The scalpel made a clean, quick cut, dashing a bloody arc across the tiled floor. Its victim clutched at her throat, choking, spinning a half circle before collapsing, gurgling bloody bubbles. The killer smiled gloomily, raising the scalpel to his mouth to touch the tip with his tongue. “Never thought you’d have this pay—I mean day. Day. Damn it!”
“Cut! Kai, take five, drink water or whatever, get your shit together. What the hell’s wrong with you today? You don’t usually NG this much!” Director Lim rose from her seat behind the film equipment, irritation turning her round face rosy with temper.
Kai grinned innocently. “Sorry lah… oops! Watch where you’re going, Miss Medic.” He retracted one of his long legs fractionally as Guili stumbled. She would’ve fallen flat but for her self-defence training, and for a brief moment, Guili was thankful that Wangshen Temple had always asked more of its acolytes.
She gave Kai a blank stare, one that he dropped first. With a cold sneer, Kai stalked off, not bothering to give the costar he’d slashed a second glance.
Guili recalled the resurrector disposition she’d memorised as she got close to the body on the floor. He Bingbing, 21, F. Number of resurrections to date: 0. Estimated Death interference value: 10%.
No matter how many times she’d handled a death scene, nausea still crept sourly up her throat once Guili got within touch range of a body. Trying to keep her shoes clear of the pooling blood, Guili knelt on a clean patch of wood and touched her fingertips to Bingbing’s forehead. Her makeup had stayed perfectly layered on despite the blood, and her body hadn’t voided itself on death–a sign that Bingbing had likely fasted since the night before for today’s death scene. She’d also fallen into a textbook-perfect, camera-ready sprawl. That was fairly impressive for someone working her first serious acting gig.
Guili pushed distraction out of her mind and carefully took the inscribed black lacquer bowl from her hip pouch. She closed her eyes and reached for the presence of her Goddess, touching the threads of the divine. A faint prickling heat pierced her forehead, her pineal eye opening in a vertical golden slit. In the sight of the divine, the dissolving threads anchoring Bingbing’s soul fragments to her corpse were dissipating quickly. Guili grasped them tightly with the force of her will even as she restitched Bingbing’s fatal wound together, pressing the escaping fragments back into her body. Before she gave Bingbing the mental nudge to wake, she tipped the lip of the bowl over Bingbing’s body for a heartbeat. The forgetting soup of the Goddess Mengo sprinkled over Bingbing’s coalescing soul as silver dust, stealing away the last few violent seconds of Bingbing’s death from her memory.
Bingbing sat up with a hoarse gasp, grasping at her throat. Guili took a step back, glancing at Director Lim. She was in conversation with the scriptwriter and producers as staff began resetting the scene around Guili and Bingbing, even scrubbing out the bloody floor before Bingbing could get to her feet. Guili packed her inscribed bowl away and turned to go, tensing up as Bingbing grabbed her wrist.
“Wait,” Bingbing said. She struggled to hold her uneven smile. “What’s your name?”
“Meng Guili,” Guili said, inclining her head.
“Meng… you’re a direct acolyte of the Goddess Mengpo?”
“Full disciple,” Guili corrected, if with a polite smile. She indicated the discreet weighted bowl symbol on her shoulder sleeve. “Wangshen Temple.” She waited for Bingbing’s instinctive gratitude to fade, for her to recoil. Just as all the staff on set tended to give Guili a polite berth at all times, even the director.
Bingbing smiled. “That’s amazing at your age–oh! Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m He Bingbing.” She got to her feet on shaky knees, smiling warmly.
“I know. I’ve seen your file.” Wangshen Temple was provided with a full background check and blood samples of all actors with onscreen death scenes.
“Ah, that’s right.” Bingbing kept pace with Guili as she headed for the refreshment table, where a heap of bubble tea cups in various flavours floated in tubs of cold water. Chill emanated from the frost talismans affixed to the tubs as Guili drew close, each graceful stroke the work of one of her seniors. Bingbing noticed Guili’s lingering stare at the calligraphy and said, “You must be familiar with Senior Disciple Cheng. Isn’t she amazing?”
