by Sam Abraham
Shen’s face grew red. “Fool,” he seethed at Xie. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Each pilgrim has the power to save themselves. Such is the teaching of Lady Li,” Xie said. He turned to the bandit. “Brother Sun, Lady Li came to me in a dream and said that she had a special prophecy for you. If you return to the Holy Lake to cultivate the birthplace of the Jade, and lead any who wish to go with you, Heaven will supply Communion. Indeed, when I woke I sent for my scouts, who told me that a stash of wafers and money had recently been discovered there.”
The bandit Sun looked at Xie with relief, for he had grown tired of pretending to be pious. “Gladly,” he said.
Shen slumped and said, “Will you at least allow the people to gather and hear my side?”
“Of course,” Anmei said, with a smile that spoke of debts not soon forgotten. “I only hope your will is pure, to separate sheep from goats.” Then she left with Xie and returned to the people.
Chapter 43 – Guai (夬)
Caught In The Rain
“I must tell you, this revelation comes as a bit of a surprise.”
“That is understandable,” Jia Anmei whispered, as she crouched in a dark basement of the City of Heaven on Earth, her holobeads projecting a man in shadow. Only in the dead of night did she dare contact the Centrists, living as she was among the Jade. “That it is none other than Lao Jinglai who has been seeding unrest, who has been the force behind the Jade rebellion, comes as a surprise to all of us. But the Jade need not trouble us anymore. They will soon arrive at the lake that used to be Anqing. I trust you can spare a few moments to eradicate them.”
That she was the first to bring this secret to the State Security Ministry was curious, she mused. Perhaps the shadows of Guoanbu could not hear everything, spread as they were across the vast reaches of the country. But she had no such distractions. To her, nothing was as dangerous as a false messiah.
“And Lao?” her handler’s hologram said. “Where is he?”
“No one knows,” Anmei said, shaking her head. “But if you discredit him publicly, it will not matter. And when you do, make sure you let slip that a missing Centrist named Shen was the rat.”
Now her handler’s hologram considered her. “We had not imagined that the Church would be the source of such cunning. You missed a calling with State Security Ministry.”
Anmei puffed up at the thought that her works would be taken for treachery. “There is no cunning in me,” she said. “Only faith that God saves those who guard his flock.” But as she closed the holo in the dark, she wondered whether God would forgive her for the lengths she was going to save one man’s soul.
The next evening, Shen stood on the courtyard dais, looking over the thousands on the lawn who worshipped the Lady in the Moon. Elevated above the swarm, he had never seen a sight like the swell of white, united in revelation. What a feat, he thought, to bend the proletariat into a hand of God.
Shen’s heart sank as he watched Xie stand next to him and bellow, “Chang’e has returned!” Across the pavilion, men and women raised their arms and cried. Many warriors wearing white were sanguine, eager perhaps to learn what cosmic mysteries had been revealed to their prophet while meditating in the sky. But the new arrivals, the desperate starving masses waiting for their turn, swayed with Xie’s words. “And her first wish is to reward the righteous.”
Xie turned to Sun, put his hand on the bandit’s shoulder and said, “The Lady in the Moon has seen your courage and wishes to fulfill her promise by elevating you to the rank of Jade Captain. She wishes you to return to the Holy Lake, where you will own the land around it.” The one-eyed warrior looked out over the masses and bellowed, “Any who wish to return to the Holy Lake, go with Brother Sun, and you will be protected, able to live in peace.”
“Or,” Xie let the choice sink in, “You may follow me. Jia Anmei and I go to reunite with the Lady in the Moon. Lady Li is in the east, where she has found a Great Evil. Moneylenders build cities where the rich have forgotten the meek. They eat their fill, exploiting our labor. Their children grow strong while ours in the Ghost Lands die of starvation. Only the rich marry and continue their bloodlines, for only bankers can afford homes. Worst of all, they are unsatisfied with earthly lust, and build sky bridges to steal Heaven. The Jade Prophet walks through that land so that she might slay the Great Evil of greed, and bring the lost the same light she brought us.”
