Chapter 7 #5
Across from him, Roses knelt in front of a massive metal brazier as she threw wads of the hell money into the rapidly growing
bonfire. Like cobwebs, the atom-thin papers caught flame quickly, instantly turning into fluttering embers, emitting dark
smoke that made Wayward cough.
“Our family believes,” Roses said as she stared into the fire, “that more than God, more than Buddha, more than any other
deity, that honoring our ancestors is the most important duty we have in both our earthly and eternal lives.”
“Sorry, but who is ‘we’?” Wayward said. “I thought we were all raised Christian.”
Roses scoffed. “Christianity is just a superstition of ours that Big Boss Sun adopted as a young man to put Westerner investors at ease. Ancestral worship is the true religion of our family and our people. It is the foundation of our belief system.”
“And how do we worship our ancestors?”
Roses clasped her hands together. “We worship by remembering them in our lifetimes, and by continuing our lineage when we
pass on. Ancestral worship is unique in that it is self-contained within every individual family. As descendants of the Sun
Clan, we are the only ones who can honor those who came before us in our family house. We are the only ones who can feed our
ancestors, like when we burn money for them to have prosperity in Heaven.”
She motioned at the hell notes in his hands, and Wayward dutifully threw them into the fire. “And now that your line is ending
with Uncle George . . .” he said.
“Yes.” Roses nodded. “Without any more Suns to remember our ancestors, our lineage will be forgotten after George passes,
and all of us who failed to continue it will become hungry ghosts in the afterlife. This is not a concern of yours or Sunbern’s,
because you are a Kwok and a Bernard. But it is the fate awaiting George and all the women in your family: your mother, your
Auntie Hyacinth, April, Felicia, Lola, and me. We were born as Suns, and it was our duty to keep our name alive.”
“But what does it mean to be a hungry ghost?”
“A hungry ghost wanders in the darkness between the living realm and Heaven,” Roses explained, “as a tortured soul who is
surrounded by food they cannot touch, because this food is offered to honored ancestors, not them. The hungry ghost can never
eat or drink for themselves, as they have no living descendants to honor and feed them. For eternity, they will starve and
thirst as punishment for allowing their family to end.”
“So if the patriarchal lineage of your father ends, it is the women who suffer in the afterlife,” Wayward said. “That definitely
does sound Chinese.”
Roses lifted up her palms matter-of-factly. “No one ever said life was fair. Why should death be any different?”
“So where do I come into all this? What do you and my mother have planned for me?”
Roses bowed her head. “Not just your mother and me. When you were pushed back from that ledge this morning, it was not the
wind. It was your fate refusing to let you fall. It was the spirits of our ancestors saving you. Don’t you see? You are the
last hope of the Sun Clan, Wayward.”
“Even if that’s true,” Wayward said, “I am a Kwok. How can I be the one who continues your family line?”
With this, Roses stood up and produced the manila envelope that he had seen earlier on her dining table. Standing over Wayward,
she pulled out a California court form and handed it to him, above which read “Petition for Change of Name.”
“If you agree to do this,” Roses said, “there are three conditions that must happen as soon as possible. First, you are to
legally change your name to simply Wayward Sun, no more ‘dash Kwok’ anymore. That way any children you have will also bear
our last name. Secondly, you must agree that the first child that you conceive via IVF will be a boy.”
“They can do that?” Wayward asked, amazed. “They can dictate the gender of the child?”
Roses shook her head, leaning against one of the pillars of the awning overhead. “No, they can only determine it. We will
find you a young and healthy egg donor that we all approve of. The doctors will fertilize as many embryos as they can and
at that point they will be able to tell which ones are male and which are female. And the first embryo we implant into a surrogate
will be a baby boy.”
“So you want to harness cutting-edge technology and modern science in order to preserve the backward ways of our past,” Wayward
mused, chucking in more hell notes to revive the bonfire. “Somehow I don’t think an old-school man like Big Boss Sun would
approve of all of this.”
Roses could not help but smile a little.
“I think you would be surprised. You were young when your grandfather began to lose his memory. You did not know him well. He was not the man that many say he was. To someone like Big Boss Sun, continuing our lineage with the heir of the Sunfang Trust was mandatory—by any means necessary.”
Wayward widened his eyes. “The Sunfang Trust? But I thought Big Boss Sun left it all to Auntie Hyacinth?”