“Yes. She’s my mentor,” Guili said, wondering why Bingbing was so chatty. Maybe she felt grateful for the resurrection. Or perhaps she was so used to keeping up her peppy, friendly idol persona that it became a defensive mask even when she wasn’t on camera. Bingbing had been a so-called traffic star–someone who’d become a popular idol from variety shows–before winning the audition for the third supporting role of the show they were filming. It’d been a move by the casting team that sparked weeks of fierce debate in the Network, given that the show was based on a popular ‘literary’ novel. The online heat had only died when Director Lim announced the project’s resurrection retainer with Wangshen Temple.
“She hasn’t mentioned you before.”
“Why would she?” Guili said with a frown. As one of the expert tutors in the art of divination, Senior Disciple Cheng had little time for what she liked to call ‘irrelevant people’, and was unlikely to discuss Temple affairs or staff with them. As far as Guili knew, Cheng tended to include anyone who wasn’t a Mengpo disciple or acolyte under that broad umbrella. It was a refreshingly simple attitude toward life that Guili had once tried and failed to emulate. “Are you even all that familiar with her?”
“How many projects have you been involved with?” Bingbing asked, blithely changing the subject. Embarrassed, perhaps.
“Five.”
“Ohh! Which ones?”
Guili stared helplessly at Bingbing. “Miss He. Was there something else that you needed from me?”
Bingbing chewed nervously on her lower lip, blushing. Lovely as she was, Guili’s training and experience had long inured her to beauty, especially in the ink vat that was the entertainment industry. “I… I wanted to say thank you.”
“No need,” Guili said, her tone growing cold. “This project has a resurrection retainer.”
“But–”
“Miss He,” Guili cut in. “Let me save you some time and temper. By the end of this project, you’ll have made friends and enemies. There will be people you like and people you hate, and one of the people you hate will be me.” At Bingbing’s shocked expression, Guili smiled thinly. “Don’t worry. None of us disciples take it personally.”
“Why would I? It’s your job–besides, you’d be saving my life,” Bingbing said.
“You’ll see,” Guili said, closing the door. Her hands clenched tightly over the cool surface of the cup, indenting the plastic. She drank, chewing the tapioca pearls slowly as she sat in the lotus position on the slab of inscribed jade that occupied the centre of the meditation room.
Battle scenes were always draining. Thankfully, Guili hadn’t been tasked with general healing–set assistants scurried about tipping potions through pale lips. She ignored them as she stood by Bingbing’s body, twisted at an unnatural angle beneath a horse. Guili’s lip curled as the handlers gently untangled the animal from its currently dead rider, allowing it to get to its feet. Animals weren’t currently permitted to be part of a resurrection retainer. It wasn’t only because of the vigorous campaign headed by animal rights activists–it was a waste of money. Even the most good-natured dog would act out after a death or two even if their memories were edited, and well-trained film-ready animals were valuable. The irony of it all wasn’t lost on Guili.
Once the horse was led clear, Guili knelt by the body with a frown. Bingbing’s injuries at a glance included broken legs and a shattered spine, at the very least, far beyond her usual scope. Many resurrection retainer disciples were skilled in returning the soul, but not in reconstruction, which required an intimate understanding of the human body.
Guili cast a cold eye at the closest assistant. “Get Director Lim over here.” She knelt, concentrating, feeling for Bingbing’s anchored soul while sending her spiritual sense over the broken body. As she began to reconnect the bones, Kai whistled behind her. “Wow, that’s some fall. Is that an NG?”
She nearly lost control. Guili bit down on her lip, the pain forcing her to focus even as she dimly heard the set assistants politely attempting to shoo Kai away. Bingbing’s body began to reset itself jerkily, a marionette twitching back into place in slow time, bones aligning, spine reassembling, guided together by the force of Guili’s will. Once the meat was stitched together again, Guili reached for Bingbing’s soul.