“This will not be the easy path,” Anmei cut in, “but it is the righteous path. Only those who wish to take Communion in the presence of Li Aizhu should join our humble pilgrimage. But for those able to make this journey, it will be a spiritual pilgrimage, as sure as any asked by Christ.”
And the crowd’s roar, echoing between towers, was so loud it would have deafened thunder.
“You should know,” Captain Shen said, practically pushing Anmei and Xie aside as he implored, “Captain Xie does not know where Li Aizhu is, nor does he have any proof that she will not return to us here. The last time Captain Xie and I spoke to her, she gave her word that she would come back to us, and she always keeps her promises. Xie has his heart in the right place,” Shen said, for he knew he could not demonize the consort of their prophet, “but he is impatient. Trust in the land that Li conquered for you, good brothers and sisters. She will come back.”
Xie looked at Shen, then out at the crowd, and feared that Li would never forgive him if he failed her. “A choice lies before you,” the One-Eyed Captain said. “Remember that I have the love of our prophet, and only I can lead you back into her presence. We leave for our pilgrimage tomorrow at dawn.”
***
The schism took place just outside the City of Heaven on Earth. At dawn, as orange clouds blessed the valley, the bandit Sun stood on a nearby mountain, facing west and holding a blue flag symbolizing the Lake. Shen stood to the south, holding a green flag, and Xie stood to the east, holding a white flag. As the sun rose and the pilgrims gathered to find the flag they would follow, the valley was soon mobbed with over five thousand men, women and children. Within hours, it was clear that the Bandit Sun would lead over a thousand back to the Holy Lake. Barely a hundred joined Shen, mostly souls who had not yet worn the white, who were born in the Ghost Lands surrounding Nanjing and wished to stay near their ancestral villages. Shen was also keeping the maker, for it was too bulky to carry, and this was a more tangible solution to hunger for some. But nearly everyone else flocked to Xie’s flag. They were tired of waiting.
So it was that Shen watched most of the Jade host leave him, splintering between those returning west, to the Holy Lake, and those traveling east, in search of the Lady in the Moon.
As for the bandit Sun, he led his thousand followers back on the path the army had marched, past the razed cities of Tongling and Chizhou. Three days later, they reached the Lake, and passed into the tent city around the abandoned longshui factory. Strips of canvas were strewn across the mountainside, stained with shit and blood. Refuse was everywhere, the leavings of those who had seen the Jade Prophet perform miracles here and rushed to follow when she left. Dead bodies decayed on the rocks, decomposing into skeletons. A horse tethered to a pile of wood bayed into the night, trapped in a haunted land.
Sun lost no time anointing his new empire. He ordered his men to build twisting bonfires and took women to be his concubines. Upon a pile of stone and bones, he brought a worn leather chair to be his throne. His long hair was unruly in the wind, his old robe of yellow silk tattered at the joints. He sent scouts to search for the wafers that Xie had said were hidden in the abandoned factory. And as they waited to enjoy Communion, rings of men and women danced around the bandit, writhing and throwing their hands in the air, chanting prayers as distant skies rumbled with thunder.
Sun was throwing coins, reading fortunes of how the Holy Lake would thrive for ten millennia, when the clouds were rent with a scream. Slim white threads of exhaust appeared in the sky. Sun rose from his throne to watch, scattering his c
oins upon the ground. The next moment, cluster bombs fell to earth and tore the land apart. Rail guns rang out as fighter jets veered around, their shells spanking granite and grinding people into meat. Suddenly the followers of Sun crumbled into a melee, running for their lives. Smoke choked the air as the land was stained red.
The bandit felt a bite in his side and stumbled, holding his flank where a slug had gouged his ribs. As he saw his followers massacred Sun sank to his knees, furious at how he had been betrayed. Watching tongues of fire lick the lake where bombs hit the drowned towers, he was sure that Xie had sold him out, for it was Xie who had enticed him with promises of hidden treasure. Then the factory exploded, consuming the bandit in flame, and hiding forever the secret that his true Judas Iscariot was, in fact, the woman Jia Anmei.
