Raising a Rebel - 9. Chapter 9

Shunfeng’er and Qianliyan left the retinue, promising to meet back with Hua Cheng and Xie Lian in the capital, Jiankang after they make their reports of finding Xiwang among humans and waiting for an opportunity to eliminate it. It was an imperfect solution for an imperfect time, which everyone understood. Wukong mulled over the arbitrary nature of the gods and how unjust their actions were, not merely towards Xiwang, but to his brethren as well. Wukong was plagued with many thoughts as their carriage neared the city limits of the Jiankang.

Remembering what Xie Lian had told him earlier, Wukong asks his Sifu a question, “Sifu, why do the gods want to seal me away? I have done nothing wrong. Do they always act without assessing context before decisions?”

Xie Lian sighs, hating the answer he must give to Wukong, “Yes, they do act without present context and are harsh without reason. They believe that only through the strictest rules and guidelines can order be maintained between Yin and Yang, Dark and Light. As a child of Nuwa, you are potentially more powerful than any human god or divine entity. While your physical body can be killed, your essence cannot be destroyed and would reform upon death, adapting to the means that killed you upon rebirth. Fear of your mother’s intervention on your behalf or your siblings, along with your innate abilities, means that only sealing you is an option,” Xie places his hand on Wukong’s shoulder,” In the past, one of your siblings did something awful to the natural order, bringing the world to the edge of destruction. I didn’t want to fight him initially as I could see sound reasons along with many others, but he gave me no choice with his brutality against humanity. I joined the forces of heaven to defeat him and his partner.”

Xiwang, who had transformed back into a white-skinned and white-haired boy, stares incredulously at Xie Lian, “I have never heard of such a being. As far as I understand, there are only 4 stone primates in the world including Wukong. Some of them are malevolent creatures and others have achieved godhood, so whom did you fight?”

Xie frowns at the memory of his deed against someone, “You know him as Daji, the Nine-Tailed fox.”

Xiwang groans, “Daji was a female fox demon, why do you refer to her as a male?”

Xie Lian wasn’t sure how to go about explaining gender identity to these boys, he had centuries of experience with friends such as Shi Qingxuan, the former God of the Wind, who preferred to appear in his female persona rather than his biological male form. Shi Qingxuan enjoyed the ability to assume both forms but preferred his female persona. People sometimes mistake him and his brother Shi Wudu for husband and wife due to his female presentation preference. Having traveled across the world and seeing all the many exotic cultures, Xie Lian understood such desires were not strange or rare. He and Hua Cheng have even formed a close friendship with Siddhartha’s greatest disciple, the Indian prince, and God, Avalokiteśvara¹. They refer to their friend as Ava in her female persona and Aval in his male persona. It was due to their close friendship that they agree to scout Fu Jian’s territory and offer humanitarian aid. There was nothing wrong with having a non-biological gender identity, but Daji’s infamy had tarnished the idea for centuries among Taoists.

Xie tried his best to explain the complex ideas and issues, “Daji viewed herself as a male, and her partner King Zhou of Shang accepted the role of being a female in their relationship. There is nothing wrong with that and many gods in the past had female personas despite being male originally as humans. Beyond the central plains, some gods still transit between male and female or assume a form that is neither gender, while ruling their domains just as Daji did. Daji ruled the central plains and pleasured himself in earthly delights such as food, wine, and exotic entertainment. That kind of life in itself was not wrong, despite what many Taoists will say now or forbid with harsh laws. What was wrong was how Daji went about his rule and found his pleasure. Daji persecuted millions for disobedience, conscripted armies to expand the kingdom of Shang, and tortured innocent people for entertainment. Daji started small, enlisting innocent people to perform sexual acts on one another or with him, then he grew bolder, realizing human pain and pleasure were linked senses. He would castrate males and cut unborn children out of a mother’s womb, while his victims were awake and made numb by herbs so he could witness their anguish as they slowly died in front of him. When he began indulging in the murder of children and grinding their meat as food for their parents’ consumption, it became too much for many to bear, including San Lang and me.² That started the civil war among the gods, where Daji’s brutality was even worse to those who defied orders. Many gods of the ancient heavenly dynasty sided with Daji, including our best friends out of loyalty to the old order, until the end. With all the suffering Daji caused, San Lang and I could not bear to see it continue and joined the rebel gods with the forces of the underworld at our command. We defeated the heavenly gods that supported him first, then directed our earthly forces to defeat his husband. After much persuasion, Nuwa relented, seeing how destructive her child had become upon the earth, she came to our aid as well. Daji was captured and sealed away for a thousand years after the Fengshen Bang. No god could kill him, except your mother, but Nuwa could not bear doing that to her child despite knowing the sadist that she had spawned. Even the worst of your brothers were not as bad as Daji.”