By the time Guili was done, sweat had glued her robes to her back. She stood up, lips pressed into a thin line, turned around, and glowered at Kai. “Interrupting a Disciple in the middle of a resurrection ritual is ill-advised,” Guili said.
“Sorry lah, Miss Medic,” Kai said with a flamboyant smile. “But you’re so powerful, so professional. Surely a little praise isn’t enough to interrupt your concentration, right?”
Guili’s cold stare shifted wordlessly to Director Lim.
“Kai,” Lim growled, “your father might be one of the financial sponsors of this project, but he’s not the only sponsor. Understand?”
Kai’s smile faded. He stared appraisingly at Guili. “Understood. Wah, what a big temper.” He sketched a mocking bow and sauntered off.
“Sorry,” Director Lim said, apologetic. “Boy’s spoiled.”
“Hardly a boy,” Guili said. She glanced down as Bingbing heaved out a wet gasp and sat up. A brief touch with her spiritual sense indicated Bingbing was physically well. Guili stepped away. “Director, my retainer does not cover major injuries.”
“I know, I know. I’ll get it topped up,” Director Lim said. She rubbed her temple. “That kind of fall wasn’t meant to happen. Fuck. Bingbing, you all right?”
“Well,” Bingbing said with a bright smile as she stood up, “I don’t remember it anyway. So I guess I am? Thanks to Disciple Meng here.”
Something about the curve of Bingbing’s lips unsettled Guili. She glanced away, frowning. Sympathy? No, that wasn’t it–sympathy was one of the first things that disciples of the Goddess Mengpo learned to shed for their well-being. People who came to the Goddess’ temples to ask for Tinctures of Forgetting tended to do so out of desperation, and by the time Guili had qualified to full disciple, she had heard the worst of human nature. Unease, in a way that she couldn’t pin down. She tensed as Bingbing bounced to her feet and fell into step. Director Lim had already turned away, gesturing as she rearranged elements of the set.
“What?” Guili asked, curt.
“I heard the Tinctures of Forgetting are actually soup,” Bingbing said, nothing about her indicating that she’d just suffered a horrific death. “What flavour? Does it vary by temple?”
“Bitter,” Guili said. Not that it mattered. The people it was meant for wouldn’t remember.
“Ah? But the temples always smell so nice.”
“We eat,” Guili said.
“You train by making normal soup as well, right? Difficult, easy-to-ruin recipes, where you must sit by the pot and fan the fire?”
Guili frowned at Bingbing, coming to a halt. “What’s your purpose?”
Bingbing flinched. She shot a glance around as though checking for surveillance. Her bloody clothes stuck to her, giving off a coppery stench. As she wilted beneath them, Guili softened. “Get changed,” she advised.
“Oh… right, yes.” Bingbing lowered her head and turned to go.
“Careful about Kai,” Guili said.
Bingbing paused. She tilted her head, lips pressed into the same unsettling, bright smile. “Ah. You’re so sweet.”
Many of Guili’s fellow disciples–especially those from wealthy families–disliked soup-making practice and often did it half-heartedly, if at all. Guili found it calming. Easy as it was to toss everything into a slow cooker and wait, she found the process soothing–even prep. Scalding pork ribs in boiling water, she rinsed it off under a tap to wash away the scum. Sliced, peeled rounds of lotus root discs went into the pot, along with peanuts she’d soaked in water for half an hour. The ribs went last, with enough water to cover everything up to a knuckle, and then Guili sat on a stool with the pot over the charcoal stove and began to fan the fire with a palm leaf fan. With filming drawing to a close and the final scenes shot today, her work on set was over, giving her time to hide away and cook.