Chapter 44 – Gou (姤)
A Brake Of Bronze
As Xie led the main force of Jade east to reunite with the Jade Prophet, he tried not to think about the lambs who had gone with the bandit Sun to be sacrificed. Even though the way was long and leading thousands of pilgrims consumed his time, he found it hard to ignore his guilt. He had, after all, betrayed many innocent people whose only crime had been their search for salvation. He only prayed that they would find Lady Li again, and that she would be true to her word.
Longing for distraction from his sins, Xie threw himself into the mundane logistics of the journey. To manage this pilgrimage of more than four thousand people, Xie tallied the Jade into sixty-four pods, each pod made of eight cells, and each cell made up of eight pilgrims. The One-Eyed Captain commanded them to travel in their cells of eight, so that they would be unremarkable, almost invisible, for who takes notice of a few poor vagabonds? He sent emissaries to bribe the landlords of occuhives along their path, so that the Jade might rest and hide. It was not a hard choice for the landlords, as many of these hives built in the boom years had been long since abandoned.
The first leg of the pilgrimage took two days to reach Lishui, then skirted the southern hills to Yixing. As small bands they walked through the paddies, rice bulbs sparse in the toxic soil. Inland lakes grew large, and in some places the only way forward was on narrow land bridges.
The man called Han was one of the eight pilgrims who walked with Captain Xie. He wore the suit he had brought with him to the Holy Lake, now bleached and muted. As he trekked the sun beat down upon his face, and he felt it had been a very long time since he had looked upon the beauty of the Lady in the Moon, or felt the piercing light of Communion. He was not hungry, and with a few sips of bitter water he felt strength in his legs. But he was restless, and wondered if they would ever again know the bliss of revelation that had purified the lands of the River Syndicate.
Han wanted to share these thoughts with Xie, for his friend was the consort of Lady Li and knew her designs. But the captain was often sullen and quiet. Han did not want to disturb him, so instead he found solace in contemplation. He watched farmers plant rice and barley under resin clouds, and wondered if the Heavenly Family knew they were starving. Han saw how small they were, nameless, dirty, and hungry, unremarkable except for the light in their hearts.
At Yixing the pilgrims reached the second leg of their journey, on the western shores of Taihu Archipelago. Han remembered his studies, and knew that once this had merely been Taihu Lake. But rising waters had transformed the Yangzi delta into a vast Pantanal, a smattering of islands, and nowhere else on Earth had the climate changed the land as much as here, in the Pacific Floodzone. This had always been low country, dotted with water towns since time immemorial. But in the last century, the land between Shanghai and Suzhou had become a shifting landscape. That a seawall had been built around Shanghai only drove brackish waters further into the ancient hamlets sitting below the water table.
In the old days, these lands had been laced with picturesque pagodas, red lanterns, fishing boats moored to stone pavilions. Now only remnants of that beauty poked above the waters. Teahouse roads disappeared into the flood as the land slanted. Trees stretched their gnarled branches above the surface like old hands reaching for air. Tile roofs were footpaths, and the curling arches of ancient Confucian complexes were perches where fishermen dangled their lures.
Han walked through this forgotten land, ignoring his discomfort, focusing on the lonely shrines dotting the hills. From island to island, the hinterland of rural Jiangsu slowly disappeared into the Pacific. Yet as the land grew sparser, Han’s heart grew lighter, as if there was nothing left to burden it.
It took a week to curl around the southern edge of the archipelago, where they turned east into the shifting landscape. Han noticed that Xie was gone often now, taking a skiff to explore the waters around Shanghai, searching for the Lady in the Moon. When the One-Eyed Captain did return, Han saw him possessed by heavy silence. Without his friend to talk to, hour by hour Han sank deeper into the pilgrimage, listening to the lakes, to his inner solitude, to the sound of wind. And it seemed to him that the light he had once seen only during Communion now seeped from the surface of the world. It was quieter perhaps, more subtle, but the light was the same.
