Chapter 30 A Mutual Proposition
A MUTUAL PROPOSITION
One year ago …
Death is final, so we fear it. Even if a spirit reincarnates to a new life, that is no comfort to the self that is lost, or the possibilities that went with it. A fresh start is no guarantee, either, of a better experience.
But there are worse things than death. Your torment was one such thing.
Time doesn’t freeze for the being caught in a bottle gourd. The experience is not like falling asleep or slipping into a coma, where unconsciousness is a gift to protect the mind. Humans either don’t realize that, or don’t care, when they trap spirits within.
You are aware and awake in that gourd, for every excruciating moment. Pinioned in pitch blackness with nothing to see or hear, no one to speak to but your own thoughts. In Chinese and Christian hells, there are at least other people to share the misery. Demons to bargain with, gods to plead with.
This is simply nothingness. Pure isolation and loneliness, distilled.
No wonder ghosts and demons who are bound always come out so angry.
You’re not immune to the strain, and periodically lose your mind.
Minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years of screaming, singing, crying, pleading in the empty dark.
Insanity descends on you like a flood, and then recedes in time as your spirit mind cycles through suffering and healing and yet more suffering.
It is an unimaginable experience, and I am sorry for any sentient being—living or dead, human or demon—who must endure that.
A lesser ghost would have fragmented. Many of the other captured ghosts do just that: quietly expiring within those gourds, which themselves are locked away in a secure storage room in a well-guarded basement facility.
Their souls cannot even reincarnate, and they are nothing more than bottles of discombobulated energy.
But you, who have always been fierce and focused, overflowing with energy and now newly warped by multiple betrayals all feeding your hate …
You, you persevere. The little girl who couldn’t stop moving, who jittered restlessly, is now the not-so-little ghost who still can’t let go, relax, disperse.
What’s left of your soul is too restless.
Even knowing it is futile and that you might easily spend a hundred years, or indeed forever, in this stupid fucking fruit husk, you refuse to collapse into nothing.
Because the alternative is that there can never be justice for the things done to you; no resolution, no vengeance.
That is more unbearable than any death or torment.
No one else will ever know this struggle you faced, this great unheralded battle in your life. But for what it’s worth, Siu Yin, this goddess saw you, and was impressed.
You had almost made peace with such inconceivable torment, when fate again intervened.
Dates and hours are hard to quantify in a dark place with no functioning senses, no companionship or presence. All you know is that the suffering and madness has gone on interminably, until it suddenly stops.
There comes a ring of brightness, forming around. It is the first light you have seen in what feels like eons, easing the unending and unresponsive darkness. That frightens you, makes you worry that death is at hand. Nothing you can do about it except brace.
Then a spiraling sensation, as if you are being drawn upward through a drain, in reverse. Corporeal reality slams down with the force of a truck smashing into a concrete cliff. The world reasserts itself.
Floor. You are lying on the floor, cheek pressed to chilly concrete.
There is pain, all over; it is too dry in here.
For a moment, the sheer overwhelm of existing in any capacity is too much, and your mind can’t take it.
After so long existing in nothingness, this small enclosed space is a vast, sensory-laden expanse.
Try to scream, find you can’t breathe. As usual. The familiar drenched feeling in your dead lungs. Look down; clawed, green-tinged hands. A bony and monstrous form. Yourself as you are, in ghost form.
That’s bad. It is too dry in here, no water anywhere.
Already, your spirit skin is cracking. The room itself is a small stone cell, eight feet by eight feet.
No furniture, only a single pedestal on which to rest the gourd.
Fu talismans hang from the walls, and a ring of salt surrounds the pedestal.
The talismans are rent, but the salt circle is intact.
Someone has set you free.
Well. Partially, anyway. You can’t leave this stupid ring of salt, not in your weakened condition.
“So you are the famous Girl with a Thousand Faces. The memorial plaque they made doesn’t do justice.”
Tilt your head up painfully, straining against the rapid dehydration and sensory overload.
A youngish woman peers down from her vantage point in the doorway.
You did not notice her before, because there was too much for you to look at.
She is in her late twenties, older than you when you first died, with a hard edge to her cynical smile.