Guili reduced the speed of her fanning as the soup boiled, covering it and falling into a meditative state. The aroma tickled the senses, drawing her deeper into the path of understanding–her dao. The greater a grasp of the dao, the stronger a disciple’s dao heart, and the more gifted they would be by their patron deity. The world crystallised, time losing purchase. Guili began to immerse herself in the contemplation and study of memory, the key to her Goddess’ powers. She–
The fan she held twisted and slapped aside just in time to block the hand reaching for her cheek. Guili coughed harshly, wrenched out of her meditation, jerking away and into a defensive crouch. Kai smiled lazily at her, hand still outstretched. “Miss Medic, what are you cooking? Smells so good.”
Guili glanced behind him. They were alone in a part of the film set with no surveillance cameras–part of Wangshen Temple’s requirements for employing a resurrection retainer. She curled her lip. “Why are you repeatedly trying my patience?”
Kai’s smile faded. “You think you’re so powerful because you’re a Wangshen Disciple? Miss Medic, my family donates a million to Wangshen Temple every year. Are you worth more to the Temple than that?”
“What do you want?”
“Have dinner with me. My treat.”
Guili sneered. “I have no interest in men.”
“So?”
A faint reflection in the shadow of the corridor behind Kai distracted Guili before she could speak. She swallowed her temper, curling her lips. “Perhaps you misunderstand Wangshen Temple and the Goddess Mengpo.”
“Oh?” Kai reached over to tip up her chin, but Guili caught his wrist. She broke it neatly with a twist and watched coldly as he screamed and fell to his knees, clutching his arm.
“The Goddess Mengpo, who brews the Tincture of Forgetfulness, does not do so out of compassion,” Guili said, kicking Kai in the ribs and making him double over. “To make a mortal drink something to forget all the joys and sorrows of their lives before they reincarnate is not a mercy. Everything they loved and feared and learnt, taken. It is an act of violation, done because it makes the eternal cycle simpler. The Gods could choose to make our souls stronger, to bear the weight of several lives, but they do not. Because with the Goddess Mengpo, there is no need to.” Guili leant in, smiling. “I could kill you now, but as long as I resurrect you as part of my retainer, nothing would happen, would it?”
“I–I’ll call the police!”
“Why would you, when you wouldn’t remember?” Guili asked softly. “I could do it repeatedly without registering it against your file. Until the thread that binds your mortal life to this plane grows fragile. Someday, you might have to be resurrected as part of a scene, or from a car crash, or some random accident–but the thread would snap, your ghost departing. More, when you go to the Underworld and ask my Goddess for her Tincture…” Guili chuckled. “She’ll see what you have said to me.”
Kai sobbed, his arrogance breaking into fear. Guili was used to fear. Actors in projects with resurrection retainers often felt it uncontrollably near her, particularly by the end of a particularly violent project. They may not remember their deaths, but the association with the reaper remained. Losing interest, Guili touched his wrist lightly, healing it. “Get lost,” she told him, sitting on the stool. As he stumbled away, Guili fanned the fire, which had burnt to embers. After the heat built back up to put the pot into a simmer, she said, “Come out.”
Bingbing shuffled into view, sidling over beside Guili and squatting down. “You didn’t need my help after all,” she said.
“Never did.”
“Tch, you’re heartless,” Bingbing said, grinning. She pocketed the phone in her hand–the gleam from the lens winked again at Guili. Do you think you scared him off?”
“Probably not. The Temple might take me off this project if he does.” That would be a relief.
Bingbing looked closely at her. “You’re happy about that.”
“Perhaps.”
“You don’t like taking on resurrection retainers?”
“It’s…” Guili trailed off. Talking to traffic stars like Bingbing was dangerous. One never knew what they might post online to attract more fans and interest. Controversy was their bread and butter. Yet under Bingbing’s warm and gentle stare, Guili relented. “Not particularly.”
“It’s awful, isn’t it? Using a divine gift like this to film so-called ‘authentic’ scenes is barbaric.”
Guili studied Bingbing thoughtfully. While Guili agreed with the sentiment, it was strange for an actor to say. Particularly since Bingbing had already been the beneficiary of Guili’s powers. “What do you think Wangshen Temple should do, then?”
“Heal the dying and the sick?”
