The Kunlun Files

Chapter 3: Two Lives of Blood

"What crime did you commit?" I asked.

"I killed many people."

"Who were they?"

"I have to atone. I killed many people."

No matter what I asked after that, the soul only repeated the same two sentences, over and over, like a prayer worn smooth. *I have to atone. I killed many people.*

Talking was useless. So I went deeper — past the surface of the soul, down into the layers where older causes are stored.

I saw a naked man kneeling before a row of spirit tablets, whipping himself. Hard. Until the blood ran. And every time his wounds healed, he took up the whip again. Day after day, year after year.

The man lived for one thought only: revenge. But his enemy sat too high — he could not even get within sight of him, let alone take his vengeance. In the end, covered in scars, he died with his hatred unspent.

In his next life that man became a hunter. He killed a great many animals in those years — and in the end, he died in his own final hunt.

I watched both lives to their ends, and something in the shape of it began to come clear. I looked one more time, into the reason the man had whipped himself — and when the whole chain of cause and effect lay open in front of me, I left the room.

Old Chen sprang up when I came out. "Master — is there a solution?"

"The exhaustion in your heart doesn't come from your past life's killing," I said. "It comes from guilt. A guilt buried so deep in your soul that it has been gnawing on you every hour of every day."

"Yes," he breathed. "That's exactly it. I always feel it. Like I owe people something enormous, and I can never pay it back."

As he said it, a light came into his eyes — and at the same moment, his soul turned, deep down, and looked at me.

"Many things have their own appointed fate," I said. "You don't have to take responsibility for everything that has ever happened around you."

"When I think of how many people eat because of my company," he said, "it frightens me. If something happened to me, they'd all be out of work."

"Those old employees who eat from your bowl — are they loyal to you?"

"Completely. All these years, they've never left my side. Without them I'd never have made it here."

"And you've been good to them."

"Everything I could give, I gave."

"Here is what I saw." I kept my voice level; what was coming would not be easy to hear. "Those old employees of yours were once your soldiers. Court intrigues sent them to a battlefield, and they died there — spent like pawns in someone else's struggle. You had done nothing wrong. But many of them were your own clansmen, and it was you who had led them to that field. At the end, they died protecting you. You survived. And the only reason you went on living was to avenge them. You wanted to die — but your life had been bought with theirs, and you couldn't even find the courage to throw it away."

I never finished.

Old Chen broke. He folded over and sobbed — huge, helpless, unrestrained wails, the kind a man cannot fake and cannot stop. In the Stillness side of my sight, his soul was weeping just as brokenly.

Wu stood watching from the side. His own eyes were red.

When the crying finally spent itself, Old Chen lifted his head, choking on the words. "Master. Thank you for letting me know this. From now on — I'll be even better to them."

And as he said it, I watched his soul reach down, with its own hands, and undo the chains.

"Some things are best left to take their course," I said.

"My heart feels so much lighter now." He laughed wetly. "I knew it. I *knew* it wasn't the statues' fault."

"Revering the gods is never a bad thing," I said. "But you've invited so many of them home, and if you can't tend to them properly, that neglect is itself a kind of disrespect."

"You're right, Master. I'll find someone to perform the offerings for all of them—"

"You invited them yourself. Why should someone else make the offerings?"

"There are so many. I can't manage them all alone—"

"Then let each god return to the place where each god belongs," I said. "That, too, is a form of respect."

Old Chen went very still. Then he bowed his head. "Thank you, Master. I understand."

---

On the way back, Wu was heavy-hearted, and I knew what he was worrying about.

"We untied one knot today," I said. "That doesn't mean we've untied them all. The rest depends on his own fortune."

"Old Chen's troubles aren't over," Wu said. "The things still ahead of him — I'm afraid I'll be troubling you again. There may be no end to it."

"No end to it," I said. "That's what being alive means."

I was right. I wish I hadn't been.

One month later, my phone rang early in the morning. It was Wu, and his voice had lost all of its usual lazy calm.

Old Chen had tried to kill himself again.

This time it was serious. He was in the ICU.