Smartly dressed in a gray tweed suit. Lean arms fold against a slim body, and her front teeth are charmingly crooked.
The opened gourd sits on the floor next to her, along with a jug of water.
Water … I need water! Point at the jug. She must have brought it for you.
“You can have water later,” she says, impatiently. Her Cantonese is crisp and clean, with no trace of accent; a native Hong Konger. “I brought you out of binding to talk.”
No, you don’t understand. I need water, now, or I will die!
She hesitates, caught off guard by your insistence.
Please. The fight with the exorcists has left me weak. Look at me! Extend your hands, the skin already like withered parchment, cracked all over. I will talk about anything you wish. But first, water!
“Fine,” she says, exasperated, and picks up a jug next to her feet. It is full to the brim, and she throws it over you. “Better now?”
Water pools around you on the floor, but does not breach the circle of salt. Interesting. Normal salt would wash away, but this stuff is presumably blessed or sanctified in some way.
Thank you. It’s an effort to keep your voice sounding humble. The water is good, but it’s only a temporary relief, and you resent this arrogant young woman who acts so dismissively. How long was I in there?
Her lip curls. “Today is the tenth of June, and the year is 1974.”
You clutch the pedestal, reeling in shock. Exorcists trapped you in 1945, which means it’s been twenty-nine years, locked in that tiny pocket of torment. Twenty-nine years.
“I tried three ghosts, before yours,” the young woman says, watching you avidly. “The others had dispersed into nothing. Yet you have endured, after nearly three decades. Very impressive.”
I will not succumb to darkness. The water that pools around you on the floor has nowhere to go; the concrete is sealed. You sit in that shallow puddle, taking what comfort you can from the barest of liquid. I will not yield to time. Not after all I have endured.
“Wing Yun said as much,” she says, then grins as you sit bolt upright. “Ah, you recognize that name!”
He was my brother in arms. We fought in the war together. Is he still alive?
“He is, and he’s petitioned for many years for your release. In fact, it was his petition that first drew my attention to the ghosts down here, and gave me the idea.”
An uncomfortable itch settles between your shoulder blades. What idea? Who are you, and why have you freed me?
“At last, you ask sensible questions! My name is Tsang Kit Ling, and I am a councilwoman on Hong Kong’s Executive Council.
” She unhooks a folding stool from a nail on the wall, and sits on it cross-legged.
“You are the Girl with a Thousand Faces, and you fought for the Hong Kong resistance during the war. Very brave.”
Hong Kong betrayed me.
“The British government did, when it took over again,” she corrects. “But I suppose my government did yield to that order. Not like there was a lot of choice.”
Same difference!
She ignores that. “I have come to offer a deal, Thousand-Faced Girl. If you are willing to negotiate.”
That gives you a moment’s pause. You will never trust living humans, ever again, but you do need out of here, and this smug young lady seems to have the proverbial keys. Whatever she’s offering must be better than a return to the bottle.
I am listening. What kind of deal?
“It’s very simple. Either you go back into banishment until your spirit collapses and you die a true death, without even reincarnation”—she gestures languidly at the gourd, and you shudder—“or, you agree to do me a favor. For whatever it is worth, I think you will like the task I have in mind.”
That doesn’t sound like much of a “choice” to you. But though your anger is a towering mountain, you rein it in. The memory of twenty-nine years’ worth of lonely torment is more than enough motivation to keep your ghost urges under control. For now.
Because honestly, as much as Mei Chi dominated your thoughts for years, you only have one overriding desire at the moment: to stay out of this hellish bottle they’ve kept you in.
Going back is a horror that frightens even you to think about.
Worry about the rest once you’ve persuaded this arrogant young woman to set you free.
Of course. Smile as best you can, with your monster teeth. I would be honored to know what favor the wise councilor requests.
Kit Ling actually claps her hands in delight. “I’m so pleased! Very well. Have you heard of Kowloon Walled City? I’m sure it was around even in your day.”
Surprise flits through you, though you don’t allow it to show.
I have, yes. It is a small neighborhood where the undead were driven by Japanese forces, who feared their retribution. Refugees also gathered there. We coordinated many resistance operations with the people in that place, though I never met any of them in person.