Chang Cheng, the Mystery Within

By Fernando Bascuñán Jr.

Every year, thousands of tourists from around the globe visit the Great Chinese Wall but only two young boys have actually been inside and survived their way back. Is the world really prepared to know what they have seen, once they return?

Chang Cheng, the Mystery Within is a fast-paced, fiction-adventure novel featuring two separate, very different, modern-day scenarios evolving at the same time, that are to eventually meet. A wide array of characters have been carefully selected and dramatized, making it easy for every reader to sympathize with their favorite one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463409685

Fernando Bascuñán Jr.

As a constant creator, Fernando has shown time and again his innate ability to artistically interpret a feeling, a mood, or even a thought through his music composition during the past thirty years. Having lived nine years in the United States during his childhood made a profound impact on his artistic creativity. The innocence and subtle irony of his characters, even when they are facing their worst moments throughout the different passages of the novel, bear the trait of many beloved characters from ’70s television and books we have grown so fond of over time. His love for fiction/adventure novels, as well as Spielberg movies, where ordinary characters become extraordinary heroes and where everything that apparently seems normal is just a step away from unimaginable, is very well represented and portrayed through his careful character selection. The reader is compelled many times to sympathize with the characters because of their human condition and real emotions, which are wonderfully described many times throughout the book. As a forty-six-year-old musician, doctor, inventor, businessman, and now author, Fernando lives in his native country, Chile, along with his wife and four children.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Funny how a great story sometimes comes from somewhere as close as your backyard or even your own room or from somewhere as far as ten thousand miles away. This one has a little bit of both.

My name is Samuel Evans. I’m what you’d call your average eleven-year-old only child, and I live in the suburbs in a little community called Oakmill, a twenty-minute drive from the big city. I attend Windmore School for Boys, a lousy, local, snotty private school. I’m about to finish fifth grade, and I hate my homeroom teacher, Miss Allison. She’s got to be about the oldest person alive and has been my homeroom teacher ever since the first grade, something in this school that everyone calls personalized education, whatever that means. She reminds me of the mummies we talked about in history, and she has so many wrinkles you can’t even count them. She, like the rest of the teachers, has her favorite students, and one of them is stupid, little Felix Bannerstorm, the best student in fifth grade. You can guess by now that I’m not one of them.

So my grades aren’t so hot, but every year I get by with a B average. What I really hate about starting school every year is the crummy report we do titled What I Did during My Summer Vacation. This year, Miss Allison managed to make a fool out of me in front of the whole class with my report, saying it lacked imagination and had false creativity or whatever. Then she called on Felix to read his report out loud about some strange country he had visited with his parents during summer.

Chester Lyon is my best friend—my only friend, at that—and is an only child as well. He sits next to me in class, and we’re also next-door neighbors. We share common interests, we both hate Miss Allison, and, on occasion, we ride our bikes up to Johnson Elementary School, a public school just a few blocks away from ours. We spend time imagining what it would be like to go to school there, as we often see boys and girls playing together at recess. We take special precautions never to be seen because, at times when we have been, the kids came up to us and called us names, saying we’re just a couple of weird, stuck-up kids and mama’s boys and a bunch of other things I don’t care to repeat just now. My father doesn’t like me to go there. He says that those kids manifest their resentment due to their parents’ misfortune. I don’t understand a word he says, but it sounds pretty much like a contagious disease.

My dad’s a senior vice president and works in the city. I’ve been to his huge office only a couple of times. He has a sign on the wall over his desk that says, It’s not worth bothering me if it’s not worth a million. He’s okay whenever he’s not on his cell phone doing business with some overseas big shot. I wish he had more time to spend at home or with me compared to the misfortunate dads I can see when I’m out riding my bike with Chester. For that matter, Chester’s dad doesn’t spend much time with him either. His dad’s a doctor and is always working on something important that will keep him busy till late at night. Since sports aren’t really my specialty, I spend a lot of time at home on my computer games or chatting at night over the Net with Chester. Occasionally, my dad will bring home a surprise, like front-row tickets to see a baseball game, but it’s usually turns out the same: he’d take his phone along and we’d eventually have to leave right in the middle because something’s come up at the office, he’d say.