Wukong was shocked at the revelations that were laid before him, understanding now the inherent prejudice that existed among the gods against Daji and all those who followed the fox demon. No one should be forced into acts they did not desire, nor should personal pain be used as a form of pleasure for another under such extremes. That Is why generations of hatred continued against Xiwang and his family, whose ancestor’s crime was allowing Daji to continue his reign of terror. Wukong would never be like his sibling, he suffered pain and enslavement at the hands of a cruel system. He cannot imagine finding pleasure in harming others.

Wukong also understood innately as a side-effect of Daji’s cruelty, people who wanted the freedom to choose their gender identity were also forbidden due to this one extreme example. He had always wanted to be someone else. He wanted to be human but did not conceive of the choice that he could be a son or a daughter. Both natures appealed to him, but would others perceive that as him mimicking his older sibling’s interests?

Xie Lian noticed Wukong’s disturbed expression at his revelations, but he knew that Wukong must confront this truth about his sibling to understand why certain things are organized in such ways. The heavenly gods under the Jade Emperor were heavy-handed and Xie Lian knew that it had probably aided in the current chaos across the central plains. Yet, being present during those ancient times and witnessing what Daji did, he can’t condemn them.

As they neared the city gates, a large crowd was waiting outside the city. However, these people were not well-wishers in celebration of the recent victory against the Huan army. They were refugees, some fled from northern cities that had been taken, and others from foreign lands trying to find a safe place to settle away from Fu Jian’s armies. Some screamed for clothing and money, but all screamed for food.

Xie hears the screams, then calls out to his husband, “San Lang what is going on? I thought you had given the confiscated food to the commoners.”

Hua Cheng eyes the crowd in confusion as well, then rides ahead to Wang Tsai, who cowers at his commander’s approach, “Wang Tsai, what is happening? Why are all these people begging of hunger outside the city gates?”

The young soldier hesitates, but relents as he notices his general griping his black scimitar, “General Xie…My uncle is the Jin kingdom’s minister of granaries and owns all the warehouses in Jiankang. When we came into the city with our loot, we were ordered to store all the food inside the warehouses, but later, we were told by my uncle that the food had been requisitioned for other uses.”

Hua Cheng had known many corrupt officials in his time, he had personally tortured several in the underworld for their deeds. Yin Yu codified many of the punishments that Hua Cheng established for these wrongdoers into the torments of mortal sins and punishments in the afterlife for those who wronged others in life. When Yin Yu became Yan wang, ruler of the underworld, he improved on Hua Cheng’s punishments by setting up a graduating system of punishment for offenders, based on the stories that he heard from Hua Cheng and Xie Lian about how other gods organized their afterlife for mortals. Hua Cheng wished he could punish Wang’s uncle with some nail pulling, tendon breaking, or some boiling oil right now³.

He orders Wang Tsai to lead some of their men to apprehend his uncle and prepare food distribution for the refugees outside the city. Wang notes that this would be at odds with his other uncle Wang Dao, the current Chancellor of the Jin Kingdom, who effectively is co-regent with Prime Minister, Xie An, Xie Lian’s current identity.

In an angry fit, Hua Cheng pulls out his sword, E Ming, “Bring him to me here outside the city gates, so I can punish him because we are at war and the food that we acquired is a military asset.”