“Destined life and death is part of the cycle and cannot be easily changed,” Guili pointed out. “Particularly for followers of the Goddess Mengpo. Before Wangshen and its sister Temples became involved with the film industry, we were a minor sect, near-forgotten.” Guili hadn’t been born yet, but she sometimes heard the High Abbess reminiscing with the other seniors. Discussing a time when they could barely afford to feed new acolytes and had to beg for alms on the street.
Bingbing’s sweet smile faded. She tilted her head, giving Guili the impression of a poised hunting bird appraising its prey. No, not prey–nothing about Bingbing’s stare gave the impression of superiority or hunger. A hunter recognising another hunter, perhaps. Yet Bingbing was a minor star at best, someone whose name Guili hadn’t heard until this project, who couldn’t save herself from workplace bullying.
“You’re unlike any other priestess or disciple I’ve ever met,” Bingbing said.
“Oh?”
“People usually get into your line of work because they’re compassionate, whether on the surface or deep down. Righteous. Hanging a pot to save the world, that kind of person. Even the seniors of your temple who I’ve met to date. Your abbess, even.”
“Who are you?” Guili asked, her tone growing cold.
Bingbing circled over to the pot, lifting the lid with her bare fingers before Guili could stop her. Instead of yelping and flinching back from the scalding-hot service, her pale fingers didn’t even broil red at all. Guili blinked open her pineal eye for a heartbeat, long enough to see the protective shielding blurred over Bingbing’s hand. A fire protection ward, and a good one. “Smells like family,” Bingbing said, setting the lid back down after peeking at the soup. “I hear my mother often makes peanut and lotus root soup when in a good mood.”
“Should I know her?”
“I’ve told you her name before.”
You must be familiar with– “Senior Disciple Cheng?” Guili said, incredulous. “When did she ever have a child?”
“I gather it was an accident of her youth that she wasn’t too proud of. I ended up in a Temple-affiliated orphanage, though she did come to see me occasionally. Each time, she’d bring some soup–the same one you’ve just made. I’ve always wanted to learn more about her life.”
“Then you should ask her.”
Bingbing lowered her gaze. “You should know how that would work out.”
“I’ll ask you one last time. What’s your purpose?”
“You won’t talk to me about my mother?”
“Her life is her privacy.”
Bingbing didn’t look too disappointed. “Then, some soup. If you don’t mind.”
“That’s all?”
Bingbing grinned. “My mother can ignore me–that’s her right. But I can also make myself impossible to ignore. That fool Kai and his nonsense is ripe for scandal, handled properly. I’ve been gathering footage, evidence from others he’s bullied, testimonies–all poised to be published.”
“Ruining his reputation and elevating yours simultaneously as his latest victim? He has powerful connections.”
“So do I,” Bingbing said with playful modesty. “I’ve been photographed talking to you often and coming out of Wangshen Temple’s guest entrance. No one in the entertainment industry wants to make an enemy out of the Goddess of Forgetfulness. Someday, I’ll be so famous that even Wangshen Temple has to give me face.”
Guili laughed. With her fierceness and arrogance unsheathed, Bingbing was finally endearing. Or perhaps it was because Guili finally noticed the familiar cast of her eyes, the curve of her chin: within it all, the shadow of her mentor. “You’re a straw tiger. Ah, the confidence of youth. I wish you luck.”
“I don’t need luck. I’d love soup. Think of it as payment for being wrong about something.”
“Oh?”
“You said I’d hate you at the end of this project. So far, I don’t,” Bingbing said, with a wink. “Instead, I’d like to be friends.”
“Depends on your performance.” Guili passed the fan over. “Fan it well, and if it turns out decent, I’ll consider giving you a bowl.”
“Ah,” Bingbing said, her smile now touching her eyes. “You’re so sweet.”
Anya Ow was born in Singapore, and lives in Melbourne as a graphic designer with her two cats. Her short stories have been published in venues such as F&SF, Asimov’s, and Lightspeed. She has written three books, with the latest being a space opera, Ion Curtain.
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