Terra FirmaWarriors
British International School Shanghai, Puxi, Choong, QiYi - 14
veryone says I will never find them.They all laugh at me, comparing me to a brainless dog trying
to bite its own tail. I don’t care what they say; they’ll sing a different tune when they see the
missing TerracottaWarriors I’ve been endlessly hunting since college.What began as an academic
exercise, to theoretically prove the existence of a new army, turned into my lifelong passion and obsession.
Just the mystery of it all, the thrill of the unknown, the majesty ofWarriors and what they may be
guarding, keeps me up all night, most nights, like tonight.
I’ve been surfing the web for hours now, with my now blood shot eyes weeping for a break. I observe the
board filled with evidence and theories. Many historians say the long-lost TerracottaWarriors have been
blessed with endless luck , luck that will be passed to the one who finds them, as a thank-you for bringing
theWarriors back to life again.They protect their new master from any and all evil energy, forever
surrounding anyone with positive energy.
Now what this energy is useful for has been open to interpretation amongst historians for centuries. I
myself believe it will lead to limitless wealth.This for me is the wealth of love. In the past, I was never truly
loved. My parents have always adored my little brother, yet never gave me any such attention. In school
was no different; I was the only student who was friendless, eating lunch surrounded by empty chairs.
Thus, to this day, I have never truly experienced love. I feel as if my whole life has been spent with a dark,
grey cloud of loneliness hovering above me, constantly pouring rain. If I could just locate theWarriors,
then sunshine would forever be in my life, its radiant rays warming my cold, damp soul.
But how to find the sun? As I look around my study, the piles of history and archaeology books lying on
the floor, cracked open in a circle around my chair, I realize that, like the books themselves, I have been
going around in circles, getting no closer to my quest than when I began. Perhaps my brother were right
after all; I am just a dog trying to bite its own tail. So, after some minutes, minutes used to summon up
courage, I decide to abandon the books forever more. New strategy: think like an Emperor would, a
romantic emperor, one with a sense of timelessness.Where would such an emperor place his Positive Luck
Army?
I gently begin tapping my forehead, trying to bounce my brain into gear.The action of doing so reminds
me of my childhood, when my father used to affectionately do this when he was trying to gently
encourage me to think, at the same time asking,“Is this thing on?” From such a memory, I begin to also
recall the annual Hong Bao hunt all the kids in our village would take part in, which was maybe the most
fun I’ve ever had.While it was fun enough finding the small red envelopes that would contain maybe 10
yuan each, what we all wished for was to discover the mysterious Jin Bao, the golden envelope that was
said to contain untold riches. Some years, we would find it, but only by a few of us forming a team and
choosing not to hunt for the Hong Bao, choosing to ignore the guaranteed material wealth, for the
promise of a potentially higher, more valuable prize.
But, as we discovered, the Jin Bao would always be empty, much to our continued puzzlement. Every year,
the man hosting the treasure event would somehow persuade us of the benefit of searching the Jin Bao
over the Hong Bao. Perhaps it was the host’s reputation that convinced us, being as he was, the smartest
man in the village. He had travelled overseas, had studied at California University, which in that day and
age, was extremely rare, giving him a mysterious, Confucian air that we young scholars found enchanting.
Yet, as the years passed, and the Jin Bao team continued to return with an empty Jin Bao, the team would
increasingly become smaller in size until, finally, I was the only kid still crawling under bushes, and up
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