While Wang Tsai went about to apprehend his uncle at his manor in the city to be brought outside, Xie Lian, Wukong, Lady Liu, and the re-transformed white snake Xiwang left their carriage to see the crowd. Xie Lian walked amongst the various groups, who, assuming he was Xie An, demanded various things from him. Xie Lian knew food was just a short-term solution to a larger problem involving the refugee population. He had remember what happened to his kingdom of Xianle when the provincial city of Yong’an suffered drought and refugees flooded his capital. He has had several lifetimes to consider what he would have done differently and how best to treat these refugees to preserve his kingdom. He knew that housing and sustainable relief efforts were needed, Jiankang may be the new capital of the Jin kingdom, but it was a small city with barely enough housing and facilities for its small population of less than 50,000. The treasures Hua Cheng took from the Huan family will go part of the way, but he needed to build trust with these people and work with the Jin administration to enhance the city.

Among the group, Wukong spotted a pale-skinned man, who wore a beige cloak. He appeared to be around his mid-40s with a full head of brown hair and beard. This man spoke in odd tones with words that Wukong had never heard of, either from his captivity by the Di or the people of the Jin Kingdom. He appears to have gathered a crowd of followers.

Wukong points out this man to Xie Lian, “Si…” he corrects himself, “Fu Qin, there is an odd-looking man in the crowd. Is he a demon or a god?”

Xie Lian spots the man Wukong points toward, then approaches the man with Wukong in tow. When he is close enough to confront this foreigner, Xie Lian greets him warmly.

“Salve⁴ civis, you have traveled far from the Empire.”

The man, having not heard spoken Latin in nearly a decade, was stunned to find someone in this chaotic land, who is able to. He was a Christian missionary, who came overland across countless kingdoms with only rumors and hope of reaching the fabled Serica⁵, where all the silks that were worn by the fashionable Roman aristocrats came from.

After pausing for a moment, he replies in the language of Seres, “Good health to you, I have heard that you are a Praefectus of Serica. My name is Antonius.”

Xie Lian laughs at the attempt for a roman equivalent to his position, “Good health to you Antonius, I am what would best be described as a Consul of Serica.”

With those words, Antonius bowed reverently to Xie Lian. Despite their weakened status in the Roman Empire, the two consuls were still among the most powerful positions in the empire, second only to the emperor. Xie Lian, as Xie An, would technically be equivalent to that position in the eyes of any traditional Roman; though there were nuances to how the Jin Kingdom operated versus the Roman Empire.

Xie Lian feeling a bit embarrassed by Antonius’s reaction offers, “Please you do not owe me any honors, are you an ambassador from the empire inquiring about the lack of silk? I am sorry to inform your Emperor, but the Han Dynasty fell around a century ago, several years after your last embassy came. We cannot honor our prior trade agreements.”

Antonius stiffens and attempts to describe the message of salvation he was here to deliver, “I have come to inform the people of Serica that God’s salvation is near. I am a messenger of Jesus Christ.”

Xie Lian remembered meeting Antonius’ savior when he and Hua Cheng had made a journey to visit Egypt and passed through the Levant. One of the most powerful and charismatic beings that either of them had encountered in their travels, probably rivaling the strength of Nuwa at her prime. He was understanding and patient, but his followers appeared more fanatical than most followers of gods and goddesses. Perhaps as Xie Lian mused, persecution and fear played a role in this fanaticism, tempered with the attempted murder of their god. It has been several centuries since he had encountered another follower of that being. This missionary’s presence in Jiankang will complicate the issues further.

Nevertheless, Xie Lian would not persecute someone for their faith and if this man had made it here alone as he appeared to have, he had nothing except praise for his devotion. As Wang Tsai returned with his uncle, along with carts full of rice, troops began organizing the crowds into lines for food disbursements. Xie Lian knew his husband could handle the administration of the food delivery, but he thought it would be a good idea to establish goodwill with this priest.

Xie Lian asks Antonius, “Will you assist me in passing out the food to the refugees?”

Antonius accepts and the food began to be passed out. Hua Cheng did not kill Wang Tsai’s uncle, but he did have his soldiers beat him with a wooden rod ten times.