One evening, Xie returned on his skiff, appearing more sullen than usual. He approached the others as they camped on a lonely island. “We are near the ruins of Tonglizhen,” he said softly. “We will take boats and reunite with the others.”
“And the prophet?” Han asked, following Xie as he wandered away to bed down for the night. “Will she be there as well?”
“She will come,” Xie said. “The waters here remind her of the Holy Lake.”
Han smiled at his friend’s words. “Will we spread the light of Communion again, and bring more souls to revelation?”
“I hope so,” Xie said. But he grew melancholy, and could not allay his fear that without access to longshui, the Jade would be destroyed, swallowed by the sea. “But perhaps I was wrong, Han. I say this as a friend, so please do not tell the others. But between you and me, I have begun to wonder if it is too late for prayer. If we cannot share the Lady’s Communion with all and bring forth a better world for any who wish it, then what have we done but feed the Great Evil of inequity? Create a world where the lucky are transformed and the unlucky starve? Would it not be better for God to flood the world again, and wash away all the sins of man?”
Han sat with his friend in the silent blue evening, as the reflection of distant lights danced on the water. “Is it really so hopeless?” he asked.
Captain Xie looked at Han strangely and said, “Those worthy of the light of Heaven cannot help but compare it to the earth, and find this world broken.”
At this Han only smiled and bade Xie goodnight, but soon Xie’s skepticism seemed to worm its way into him as well. The captain had a point, and if even the consort of the Lady in the Moon was losing his conviction, what did that say about the gospel they were preaching? He thought about what he had left behind, the comfort of his father’s house and the laughter of his childhood friends. And he wondered how, in the name of the Lady in the Moon, the same doubt that had driven him from his family had infected him yet again.
Chapter 45 – Cui (萃)
The King Approaches His Temple
The next day, Captain Xie took Han and the rest of his flock upon skiffs to the ruins of Tonglizhen. A cluster of abandoned hotels poked up from the waters, choked by lily pads and vines that scaled the warped wooden walls. More of the Jade arrived every hour, converging in an armada of boats they had built or stolen to travel into the Floodzone. Jia Anmei was with them.
Xie came out as she arrived, relieved to see her well after her journey. He held his hand out to her, and she took it as she stepped onto the dock. They talked softly as he escorted her towards the Tongli Tea House, a shoddy inn which had become their command center.
As they entered a long wooden hall with holos displaying different factions of Jade, Anmei asked, “When do we leave for Shanghai? I want to make sure the people get this medicine you told me about, and that you hold up your end
of the bargain.”
“The Jade Prophet herself will come to usher us forward,” Xie said.
“So she remains missing,” Anmei said, raising an eyebrow. “What will you do with all of the people who have followed you – followed us – to find her?”
Xie cleared his throat. “There is not enough land here,” he said. “More of our people arrive every day, and though we lash their rafts to the tea house, we cannot create enough space. But I have an idea. Back when I was stationed in Yunnan, one year we were called for flood relief, and made a temporary shelter anchored to pylons. We could do the same here. Create a floating camp, a place of refuge for any who wander in the flood, free to worship as they please. It would be inspirational, while we wait for the Lady’s return, for our people to build a refuge so that they might hear your stories and lessons, and remember their religious passion.”
“I see,” Anmei said. “But if Chang’e is coming, can she not snap her fingers and part the seas? Countless times I have heard how she flooded Anqing. Or is she not the Elder Sister of Christ after all?”
“Surely Lady Li could part the seas if she were here,” Xie said, forcing calm into his voice, and it was not lost on Anmei how he continued to defend her. “But though she has finished her meditation, she needs to know we live by her teaching. She always said that to feel the breath of God, we must save ourselves. Wasn’t it you who told me that good works are a way to Heaven?” he observed. “That helping our fellow human being can be a way to connect with the divine? What better way to help the people here than by creating land?”
“You always seem to know just what to say, Captain,” Anmei said, and Xie swore he heard disappointment in her voice.