Mom isn’t bad, when I see her. She’s always running off to play bridge at the club; staying out late for her social work, which she does with Chester’s mom; or getting her hair done at the salon for some dinner meeting she has to go off to with my dad. So I pretty much have just Chester to count on.

During dinner, on the rare occasions when we’re all seated at the table, I’ll usually complain about school until Mom interrupts me, saying how lucky I am to have a father so dedicated to giving me only the best. Good thing she doesn’t know Miss Allison half as well as I do. She goes on saying that I should be grateful for all we have and so on and so forth. I just can’t go on complaining afterward, even though my father, later on during dinner, remarks how lucky he and Mom are to have such deep, open, and meaningful conversations with me. I just smile and pretend that he’s right. Anyway, it’s always just a matter of minutes before his phone rings again—which, by the way, he keeps conveniently next to him at all times—and he’ll be off to another surprise meeting or to make last-minute touch-ups on something that’s to be presented tomorrow.

We have a surprise for you, Dad said at the dinner table one night, looking at Mom with a smile on his face. What would you like to do this summer? he asked cunningly. I thought for just a moment: strange question if you consider that every summer I could remember, it was always the same thing. One third of the time I was sent to be with my grandparents on my mother’s side, another third I was sent to my grandparents on my father’s side, and the remaining third I was off to summer camp. Luckily, Chester was sent to camp too. Gee, Dad, I don’t know, I replied, not even daring to take a guess. I’ve got to go to China this summer, he said, and I’ve talked to your mother about you two coming along. How ‘bout it? Since the farthest I’d traveled was to my grandparents’ house three hours away—of course, on an airplane and in first class—I really didn’t know just how much of an adventure going to China would be. Then, Felix Bannerstorm came to mind, especially how stupid he would look if, just once, someone had a more exotic place to talk about in his report next school year. When are you planning on going? I asked. Three days after school’s over, and we’ll be there for about a month, he replied, after which my mother said, I wonder what they’re wearing this time of year. That’s the type of question my mother would bring up, I thought. I don’t know about the two of you, my father said, but I’ll be wearing the usual. My father, as far back as I can remember, has never taken off his tie and jacket. He’s always ready for doing business wherever he is. Okay, count me in! I exclaimed, seeing Felix Bannerstorm’s face in my mind.

That night after dinner, I went up to my room to chat with Chester about the news. So you’re really going to China? he inquired. Yeah. Pretty neat, huh? I said. Do you know how far away China is? he asked. Come to think of it, I hadn’t given it much thought. Gotta go! I replied, as I swiftly turned off my computer, grabbed an old atlas of the world, and started looking up China. There it is! I exclaimed, rapidly turning to the page. It gave me information on its size; population; geographic, economic, and political characteristics, whatever those may be; as well as a table showing its distance from other points in the world. I began looking up my location for reference when I yelled out, Wow! It’s more than ten thousand miles away!

Chapter 2

School couldn’t have been any more boring that final week, especially after taking all the final exams. The unbearable summer heat had gotten to all of us, and Miss Allison wasn’t making it any easier, blabbing away about some lost explorer set out to discover God knows what, when Chester spoke. So, you already know what you’re going to do when you’re in China? What do you mean, what I’m going to do? I replied. You know, have you figured out what you’re going to do for fun when you get there? he asked. I hadn’t thought about it, really, which was the reason I took so long to respond. I don’t know yet. I suppose my parents have something already worked out for me, I replied. Gosh, I felt stupid. There I was about to go off to some faraway country and I didn’t even have the slightest idea as to what to expect when I got there.

Back at home that night, I turned on the computer and went straight to the Net to find out something more about the country I would soon be visiting for a month. A tourist’s guide to China came up on my screen and featured points of interest. I really wasn’t interested in visiting temples, shrines, or pagodas, nor was I interested in seeing the Chinese performing arts. Suddenly, at the lower left-hand corner of the screen, I caught a glimpse of these words: The Great Wall of China.

