by Sam Abraham
“I keep thinking about your term paper,” Shen said, smiling. “One of the best I’ve ever read. I had not thought to use religion, but your paper breathes with strategy. What was it you wrote? ‘Show them signs and wonders, and rule them in the afterlife.’ Millions of people are starving in the Ghost Lands, seething at the opulence of eastern cities. They need a savior who can show them wonders, who can transform them to thrive in the wasteland. You can be that savior, Xiao Li. It is literally in your bones. You can promise people salvation, and disguise our operation in plain sight. This would create an enemy for the River Syndicate, a cult most would dismiss. Yet under this cover we can generate the data necessary to prove that longshui can prevent mass starvation. Then, after the River Syndicate is discredited, we will bring the truth of longshui into the light, and save the land in a way that not even the Centrists can ignore.”
Li was overwhelmed by the thought that she had influenced her teacher. “It was just a paper,” she said, feeling dirty at the prospect of such deception. “How can you be sure it would work?”
“Ah,” Shen said, “religion has been used many times to disguise truth. Just start with something familiar that people can latch onto. Given your upbringing, Christianity may provide a strong base. Add a pinch of new revelation to create feelings of exclusivity in those who are otherwise dispossessed. Wrap it up in a good story, and voila, you have a spark. Then you just fan the flames.” Li was silent, and Shen recognized her inner struggle. “Find a fiction that feels true for you, and it will become truth for those who follow,” he said, and left her to contemplation.
Li sat in the cave all night. Gale-force thoughts buffeted her, a cyclone of conflicting promises. At first, she recalled the Lady in the Moon from her dreams, the spirit that lit her core. She tasted her breath, in and out, as effortless as the tide, and craved the notion that her path was to become the holy vessel of illumination. But then a chorus of doubt descended, and she felt the lies of her childhood and the emptiness of every leap that faith had ever asked of her. As much as she might want life to be, it was no dream. If religion was to be the wood from which she would frame an enemy, it was only a tool. Which, she reasoned, made her merely a carpenter, nothing more.
At dawn Li emerged with a myth, blossoming from the stories she had heard as a child, and her visions of the Lady in the Moon.
In the bandit camp, Li watched people breakfast on soybeans. It was all the farmers could spare, their crops shriveled in the toxic dirt. She watched Shen eat, savoring every bit, and noticed that he was thinner than when they fled into the mountains. They all were, she saw, except for her. She stood there, watching them, until one by one, their eyes were drawn by her new gravity.
“I am going to raise an army,” she said.
Sun cackled, clutching his sides. “Why would anyone follow a little girl?” he hooted. “Will you pay them with shoya seeds?”
“I will help them find religion,” Li said calmly.
Xie frowned and said, “How is faith going to raise an army?”
Li turned to him and took him in before replying, “The knowledge of Heaven is the way out of poverty and into the eternal love of God, with full bellies in this world and salvation in the next.”
“Armies have been raised on less,” Shen said, and felt Yang’s eyes on him.
“Not in this country, in a long time,” Zoe said with worried eyes. “This is insane! Come on, Professor, I think it’s best if we got back to our work.” But Yang was still, and said nothing.
Li knew that Shen had briefed the professor on their plan, and found it interesting that Yang had not told his assistant. “Perhaps Heaven is overdue to return to our land,” she said. “I am the Elder Sister of Christ. The Holy Spirit has come to me twice, in visions, as the spirit of Chang’e.”
Zoe scoffed. “Chang’e is a fairy tale! An old yarn that has nothing to do with Christianity.”
Li’s eyes grew distant with feigned piety as she leaned into her gambit. “The Immortal Soul of the Divine Trinity came to me as a woman in white robes,” she said, “floating down from Heaven. She told me that I was destined to bring the spirit of Christ back to the Middle Kingdom. Chang’e and Jesus found salvation, and now they reach out to me as God’s Heavenly family. It is my turn to show others the way.”
Yang was pensive. “Aizhu,” he said reluctantly, “even if you have been seeing visions, and please forgive my skepticism--”
“There is nothing to forgive, Professor,” Li interrupted. “I know I am divine. In time, this truth will become clear to all.”
