to appreciate her
glistening long hair. The gentle glow in her hair, her soft fair skin and her delicate body…Seeing
these, Princess
Yueliang
could not help but feel jealous. Princess
Yueliang
, as the only beauty of the night,
could not bear the thought of being overthrown.
Zhenzhu
did not know of the perils ahead of her. The evilness of Princess
Yueliang
grew day by day.
The more famous
Zhenzhu
became, the more jealous Princess
Yueliang
was. One night, when Princess
Yueliang
was about to shine and overtake the night, she saw
Zhenzhu
glimmering dainty in the her slumber.
That was enough.
I, Yueliang, am the only one.
The next morning,
Zhenzhu
found herself in a golden cage. She was tied with a taut chain. She heard
someone cackling. A deep down voice chuckled, “She would never be able to escape!”
Zhenzhu
tried to get
loose of the chain but she couldn’t. She struggled and a sharp voice ordered, “Sit properly, you! Do you
know how much I have suffered since you appeared in the river? People no longer worship me, as their
attention is now fully and solely on you!”
Zhenzhu
was horrified by this beautiful young girl standing in front of the cage. Princess
Yueliang.
She
did not expect such things to come out from the princess she had always admired.
Zhenzhu
tried to get away
but Princess
Yueliang
gripped her body firmly. She whistled and a class of drowned children came out from
below the river. They wore black capes with rubies, had razor-sharp nails painted in brown. On the paint,
there were fleas with massive wings.
Zhenzhu
was startled and muttered to herself, “They…I’m dying for
sure!”
Days in a cage passed by slowly, and
Zhenzhu
lived in misery. She missed the banana palm trees
swaying in the gentle summer breeze, the elegant lotus standing bravely under the bright sun and the sweet
scent of the bamboo across the river. It was a life that she would never be able to return to. She must put this
into an end and so she decided to beg the guard to release her. Feeling annoyed, the guard grabbed
Zhenzhu
’s body and threw her down to the road.
After she fell on the road, she cried and cried for hours, traveling for miles back to the river where she
belonged. It was her birthplace, her home, her love. She knew she would be too weak to keep on shining in
the river and she wept till she disappeared. Her tears became the river.
Goodbye, I will always be with you.
In you, you will bloom and glow.
To commemorate the love of
Zhenzhu
, the villagers named the river the Pearl River - the river which
grants lives to many creative and animals.
L
