Short, Light, Free - Chapter 157

My name is Luqiao.

I am an orphan.

I don’t have many memories of my childhood, but I did remember spending most of my time in an old chapel.

There were same-aged children around me, but I knew that we were very different.

They had parents who dropped them off at nine in the morning and picked them up at five in the afternoon.

I would wait for all of them to leave with their parents before following the priest back to his home.

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I remembered asking the clergymen where my parents were, but they would just shake their head awkwardly in response.

I followed a different priest home every day.

Some houses were very big while others were small. Sometimes, I had a room of my own, but most of the times, I had to sleep on the sofa or the floor.

Some sofas were soft, some were hard; some were long, some were short.

On cold days, I would get a blanket.

There were five priests, but I could no longer remember most of their names except for Friday’s priest. His name was Dahai.

I remembered him better because he took care of me on the weekends.

He had a wife and a daughter. During the weekends, he would bring me and his daughter to the park.

Although I had to sleep on his sofa on Saturdays and Sundays, I found it more comfortable than a bed.

When I started becoming more conscious, I found the reason for all of these.

I understood why people called me a Christian child, why I was coined the chosen one.

It was an old chapel, where religious services took place over the weekends.

There were five priests, and on dull days, they would open educational classes.

Classes, they called it, but it was really no different from kindergarten.

They looked after the children and instill some Christian teachings into them.

This went on for a few years and they gradually started seeing results and profiting from it.

After gaining a bit of reputation, some things happened.

Father Dahai told me about it on the weekend when he had had too much to drink.

He started talking about the two-hour lecture he’d given on a fateful Sunday.

When everybody had left and when he was getting ready to close the doors, he heard a strange weeping sound.

He followed the source and was led to a wicker basket on a seat at the last row.

There were three layers of blanket in it and an infant’s cry radiated clearly throughout the hall.

I was that infant, and on me was a piece of note.

According to Father Dahai, the person who wrote the note must’ve been a cultured man.

He did not keep the note, but the main idea was that he did not want me anymore.

Father Dahai tried ways, like posting on the newspapers, to search for my lost parents.

Nevertheless, it was a planned abandonment so there was a high chance that my parents wouldn’t acknowledge me.

After a discussion among some of the priests, they decided to bring me up with funds from the church.

Initially, I stayed at Father Dahai’s home, but he gradually established his own family and suggested for me to spend the day in church and weeknight in each priest’s house.

I spent my days watching other children leave the church and never return.

My name is Luqiao, not because of what was written on that note, but because the church was located in Tai Zhou.

Luqiao district to be exact.

I had no passport and identity.

There was an adoption application form, which Father Dahai filled up and submitted to the public security bureau.

I also had a certification with me to prove that I hadn’t committed any crimes.

Because of my lack of background information, I was unable to study, and the church’s funds were barely enough to support my daily expenses. The priests had to gather funds themselves to raise me up.

All of them had hopes that I would follow in their path eventually.

Since I was little, they made me memorize the Holy Bible and play the piano.

I had to understand the songs of praises and spread the love of God to the people through music.

Practically all members of the church regarded me as a potential candidate to take over the church.

At 21, I had successfully become the church’s pastor.

3,000 a month for salary and they took care of my unemployment, medical and old-age insurance, and official reserves meant for housing.

I was a Christian, but my faith wasn’t pure.

I grew up to realize that we were charlatans, scamming people in the name of Christianity. The local people were happy to place all trust in us, thus completing this ecosphere.

The teachings were meant to rope in more followers and the church earned through their daycare services.

They opened a nursery school in the church’s name and I was in charge of educating the children on the Holy Bible and getting them to recite its contents.

I did not go to school but I had enough knowledge to impart to these kids.

Days passed simply and I felt confined at times.

Because I would always discover strange things, I started thinking about the history of the church.

If we were all fake priests, why was there a church in the first place?

How did the five priests become who they were? I tried probing for the answer but I couldn’t get a satisfying response.

The church was very big, and I found out that the oldest renovation was done in March 1906.

I wasn’t able to find its establishment date, however.

I couldn’t find such information on the Internet and all I knew was that the church was around after the invasion of the eight-nation alliance.

One curious fact was that no matter how many renovations had taken place since 1906, the west tower was never touched.

It also seemed that the government did not have the right over this land and had been, till today, unable to demolish this old construction.

—

Ever since I became a priest, I worked five days a week, from Monday to Sunday.

Weekends were left to professionals like Father Dahai. Frankly, I was more of a nursery teacher than a priest.

The priests would take turns working for a full day over the weekend, which meant that one would stay till the end and close the doors.

I took the Wednesday shifts, and when I got bored one day, a crazy thought popped into my head.

The attic on the west side… what was in it?

I saw a metal door with the Tree of Life engraved on it.

Could that be the door of truth?

I decided there and then that I had to see what was behind that door.

The Fathers would disapprove, but my idea was simple.

I would smash the door, take a look at what was inside, and move to another city to work.

On one Wednesday, when everyone was gone, I closed the doors and took out a flashlight.

I walked to the resting room and retrieved an ax from the cabinet that I had prepared beforehand.

I walked slowly to the west side and up to the attic.

I had asked the Fathers, more than once, about what was in there but none had paid attention to me.

Was it a storeroom or simply an empty space?

I was about to find out.

I arrived at the door and saw three thick and rusted locks on it.

I tried tugging at them but nothing happened, so I aimed and hacked at them with the ax. It was rather loud but I had to do it a few more times.

Finally, the locks came off together with the handle. I had successfully unlocked the last defensive line.

I opened the door and was greeted by extreme darkness.

I switched my flashlight on and turned it toward the room.