“Even if you raise the largest religious force since the Taiping Rebellion,” Zoe said caustically, “the Army will kill you and everyone with you. I won’t be a part of this, and neither will the professor.”
Yang exchanged looks with Shen. Whole tales were sung in the heavy silence.
Zoe gave her teacher horrified eyes. “How can you take this seriously?”
“Leave the Army to me,” Shen said. “Centrist Command has all but forgotten about Jiangxi and Anhui Provinces, for these are Ghost Lands now. They will not interfere. It is the responsibility of the River Syndicate, in administering the Ghost Lands, to deal with uprisings. But the Syndicate has been cutting its investment in security for years to boost profits. They will not call for the Army as backup, for to do so would reveal their weakness, and put their license at risk.”
“Maybe,” Sun said, crossing his arms. “Or maybe you are Centrist spies, trying to entrap and arrest us for lack of loyalty.”
“No,” Li said. “We are going to help millions in need. We will save their souls, and in so doing, save their lives. And by the time we grow too big for the Centrists to ignore, the meek will have become strong, and no man, woman or child who chooses my truth will ever know fear again.”
Chapter 19 - Lin (臨)
Induced To Grieve
The next day, Li slipped on a simple white dress. Her feet were bare as she walked on the cracked asphalt of Jingdezhen’s porcelain market. Xie and Shen had positioned themselves in the crowd, pretending to shop for trinkets. Hazy smog hid the hills.
Li walked among the stalls, sneaking glances at people in the bantering, bartering crowd. Men with shirts rolled above their potbellies haggled with old aunties over herbs and yarrow stalks and rice paper with red calligraphy.
At the edge of this magic market, preachers gathered from sects that had sprung up throughout the Ghost Lands. They were a ragged bunch, wearing old denim and torn polymer, no more than a handful of forgotten, dirty men waving crusty yellow fingernails in the air and spitting as they shouted about the end of the world and kingdoms to come for the faithful. Almost no one noticed the skinny teenager in the white dress climb onto a polystyrene soap box.
Li watched the crowd, and felt a wave of compassion for the poor and hungry people wandering the aisles, buying and selling trinkets for protection from capricious spirits. Abandoned in a desolate land, they scraped from meal to meal, never knowing when their luck – or food - would run out for good. All the drunken uncles and quarry gangs pressing down on them were bile in her throat. Well, she thought, Shen had come to the right place for a spark. That some were born with so much and others with so little was an injustice she recognized intimately, and one that she bet could be carved into flint.
“Matthew 21:12,” she yelled, so her voice could be heard above the ruckus of the market. “And Jesus went to the Temple and cast out all those who sold and bought in the Temple, and upset the tables of the money changers.”
She stopped, looking around for dramatic effect. In the midst of the bustle, a few mangy artisans looked up distractedly, then went back to haggling. She looked at Shen, who gestured her along impatiently, and she knew that to stop now was to fail.
“Christ knew that there could be no holiness where brothers charged each other usurious interest,” she pressed on, and swept her hand across the market. “He saw the evil that was festering like cancer in the house o
f God. How could people get to Heaven when they trampled each other selfishly, when they demanded silver for time, something that only God can give?”
She raised her voice. “Can we not see that we have descended into the depths of Babylon? Moneylenders have destroyed our land, stolen the rice from our humble tables. Honest men cannot afford to live in their cities, where food is conjured from air,” she yelled, raising her hands. “It is time we opened our eyes, and saw that our saviors have failed us! The River Syndicate cares not for you, Children of the Yangzi, but only for their Centrist silver. These far away Centrists have abandoned you to a waste that they themselves created. They call your home the Ghost Lands, for you are dead to them.”
An elderly herbalist near Li watched her intently. A fat woman at a nearby kiosk complained to two paramilitary peacekeepers of the River Syndicate. But others had come to listen. They lugged nylon sacks, some missing fingers or hands or feet. Their tan gaunt faces belied their yearning. Li suppressed a smile.
