I understood Chen Gan. He was a shy young man. His wife had just given birth to their second daughter, and he was worried about how he would be able to afford his first daughter’s elementary school tuition. As a migrant, he could not have his household registration in Shenzhen and had to pay an extra fee for his daughter to go to the regular school. Without that money, he would have to send his daughter to a different school, a low-quality place set up for the children of migrant workers. He would often look at a picture of his little girl and say that he didn’t want her to repeat the path he had walked.
I made a deposit into his bank account: not too much, just enough to cover the extra fee for the school.
For the Chinese, what reason could be more compelling than “for my child”?
At the agreed-upon time, I heard the sound of loudspeakers outside my building. I knew that Chen Gan was already playing his role. In the middle of the yard, he had covered himself in gasoline and held a lighter in his hand. He declared that if the owner didn’t pay him enough severance, then he would light himself on fire. As security guards rushed anxiously into the yard with fire extinguishers, no one paid attention as I took the emergency stairs up to the roof, clutching the stolen prototype.
I was one of only five individuals in the factory authorized to touch the prototype. Taking advantage of opportunities afforded by my duties, I had tested the RFID trigger mechanism several times. The logs appeared to only record the latitude and longitude of the device, but not the altitude. This hole allowed me to devise an effective method of delivery to the buyer.
On the roof, the wind blew strong and cold, like the moment before the first drops of rain. Almost all the workers in the factory had congregated in the yard to watch how the self-immolation drama would end. If the owner gave in to Chen Gan’s demands, tomorrow hundreds more would be waiting for him, doused in gasoline.
But I’d known the owner for three years. He was the sort who would encourage Chen Gan to go ahead and use the lighter, and then he would light a cigarette from the smoldering pile of ash.
A dragonfly-like remote-controlled helicopter approached from afar, humming, and landed on the roof. Following directions, I tied the prototype to the bottom of the helicopter. Unsteadily, it began to rise. I anxiously watched this fragile machine, on which the lives of two men, and perhaps of even more, depended.
The maximum communication distance between the RFID chip and the receiver was about sixty feet. The roof was already close to that limit.
The helicopter hung in the air as if waiting for more direction. I didn’t know how the buyers intended to deal with the self-destructive mechanism or if they were going to crack the communication protocol and substitute in a false signal to fool the device. That was all beyond what I could control.
For a moment, I thought the helicopter might never leave. But it did eventually depart the roof, and then disappeared into the gray sky.
Calmly, I rode the elevator down and squeezed myself into the gaping crowd. I made sure that Chen Gan saw me. He nodded almost imperceptibly, gave me his trademark shy smile, and dropped the lighter.
The security guards were on him immediately and wrestled him to the ground.
It was time to leave, I thought.
I got on the intercity bus to Dongguan. But before the bus had even started its engine, my phone began to vibrate insistently. Given what I knew about the owner, I never would have had much time. But I hadn’t expected to be caught so quickly.
Maybe it was the closed-circuit cameras, or maybe Chen Gan sold me out. But I didn’t care anymore. I just wanted him to be all right, to live long enough to see his daughter go to school.
I threw away my phone, got off the bus, and got on the bus going the opposite direction, inside the Fence, into Shenzhen. Instinctively, I knew that was the safer direction.
This was how I came to be in Shazui Village.
For the last half year, I’ve tried every which way to find out news about Chen Gan, but have heard nothing. I thought I was sufficiently indifferent, indifferent to the point that I could abandon my useless conscience. But often I would awaken in the middle of the night, breathless. In my dreams, Chen Gan, smiling his shy smile, would burn and turn into a pile of ashes. Sometimes I would even dream of his two daughters, crying, burning with him, also turning into ash.
I knew that I could no longer hide from myself.
“Please tell me if he’s all right.” My face is covered in tears even though I don’t remember crying.
The wooden shaman mask glowers at me with its round eyeholes, orange light reflecting off the surface. The face is that of an angry goddess. Through the eyeholes I can see a strange glint in her eyes: sparkling blue flashes, very high in frequency.
Suddenly I understand. The mask is nothing more than a fucking well-made disguise for a pair of augmented reality glasses.
All this time, I’ve thought that Big Sister Shen is just a fraud pretending to be a medium and making her money by telling her clients what they want to hear. But she actually has real power. Guessing conservatively, her information privilege level must be set to at least level IIA or above, giving her the power to access an individual’s private file based on facial recognition.
But even so, without professional-grade analysis filter software, how can she glean any useful information out of that torrent within such a short time? It would be like finding a needle lost in the sea. I can only credit her shaman genes, like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man being able to tell how many matches are in a box with a single glance.
The lights behind the eyeholes flash faster. My heart accelerates.
“He’s doing well.”
Hope rekindles in my heart.
“At least there, he no longer needs to worry about money.” Big Sister Shen points toward the sky. Then she adds, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
I suck in a deep breath. Even though I was expecting it, now that the fear has settled into reality, I still feel a deep helplessness. The whole world seems to have lost focus, and nothing can be relied on.
I know that in this world, there’s only one thing I can do to try to atone, even if it will provide only illusory comfort for my conscience.
“I want a working bank account number for Chen Gan’s family.”
Money was once my placebo. Now I no longer need it.
It’s dark by the time I leave Big Sister Shen’s room. I look around at Shazui, where lights are just being turned on behind windows. People are bustling every which way, filling the air with hope. But my heart is like a dead pool of water. I open my hand. Emptiness.
My subconscious has played another trick on me. I did indeed install the bug below the rim of the altar. I thought I was there for Chen Gan, but in the end I couldn’t forget about Snow Lotus.
I smile, a Shenzhen-style smile.
Snow Lotus doesn’t look well.
Her face is pale. She’s wearing large shades that cover her eyes and half her face. Without speaking to anyone, she goes straight to Big Sister Shen’s room.
I put on my headset and turn on the receiver. After a static-filled moment, I hear the sound of the electronic prayer machine.
“He hit me again.” Snow Lotus’s voice is tearful. “He said that I haven’t been turning enough tricks. He needs more money.”
“This is your own choice.” Big Sister Shen’s voice is calm, as if she’s used to hearing this.