To the northwest and north of Beijing, a huge, serrated wall zigzags its way to the east and west along the undulating mountains. This is the Great Wall, which is said to be visible from the moon. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I kept reading. Construction of the Great Wall started in the seventh century BC. That makes it at least 2,700 years old! I exclaimed to myself. "The vassal states under the Chou Dynasty in the northern parts of the country each built their own walls for defense purposes. After the state of Chin unified China in 221 BC, it joined the walls to hold off the invaders from the Tsongnoo tribes in the north and extended them to more than 10,000 li, or 5,000 kilometers. This is the origin of the name of the 10,000-li Great Wall. The Great Wall was renovated from time to time after the Chin Dynasty. A major renovation started with the founding of the Ming Dynasty in 1368 and took two hundred years to complete. The wall we see today is almost exactly the result of this effort. With a total length of more than 6,000 kilometers (more than 3,750 miles long), it extends to the Jiayu Pass in Gansu Province in the west and to the mouth of the Yalu River in Liaoning Province in the east."1 I couldn’t read anymore. The pictures that accompanied the text were indeed impressive, and the best part about it was that I was actually going there.

The next day in school, I asked Chester if he had ever heard about the Great Wall. I was surprised by the way I could explain to him, in much detail, what I had dug up the night before on my computer. Well, bring me back some pictures of you visiting the Wall, he said.

That night at dinner, I said, Dad, is there any chance that during our stay we could go visit the Great Wall? Well, well, Sam! my father replied with satisfaction. I see you’re looking forward to our little ‘adventure.’ Of course! he concluded, much to my satisfaction. My mother gave me an awkward glance that made me feel uncomfortable. Since when do you show so much interest in places, Sam? she asked. Well, I thought I’d like to know a little bit more about the country we’re about to visit, Mom. That’s all, I replied. Now, give the boy some credit, Laura, my dad said. It’s not every day we get to see Sam interested in anything besides riding bikes with Chester and using his computer.

The final school days seemed endless, as did the nights, which were hot and sticky. Finally, the last day of school came and went, and the typical end-of-the-year water balloon fights, which I had taken pride in participating in ever since I could remember, curiously meant nothing to me. Even Chester asked me at least a dozen times what was wrong, but I knew deep inside that something strange and exciting was occurring for me and that even if I tried, I just wouldn’t be able to explain my feelings to my friend. Ever since I saw the pictures of the Great Wall, the images would pop into my head at any moment until there was nothing to think about other than that. I didn’t even care what my father would say when I took my last report card home. I was anticipating his lecturing me about how a B average was good but not good enough and then, for the millionth time, reminding me about the story of his father saying the same to him and how he had worked so hard to get better grades in order to get where he was today. Anyway, I thought he must be pretty used to my grades by now, so no harm done.

Saturday, I rode bikes, as usual, with Chester to our favorite hideaway spot, next to Johnson Elementary, except this time there wasn’t the normal sound of kids playing at recess. They too had gotten out for summer. You’ve been real weird these past few days, Chester stated. It’s just that I have a lot on my mind, Ches. That’s all, I replied. You mean you’re nervous about the trip, he said. That’s not true! I yelled out. It’s just … oh, never mind! I said, frustrated. I wanted to share these unexplainable feelings with my friend, but then again I knew that Chester had been out in the world even less than I had, so it was pointless to continue. Luckily, he changed the subject and started blabbing about something I didn’t pay any attention to. I only remember him looking at me, frustrated, and saying, Let’s go, Sam. You may be going to China soon, but your brain has already taken off for the moon!

Sunday night finally came, and it was as hot as any I could remember. We—Mom and I—had an early dinner; Dad was busy at work with something. Then it was off to bed because we’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow, as grown-ups usually say. I had already spent the whole day packing, making sure to get my trusty atlas that would accompany me on my trip; my camera, old but reliable, with a new roll of film; my pocketknife, Swiss Army; and my special sneakers, which my dad had bought for me a while ago but were practically brand new because I wasn’t much of a sports nut. With all this inside my backpack, I was pretty much packed and ready for tomorrow. Just as I was beginning to figure out how on earth I was going to fall asleep on such an unbearably hot night, my computer screen came out of sleep mode and lit up. It was Chester!

The chat request said only, Must see you right away! Parents off to dinner somewhere! I didn’t get many of these messages from Chester, but by the sound of it, something important had happened. Drastic messages call for drastic measures, I thought. Not thinking twice, I was out my window and scaling down Mom’s wooden fence that she had put up with so much pride some time ago for her stupid vines that were taking up more and more of the view from my window.