Roses shook her head. “That is only meant to be temporary. Big Boss Sun’s will was clear. If you have a baby boy, that boy
will inherit the Sunfang Trust.” Roses went back into her folder, thumbed through the papers, then pulled out a weathered
document that was so old it was turning yellow. She handed it to Wayward.
Wayward scanned the document when he saw the many-zeroed number at the bottom of the page, an astronomical sum that made his
head spin. “What!” he cried. “This money has just been sitting there untouched this whole time?”
Roses hesitated, then replied, “The Sunfang Trust is far from untouched. It is in danger as we speak.”
Wayward leaned in, fascinated. “You’re talking about Auntie Hyacinth and that wellness center.”
Roses nodded gravely. “Weiwei, if we do not produce an heir to the Sunfang Trust, we will lose it to her crazy cult!”
Wayward whistled. “And I had thought this was all just family rumors.”
“No, nephew, it is a very real threat. We face an existential crisis, yes . . . but with your Auntie Hyacinth’s association
with that cult, we also face losing our family inheritance. The Sunfang Trust belongs to your future son, not to them!”
“Still,” Wayward said, “it feels wrong to just give someone all this money just because they were born a boy.”
“I think it depends on the boy,” Roses reasoned.
“Like I said to you in my office, you are different than the past men of our family, Weiwei. You have a different philosophy, one that would change Sunfang Global for the better. Imagine the child you would raise to pass on the torch and carry on your legacy.”
Wayward took a deep breath. “You said there were three conditions. What is the third?”
“Lastly,” Roses concluded, “is that there is no time to waste. If you agree to father the next male of the Sun Clan, it needs
to happen within the next zodiac year, my zodiac year, as dictated by Master Chu.”
“That only gives us a year,” Wayward said, trying to process everything at once. “Is that even enough time?”
“Barely,” Roses said. “We need to begin immediately, starting with harvesting your sperm. I already have the best fertility
doctors on standby. All you need to do is show up to the clinic and . . .”
Wayward quickly held up a hand. “I get the picture. No need to elaborate, Auntie Roses.”
Roses nodded and put the documents back into the folder, closing it firmly. “There you have it, Weiwei. That is everything.”
Wayward suddenly felt a soft nuzzle against his ankle. He looked down to see the same black-patched puppy from earlier had
crept up to him, rubbing its cheek on his leg.
“It is a lot to consider,” Wayward replied softly as he reached down to pat the puppy on its head. “But already I feel like
I should not do it.”
Roses’s face fell. “Why not?”
Wayward closed his eyes. “You still haven’t asked me why I tried to kill myself this morning.”
Roses quieted. She reached out and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I’ve never told you this but when you first came
out, your mother came to me and cried in my guest house for a week.”
Wayward chuckled darkly. “Sounds about right.”
“No, Weiwei, she was not crying because you are gay. She was crying because every mother wants their child to have everything this life has to offer. To us, the most important thing in life was having our children. She could not bear to think that you might miss out on something so important to our human experience.”
“Maybe I am the way I am because I wasn’t meant to be a father.” Wayward shrugged, his eyes downcast. The puppy stared back
up at him, refusing to leave his side.
Roses knelt down and scooped up the little runt, placing it in Wayward’s lap. “When this spirited little one was born, my
breeder was disappointed. All of Houyi’s descendants have been perfect albino breeds, but this one has an odd birthmark above
his eyes.” She reached out to stroke at the offending spot with her finger and the puppy growled at her in adorable indignation.
“Maybe he knew he was flawed,” Roses continued, “because he has bitten spiteful holes into everyone he has met. That is, until
you.”
The puppy flipped onto his back indulgently, and Wayward rubbed his belly, soft as a downy pillow.
His aunt smiled at the sight of them. “But now that I look at you two, I realize it isn’t a birthmark.”
“What is it then?” Wayward asked, feeling his heart melt a little.
“It is a third eye,” Roses replied, “and with it he sees in you what I see. That more than any other man I know, you were
meant to be a father. Weiwei, I hope you have many children, not just one boy. Our lineage would be the better for it.”
“No one has ever said these things to me,” Wayward whispered softly.
“Nephew, I am saying them now,” Roses chided. “I do not know why you tried to hurt yourself, but I do know that life is easier
if you have someone else to live for.”