13 Mink Street

Chapter 51: Great Heretical God

“Linda has always loved religious paintings,” Piaget continued. “Their composition, their presentation, and the meanings they carry. She thinks it’s all beautiful, and she’s always been captivated by that beauty.

“It’s also a way of making the gods tangible. Those lofty beings are pulled down from the clouds and brought into the human world through these canvases. In that way, we can understand them, and explain them, using a human mind.”

Karon nodded and sat down by the sofa. He didn’t know how to describe the painting he was looking at. It wasn’t finished yet, but it already radiated a clear, oppressive weight.

The mad pope. The fall of the Church of Light.

In the previous epoch, and even through the first half of the current one, the Church of Light had been a true behemoth. In their early days, many of the newly established churches, the Church of Order among them, had even been forced to include the God of Light in their mythical narrative, just to legitimize themselves. That alone spoke volumes about how overwhelming the Church of Light’s orthodox authority had been.

Among the books Tiz had sent to Karon via Lent, only The Light of Order focused specifically on the Church of Order. The rest were overviews of other religions, and in those overviews, the God of Light’s shadow could be seen everywhere.

After reading up about so many churches, Karon’s impression of the God of Light had started to drift closer and closer to the “Qianlong Emperor” from his previous life.[1]

Long ago, every local street snack had seemed to start from the same story: Qianlong had toured the south, eaten it, bestowed it a name, and it had become famous overnight. It was as if the emperor had never done any real work, and had simply spent every day traveling around tasting snacks and “endorsing” them.

The God of Light seemed much the same; He hadn’t handled godly matters, and had instead simply gone around promoting “new gods,” such as awakening the God of Order, helping the God of Abyss suppress powerful demons, and helping the Mother of Earth seal fissures in the land. He was constantly appearing, constantly intervening, and constantly swooping in to save the day.

There is nothing new under the sun.

It was much the same as how, in his previous life, people often reduced entire cultures to a handful of labels.

One side imagined the other as enlightened, rational, and happily educated; the other returned the favor with their own crude simplifications.

In the end, these “fixed impressions” were nothing more than filters that people imposed on the world, mistaking what they perceived as reality. Focus your gaze on individuals, on small families, on small towns, and there’s rarely anything fundamentally different between them. Most of the time, it’s just that the filter hasn’t yet been removed from your eyes.

The same applied to the towering churches of the modern epoch. They looked solemn and imposing, having believers everywhere. They spared no effort when defending their divine authority, interpreting their doctrine, or protecting their own true god.

Yet back when they had been starting up, everyone had been the same. No one had laughed at anyone else. Any method had been considered fair game.

Only later, once they made it big, did they learn to “act.” The people who lived far removed from those religions’ founding times, or believers who’d never known anything else, naturally accepted the mask as reality.

The line Tiz had used to curse the God of Order, “God of Order raised by a whore,” was, in essence, a mockery. He had ridiculed the God of Order for being sanctimonious while doing the exact things that He condemned.

Karon’s thoughts drifted back into the present.

Staring at the painting of the Mad Pope, his feelings deepened all at once.

The Church of Light had been gravely wounded by some sort of massive upheaval and then entered a period of decline, but what had truly reduced the church to the point that almost nothing remained was the work of the orthodox churches that ruled today.

They frantically rewrote their own mythic narratives to remove the portions mentioning the God of Light, and at the same time, hunted the Church of Light to extinction, completely cutting off any chance that the colossus might rise again.

“You seem to have a lot of thoughts,” Piaget said, sitting down on the sofa across from Karon. “Linda also likes to sit and stare at religious paintings for a long time. The expression she makes at that time is exactly the same as yours right now.”

“Is that so?” Karon smiled. “I just think it’s interesting to consider. After all, gods are products created by humans. Strip away that lofty divinity, and what you find underneath is still packed with human nature.”

“Gods are products created by humans?” Piaget rolled the words around. “I’m surprised you’d think that.”

It was only then that Karon realize he had made a mistake. In this world, gods truly existed. Alfred, Ms. Molly, even his own grandfather, Tiz, were the clearest proof of that. Each of them served as proof that supernatural forces interfered, and operated, within this world.

