Lady Meng Jiang wailed at the foot of the Great Wall.

One late afternoon, Meng Jiang was attending to the flowers in her parents' garden when she was startled by a young man who lept over the fence. Panting violently, he apologized for the unintended intrusion. He told Meng Jiang that he was Wan Xiliang and escaped from the First Emperor's draft as a laborer to build his walls. By now, he had been exhausted from fatigue and hunger. The Meng and Jiang family invited him to stay with them. Eventually, the well-educated and mannered young man and the dexterous pretty young woman fell in love with each other. Her four elderly parents were only too glad that their beloved daughter had found a good bridegroom and had them happily married.

However, there was a villain in the village that had been coveting the beauty of Meng Jiang all along and became so jealous of her marriage that he went to the local authorities. On the day of their wedding, Wan Xiliang was caught and sent to the Great Wall construction site in the far north.

The temple of Lady Meng Jiang in the suburb of Qinghuang Island City

Lady Meng Jiang waited day and night for her newly-wed husband to return. Summer came and went and so did fall. Not a word was heard from Xiliang. She decided to look for him. After untold sufferings she finally came to the construction site. There, she started the almost impossible task of finding Xiliang among the laborers. Finally she learned that Xiliang had died of hard word and been buried in the wall. This tragic news sent Lady Meng Jiang into a stupor. As she gained conscious, sorrow began to eat into her heart, tears running unchecked. She started to weep and then to wail.

For three days, she wept and wailed at the foot of the Great Wall when all of a sudden a miraculous event happened: a section of the wall, as long as eight hundred miles, broke loose and collapsed with a big bang, revealing countless white bones, including that of her husband's amidst the debris of dirt and stones.