The Kunlun Files

Chapter 5: The Great Upgrade

At noon I opened the window, and a wind came in.

The sky outside was flawless blue, but in that sudden wind I caught something foul moving beneath the clarity — like a man in an expensive suit, using the fine cloth to hide the filth running in his soul.

Beautiful weather. Not a good day to go out.

The clarity between heaven and earth had been flickering lately, on and off, like the drifting moods of so many souls. I could see them everywhere — souls who couldn't lie flat and couldn't move forward, awake and in pain at the same time. That was the worst kind, I think: lucid pain. Knowing perfectly well that the world is what it is, and still being unable to free yourself from your own conscience.

I texted Master Wu and asked if he had any good wine on his end.

He didn't reply. I assumed he was busy. Less than an hour later, he was standing at my door with two crates.

A few glasses in, I said, "Wu. Tell me a ghost story."

"What happened to you?"

"I learned that people don't only die when they're old. They can die anytime."

"Stop that."

"Then tell me a ghost story."

"Fine, I'll make one up on the spot. What kind do you want?"

"Any kind."

"You're famous in Old Chen's circle now, you know," he said. "Quite a few people want to meet you."

"Is that the ghost story?"

"Chen came to see me a few days ago. He told *me* a ghost story."

"Let's hear it."

"Chen has a business partner. The man built his fortune on his first wife's family connections, and not long after he got rich, he took up with someone else. When his wife found out, she wanted a divorce — but in the middle of the negotiations, she died. Left behind a son. The man's business did well after that, made plenty of money, went through several women, and every one of them gave him a child. But starting around 2018, he began dreaming of his first wife, night after night — coming to claim his life. And every one of his children started having problems, one kind or another. He's been to a lot of masters. They all said the same thing: her resentment was too strong when she died, and while his fortune was at its peak she couldn't get near him. Now his luck is turning downhill, so she's come to collect."

"That's what passes for a ghost story? I asked you for one and this is what I get."

"A vengeful spirit claiming a life isn't a ghost story?"

"Did the man die?"

"Not yet. But Chen says he's on heavy psychiatric medication now."

"Doesn't count. Tell another."

"Then answer me this." Wu poured himself another glass. "Which is scarier — a green-faced, fanged ghost, or a well-dressed man?"

"Ghosts and people are the same thing, at the root. What ghost wasn't once a person? What person doesn't become a ghost?"

"A person might also become an immortal. Or a god. Or a demon."

"The odds of that are extremely low."

"I'm out of ghost stories, honestly. But I heard something recently." He leaned back. "Do you know why people don't want to get married anymore?"

"Because the yin and yang of the world are out of place. Yin isn't in the yin position, yang isn't in the yang position. Once the positions are wrong, the movement goes wrong."

"Then why is it that when two people have been apart for years, one of them still can't let the other go?"

"They didn't get what they wanted out of it. That's all."

Wu stared at me. "You know what people call a woman who talks like you?"

"What did you hear?"

"What I heard is this: people don't want to marry because heaven and earth are running a great upgrade on souls. These years are the upgrade window. Only souls that pass the upgrade earn the right to reincarnate."

"You actually believe this stuff."

"I used to warn Old Chen all the time — suicide is risky, reincarnation needs caution. Who knows what country you'd land in next life? If he got reborn somewhere they eat dirt, he'd be finished."

"Do you want to hear how *I* see this upgrade business?"

He filled my glass and clinked it with his. "I'm all ears."

I drank, then said, "That bottle you opened — it's one. But the moment you poured it into two glasses, one became two. And once we drink it, its state changes again. Yes?"

"Yes."

"So isn't it possible that many souls in this world are actually one bottle of wine?"

"You mean a lot of souls are fragments of one great soul — this shard became a man, that shard became a woman, another shard became a cat or a dog?"

"A soul is a mass of energy. Every breath a person takes is like water coming to a boil — from the moment we enter the womb, the water starts steaming, and when the water boils dry, the breathing stops. Energy underlies all of it. And soul fragments are like the body's cells. Every cell is a fragment. Every cell is also an individual."

"So some souls might very well be dregs that flaked off a great soul."

We both roared with laughter. I drank again. "Flaking is normal. Cells in a body turn sick all the time."

"Then is the upgrade — a great soul calling its fragments home?"

"A body's cells aren't infinite. No corner of any universe has infinite capacity. It's like drinking. Even a man with a legendary tolerance can't drink forever. Eventually, he gets drunk."

"I'm still not following."

"Suppose the Earth is a person," I said. "Right now, that person is sick."

"Sick means rest. Drop the work, however busy you are. And once the fever spikes, the immune cells inside go on a killing spree."

"Yes." I turned my glass slowly in my hand. "A killing spree. But people die anyway — today or tomorrow, everyone dies."

"Sooner or later. That's the only difference."

"Earlier you asked why someone can't let go of an ex after years apart. What's the answer you heard?"

"That person's ancestors won't release them."

"And the cure?"

"Go pay your respects to their honored ancestors."

"Where do you even pick up this stuff?"

"People talk, I listen. Though your version — *they didn't get what they wanted* — also has real merit."

"If you want a soul to stay out of trouble, keep it busy. The moment a soul goes idle, it starts noticing things it never noticed before."

"Most behavior is driven by desire," Wu said.

"So tell me. Today's wine — did I want to drink it, or did the wine want me to?"

* * *

I bring this conversation up because of what the wine did to me that month.

April. The Qingming festival.

They say that in this month, many of the departed come up from the underworld to visit the people they long to see. So in this season of rising things, the hearts of the living get stirred by the interference of their ancestors — moods swing without reason, and more than a few people suddenly stop clinging to whatever they had been clinging to for years. A person. A grudge.

And of course, not every relative who crosses over comes back with good intentions.

I don't know when it started, but I had long felt that something slept in my chest — a fierce beast. Every so often it would open its eyes, give me a look of pure contempt, then shift its position and go back to sleep.

That night, I drank too much.

The wine Wu had sent really was decent. I may have been greedy with it lately. My heart was racing; I lay down and couldn't sleep; I got up and paced the living room, and the more I paced the more restless I became.

Finally I opened the door and went downstairs.

April is not a month for night walks. Especially not near midnight.

But the beast inside me seemed to have woken up, and all it wanted was to run through the midnight streets.

The city was still lit up. So many unsleeping souls, each with their own wants, each with their own suffering. I looked up at the dull night sky and seemed to see invisible threads — one after another, layered, tangled, threading through each other, and every so often a few of them snapping. All those threads, like all those karmic bonds, stretching farther than the eye could see.

In my daze I thought I heard a voice say to me: *Why do you never want to believe?*

I didn't answer. Carrying the slight sway of the wine, I wandered to a nearby park. It was empty at that hour.

I found a bench and sat down — and that was when I heard it. Crying. Muffled, held back, coming from the trees behind me.

I turned. By the dim light of a distant streetlamp, I saw a person in red standing in the woods.

And on the tree in front of them, barely visible, hung a five-colored cord.

On any other night I would have left them alone. But I had drunk, and the beast in my chest was awake. I understood at once what I was looking at: someone who had come here to die.

"Hey," I called out. "Are you trying to die?"