Still, Karon didn’t want to retract what he’d just said. Somewhere deep down, he still believed that the concept “gods are created by humans” was correct.

A committed materialist wasn’t someone who only liked dragons in stories, nor were they someone who threw tantrums and refused to accept reality. They were people who, even if the God of Light stood right in front of them, would still roll up their sleeves and take His pulse.

“By the way, there’s a case I’ve been thinking about. It’s quite interesting. Let me tell you about it, and we can analyze it together. I’ll leave out the name.”

“Alright.”

Piaget steered the conversation back into professional territory. From there, their started a discussion about work. Using the first case as a foundation, they analyzed the causes, refined the developmental process, and then discussed treatment plans.

It was genuinely interesting. Karon then brought up cases from his previous life to discuss with Piaget.

The man had taken leave from the university after his wife’s death and had grown rusty over time. Karon, after his own “death,” had been forced to switch specialties.

The more they talked, the deeper they went, and the more in sync they became. Without noticing, they talked for nearly three hours. They wanted to still continue, yet they both started to feel hungry.

“I’ll go call Linda to prepare a late-night snack,” Piaget announced as he moved to get up.

Karon quickly reached out and pressed a hand to his shoulder, “I’ll do it.”

Piaget hesitated, but quickly smiled. “Alright.”

Karon first used Piaget’s phone to call home and inform Aunt Mary that he was chatting at Piaget’s place. After all, earlier in the day had been his first date with Eunice, so if he returned home too late, the family might misunderstand, and believe that he’d skipped coming home on the first date. The man’s family wouldn’t think their side was “losing out,” but they might look down on the woman because of it.

After the call, Karon went to the kitchen. He didn’t bother making anything elaborate, but simply fried a few eggs and made two large sandwiches. He then grabbed a big bottle of milk from Piaget’s refrigerator.

They sat across from each other on the sofas, eating sandwiches while resuming their earlier discussion. When the conversation hit a peak, they couldn’t resist raising their cups and downing a toast of milk.

Before they knew it, it was two in the morning.

Both men had been busy all day. Piaget had spent the whole afternoon in the library digging through sources, while Karon had spent his entire day on a date. Gradually, they shifted, no longer sitting upright, but lounging on their respective sofas, chatting while half-reclined.

In the end, neither knew who drifted off first, but one of them noticed the other had stopped responding, closed his eyes, and followed into sleep.

In a drowsy haze, Karon suddenly felt cold. He instinctively reached for something to cover himself, and even remembered there should be a blanket on the sofa.

He couldn’t find it. He was forced to open his eyes, only to see something that looked like a thin bit of human skin coming down the stairs. Karon saw it, and it seemed to see him as well.

Despite that, he didn’t feel afraid. He could roughly guess who it was.

It might be because he’d gone through too many similar experiences recently, maybe it was because he and Piaget were close enough that it was like seeing the body of someone close to you, and thus did not really induce any feeling of fear.

Karon didn’t shout or move. He just watched it come down.

Then, his eyelids couldn’t fight sleep any longer. He closed his eyes again and drifted off. He slept a while longer, only to then sense someone gently pushing him.

He opened his eyes and saw Linda standing in front of him, smiling warmly. “Mr. Karon, sleeping here makes it easy to catch a chill. The guest room is ready, so please rest there.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Karon noticed Piaget was no longer on the sofa opposite.

Honestly, for Karon, whether Linda was a personality Piaget had split off from his mind, or whether there was a demonkin factor involved, it didn’t make much difference. He could calmly accept either explanation, from both of his professional angles.

What mattered most was that he did not think that she would hurt him. It was an inexplicable trust, yet strangely certain.

“Alright. Thank you, madam.” Karon didn’t refuse. He already felt a chill creeping into his body. If he continued to sleep on the sofa until morning, he really might catch a cold.

Linda led the way. Karon followed her upstairs. “This is the room. The bed is already made.”

“Thank you, madam.” Karon entered the guest room, took off his clothes, lay down, and pulled up the blanket. Comfort completely enveloped him.