I arrived at Chester’s door really worried and let myself in. I preferred to use the kitchen entrance so as not to be seen by anyone. I yelled out, Chester! Up here! he replied, the sound coming distinctively from his room upstairs. What’s wrong? What happened? I asked as I opened his bedroom door. Nothing’s wrong, Sam, Chester replied in a soft, calm voice. I just wanted to give you something before you left. That’s all. He was standing in the middle of his room with his hand outstretched, holding something remarkably similar to a small, modern cell phone. What’s that? I asked. Something no true explorer should leave home without! he proudly stated. A handy, pocket-size flashlight! I just stood there, speechless. Chester walked closer to me. Oh, come on, Sam. Don’t tell me you don’t have your trusty backpack ready yet! He shoved the flashlight in my hand as he talked. I suppose you’re taking your knife at least, he said. I looked down to examine my new piece of equipment. It works like this, he said, pulling down a small flap on one side that allowed a powerful beam of light to instantly shoot through the room, much to my amazement. Chester continued, On the other side you have an alarm that can be heard pretty far away—not sure just how far, though. I’ll take good care of it, I replied as a big smile began to spread across my face. Keep it, he said. I’ve got another one. Dad picks up some pretty neat things from time to time in airport stores when he’s off from one convention to another. Sad thing is that he doesn’t even remember what he brings me, so many times he repeats his presents. I stood there for a moment not knowing what to say or do, and then I suddenly gave Chester a big hug. I’ll miss you, buddy, I said. I felt sad to leave my best friend behind and for such a long time, but at the same time I was happy to know that even though I hadn’t been able to explain to him what I was thinking or how I felt the other day, my friend understood me … somehow.

The next morning, I must have checked my backpack a million times to ensure that everything was there, including my new prized possession. Mom got up very early and was off to the salon. Dad just laughed when I said I didn’t understand why she was so worried about her hair because no one in China even knew her. Your mom should be home pretty soon, he said. I’ll call work and have the driver come pick us up. That’s pretty neat, I thought. It may not compare to stupid Felix Bannerstorm’s elephant ride through the jungle while on a photo safari, but it was a start.

Chapter 3

The huge skyscrapers filled my eyes on the way to the airport. I had seen them before when my folks had dropped me off to go to one or the other of my grandparents’ homes for the summer. I could hear my father proudly pointing out to my mom a new building here and there that his corporation had just bought, but I wasn’t really paying much attention.

We’re here! he finally said, instructing the driver to pull up to his requested terminal. We all got out of the car, and all I could think of was not letting go of my priceless backpack. We had passed through the safety screening area when a huge lobby, outlined with stores, caught my eye. I asked my dad if I could buy a computer magazine, and he instantly stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. Keep the change, Sam, he said, smiling. I had never remembered my father being so happy and lighthearted, much less while putting a twenty-dollar bill in his son’s hands. I rushed off to the bookstore while my parents stood and waited, smiling till I returned. They’re in an incredibly good mood, I thought as I put my magazine in my backpack. Our plane leaves in two hours, Dad stated. That gives us enough time to do almost anything we want. What would you like to do till then, Sam? I remembered that in the midst of my morning excitement, I had forgotten breakfast, but my stomach hadn’t. Let’s go get something to eat. I’m starving! I cried out. But, Sam! my mother exclaimed, surprised. Didn’t you eat the breakfast I left for you this morning? That’s all right, my dad said. Let’s get something into Sam’s stomach. It’ll give me time to call the office and do some last-minute checking up before we leave. As we walked to the nearby restaurant, I thought, Poor old Dad. If it wasn’t for roaming, what would become of him a zillion miles away from home without being able to use his cell phone!

I have a weakness for airplanes. I love to look at them and love to know everything there is to know about them. Dad? I said as we were leaving the restaurant. What type of plane are we flying to China in? It’s that 747 you see out that window right there, he said, pointing, and I ran in that direction. Sam! my mother yelled, but I was almost at the window, amazed with the size of our plane, when her voice reached my ears. Time passed graciously fast, and we soon heard our flight announced on the loudspeakers. Time to board, said Dad, and we all got up out of our seats and walked toward the gate. Three passengers, first class to Beijing, he said, passing the tickets to the lady at