The Terracotta Bride by Zen Cho

Author:Zen Cho [Cho, Zen]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2016-03-10T05:00:00+00:00

Siew Tsin had believed that Junsheng had married Yonghua for vanity. She had not wondered why it had occurred to Yonghua's inventor to create her. If you could make something that resembled a human and endow it with every grace and beauty possible, what else would you invent but an exquisite young woman? There would be a sure market.

"You think it is about money and face, and perhaps lust," Ling'en had said the day Siew Tsin had followed her into the street to wait for her sedan chair. Ling'en had spoken amidst that heaving crowd of souls and bureaucrats as if she were discussing hair-cuts instead of conspiracy and rebellion, her voice unself-consciously clear. "But they are much more ambitious than that."

Think, Ling'en had told her, what could you do with a thing that resembled a human body? Stronger than a human, more beautiful, and most importantly—immortal. Impervious to illness and the persecutions of demons alike. Such a thing was not pinned to the spokes of the Wheel, unlike the bodies of every natural thing. Rebirth did not apply to it.

As spirits, Ling'en and Siew Tsin and Junsheng felt alive. They ate and slept in houses with thatched and tiled roofs, as the living did. But everyone knew the sturdy-feeling walls, heavy doors and solid roofs were paper. If they were taken out of the fragile unreal world in which they were suspended, every pleasure and pain of the flesh they believed they experienced would show itself to be an illusion. Light their afterlives with a spark and they would burst into flame—and vanish.

"We can last as long as our money and luck hold out," said Ling'en. "But sooner or later some demon or god will take us away from ourselves and flush what remains into our next lives, whether we will or no. Sooner or later, we will die.

"But this man or woman, whoever it was who created our Yonghua—they asked themselves: what if we could transfer our consciousness into something that is not vulnerable to the demands of the Wheel? If there was something like that, it would render the idea of past lives and future lives obsolete. All lives would become one."

"They want to become Buddhas?" said Siew Tsin.

"Without putting in the work," said Ling'en. "There is a group claiming that they have found the secret of immortality. They have worked out a way to insert their minds into an immortal shell that does not need food or air to live, that is not affected by material things the way humans are.

"Once a person has locked their consciousness into this shell, their memories are sealed in with them forever. Even if the shell drank Lady Meng's tea of forgetfulness, the mind would be untouched. The person could climb up into the living world again and live as themselves forever. They say to live in this shell is like being human, but even better."

"How do you know about this?" whispered Siew Tsin.

"The revolutionaries asked me for money," said Ling'en.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.