“Do not despair, children of the Yangzi!” she sang to them. “Christ sees your deeds. Oh yes, He sees, for He is here, even now, in me!” Her voice grew as she pointed at the sky. “I am Chang’e reborn, returned from the Divine Palace! In Heaven I heard the teaching of Jesus Christ, and knew His holy love, and I have come back with a message as the incarnation of His Holy Spirit.”
Her dark eyes burned as she saw them gathering, laborers coming in from the porcelain galleries. Now there were more than twenty standing around her. The other preachers had ceased, listening in as well. Part of her was amazed that they were listening. But Shen’s words in the cave came back to her, and she knew that the land was filled with the dispossessed. They were everywhere, in the shadows, mining shale, hauling garbage. There had always been millions of the disenfranchised in the interior, since time immemorial. Since Emperor Qin united the kingdoms in blood. Countless hundreds of millions. They could be a typhoon, she knew, if she only gave them a voice.
“As He knows your hearts, so too do I,” she called out. “As He marks your souls, meek and moneylenders, so too do I. As Christ said, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven. Repent, oh moneylenders! For if you do not I swear that a great plague will befall you! I have returned to earth to ensure that the meek are given their due.”
The River Syndicate officers pushed into the crowd. Li saw one mumble into his holo. Well, let them call backup, she thought. It would only spread the word faster.
“Rise up, Children of the Yangzi!” she screamed, raising her arms. “Join me, and together we will receive golden salvation at Christ’s table! Tear down the walls that —“
She was tugged back violently. An officer pulled her down and forced her wrists into metal handcuffs. But when he yanked her back up, she twisted like a fish in his grasp and smashed her elbow into his face. He fell back, his broken nose gushing blood.
Everyone was shocked into silence for one tiny moment. Then the market exploded.
The other officer jumped into the crowd, flailing about with his baton, breaking arms and heads. Confused day laborers ran about, crashing into kiosks, sending vases and dishware and all manner of trinkets flying. More offers arrived in an armored vehicle.
“Let’s get out of here!” Xie yelled, grabbing Li’s arms, which were trapped behind her in steel.
“Not yet,” Li said, tearing herself away. Climbing up on the box again, she screamed out to the melee around her, “Behold a miracle!”
And just enough migrants, shoppers, officers, vendors, old and young, heard her and turned. Closing her eyes, summoning the light within, she clenched her muscles and thrust her arms wide. The metal handcuffs ripped in two. Steel fragments went flying as she held up her fists.
Metal rings dangled from her free wrists. The officer near her stood dumbfounded, his jaw agape.
“Cast off your bonds! Save yourselves!” she screamed, and leapt from the crate into the crowd. A cheer went up as more officers closed in, but it was too late. A swarm of laborers, whipped into frenzy, began pushing over market stalls, assaulting merchants and pulling down the flimsy tents. Tables were broken and merchandise was spilled upon the ground as peasants and peacekeepers tackled each other, biting and kicking and scratching and fighting like animals.
A squadron of officers finally contained the scene hours later, arresting nearly fifty people, many of whom had no homes within hundreds of kilometers. They searched for the woman in the white dress, the preacher who had incited the riot, but she had disappeared.
Chapter 20 – Guan (觀)
Between Advance And Retreat
A man ran up the hillside. He wore a blue suit and leather shoes, and as he climbed the mountain he waved a banner with a holo of a girl in white. “Who knows where I can find the bandit called Sun?”
Gray clouds hung in the sky. June had become July, and the humid air began to dry. The land was exhausted, and farmers saw no yield on their summer crop. Li woke, dirty in her cave, faint from wavering mania. As she rubbed her eyes, she heard voices outside.
“I am Sun,” the bandit said gruffly, eyeing the newcomer suspiciously and grabbing the holocloth from him. On it was an animated likeness of Li, preaching from her soap box. The red characters around it promised ten thousand kuai for tips leading to her capture. “Who are you?”
“My name is Han,” the man in the blue suit huffed excitedly, out of breath. “There are rumors that the woman on this banner is under your protection.”
Yang and Shen wandered over. Soon stragglers from all over the camp had come out of their huts and joined them in the clearing, by the ashen remains of last night’s fire pit.
“Maybe we should turn her in,” one bandit said as they passed the holocloth around.
Then Li emerged from the cave, and Han saw her. Her dress and face were filthy, but her likeness to the girl on the holocloth was unmistakable. “I have come all the way from Shanghai, searching for revelation,” Han said. “When I arrived in town, I heard stories of a miracle. Of the return of Chang’e. People are hungry for more. They ask where Chang’e is, and if she is so powerful, why she does not come to save them sooner.”
The bandit Sun eyed Han strangely. “You see a sage in this girl?” he said, amazed that people had sought her out, as if she were divine.
“Of course,” Shen forced a chuckle, and exchanged looks with Li. “The brightest people can see Chang’e in even small miracles.”
Li looked out over the hills, amazed. The plan had always been to inspire awe, but still she felt humbled that people saw her act at the market as a miracle. Perhaps her life really was more than one of Shen’s games, she thought. At the very least, perhaps saving the countryside would make her mother proud when they finally met. Remembering her mask, she put her palms together and said, “You are right, Laoshi. If signs help people see the light, let us open the doors of revelation.”
The afternoon was blisteringly hot as Li found herself hiking north along the Yangzi River, through patchwork plantations that soaked up the polluted floodplain as the river snaked to the sea. When she saw the occuhives of Anqing rise on the far side of a bridge, she pulled a small globe from her white robe. Flipping it on, it projected a sphere of yellow light around her. It was just a child’s toy, really, reprogrammed. But starving farmers stopped their labor to watch her walk through the fields, surrounded by illumination.
Across the globe’s surface scrolled streams of Chinese characters. Verses from the Book of Mark were interspersed with poetry from the legend of Houyi, the ancient archer. They called for the people to repent, to reject the moneylenders in the east, to see the Holy Spirit of Christ within and save themselves. Word had spread in recent days that there was a girl who could work miracles. Now the people in the fields wondered if they were seeing her in the flesh.
More heads turned when she darted into traffic and strolled along the center of the highway, as calm as the summer air. Buses and hydrocycl
es careened around the golden sphere as she sauntered onto the bridge and passed the first of two concrete towers.
In the center of the bridge, where thick cables between the towers angled down and met the road, Li darted back across lanes until she balanced on the edge of the overpass. Grabbing a metal cable, she pulled on gloves that Dr. Yang had given her, with microbarb fingertips that could bite into steel. Quickly, she began hauling herself up the cable towards the north tower. As she wriggled up, Li saw the pearl petals of Zhenfeng Pagoda rising from the psuedocity of Anqing across the river.
Finally, she pulled her wiry frame up onto the north tower. Coming to her feet, she found her balance, leaning on nothing but fear far above the rushing Yangzi waters. Breathing in the pagoda’s harmony, Li imagined it as brittle as the songs of long dead poets.
She looked down at the road. Traffic had jammed as armored cars with blaring lights barricaded the bridge at both ends. People below were craning their necks to look at her glowing golden orb.
She activated a small microphone in her ear, and began to speak.
“People of Anqing!” she said, hearing her voice roar out over the water. She scanned the horizon for the mediadrone that the bandit Sun’s people had stolen. She couldn’t see it, but that was no surprise, since it was barely the size of a pig. Yet it must have been somewhere in the clouds, for her voice seemed to rain from the sky.
“After thousands of years, I am reborn,” she said, watching people gather on the bridge as her words split the air like thunder. “I am Chang’e, Lady in the Moon, Elder Sister of Christ and prophet of the only Son of God! I came to your market, and I showed you a miracle. Now I offer you a choice. Join me, and become your own saviors. We will take this land, rescue it from heathens, and build a New Jerusalem where we shall have eternal life. If you refuse, you forsake God, and you will be abandoned to face the wrath of Heaven.”
Far below, an armored River Syndicate tank had pulled up to the barricade, and swiveled a pulser towards the north tower. A drone whirred up from the tank and hovered around her, squawking.