There was a crisp ringing sound from his side. Karon opened his eyes a bit to see a tray with tea and pastries had been placed on the nightstand. “I’ll leave this tea here. If you get thirsty during night, you can drink it.”

“Alright, madam.”

Linda left the bedroom and closed the door. Karon rolled over a bit and went back to sleep. This time, his sleep was deep and long.

When he felt his mind and spirit had been almost fully restored by sleep, he seemed to hear music by his ear. It was very old music, and it was mixed in with human voices chanting. However, it seemed to be very, very far away, and so faint that a single frown could scatter it.

It didn’t feel like a dream, but like a summons. It felt like walking along a beach and seeing a group of people having a bonfire party in the distance. You could walk over and join them, you could turn around and go back, or you could lie down far away and continue sleeping.

Karon chose to walk towards the sound, because he still sensed no malice. It felt more like an invitation. Like if Piaget was inviting him to stay for coffee, it felt both sincere and natural.

He then found himself standing in a pitch-black location. There was a long shout, and countless torches flared to life across from him. Yes, torches.

With that light, the space suddenly gained depth and shape: it was a canyon.

Karon stood on one side, alone, while all of the figures and torches were on the opposite side.

Mountains rose high on both sides. He couldn’t see the stars when he looked up, so he was probably in a canyon, or perhaps a steep mountain valley.

Gradually, more and more torches appeared on the opposite cliff. From the abyss between them, lights that looked like fireflies began to rise up, scattering a soft, mysterious glow throughout the surroundings.

Karon could see that the opposite cliff was crowded with slaves. Their upper bodies were bare, and their sweat glistened with an oily sheen beneath the torchlight.

Some held axes and chisels to carve into stone, others carried blocks of rock. Among the people gathered was a large group who were all dressed in purple robes. Most held pigments and brushed color onto the surface.

When the lights from the abyss rose high enough, the colors across the cliff face finally became visible to Karon. At the very bottom, there were a pair of feet. Above them, calves, and above that, knees.

Beside one foot lay countless beast corpses, and around them was a dense crowd of humans kneeling in worship.

Both the beast corpses and worshipping humans were all so tiny that they couldn’t even compare to the giant figure’s fingernail.

It was a work in progress, a true religious mural. A being of such height could only be a true god, which meant that this mural was of a true god descending into the human world.

“Yo...eh...!”

A rhythmic long shout rang out again, like a work chant. The slaves across the chasm began shouting in unison, forming a peculiar rhythm, and the people in purple robes danced along with it.

“Yo...eh...!”

The strange, oppressive sound spread through the crowd, echoing across the empty valley. The echo felt like a new member joining in, reinforcing the rhythm.

“Pa!”

“Pa!”

“Pa!”

The slaves and the purple-robed painters then began to stomp their feet and clapping in a hard, synchronized beat. They started a primitive dance.

The next moment, they turned as one to face Karon’s side of the abyss, where he stood alone.

He was stunned. He’d merely been an outsider this whole time, quietly watching from the darkness, but at this moment, he seemed to become the focus of every gaze.

He quickly realized that he was just flattering himself.

That was because a massive woman’s head emerged from the abyss before him. She rose up, a female giant. No, it was not so much rising as standing. It was as if she’d been crouched down in the depths of the abyss and was simply straightening up.

Her hair looked like vines, threaded with nests of flowing halos. The earlier lights that resembled fireflies were merely a part of her body.

When she fully stood up, Karon, who stood behind her, felt as if he was pinned in place by some unseen pressure from a great existence. There was a visceral sense of smallness, a cold suppression of the spirit.

When reading books, it’s easy to think that when ancient people chose to kneel and worship their so-called gods, their actions were backward and ignorant, but when an enormous figure appears right in front of you, you instantly understand the impulse to worship.

Worship, not from admiration or reverence, but because when escape is no longer an option, worship becomes the only remaining action to be taken.

The female giant slowly raised her left hand. In it, she held a pond. There were colors flowing and shifting about within it.

She slowly raised her right hand. In that hand was a vast, iridescent feather.

She dipped the feather in her right hand into the pond in her left, scattering endless color. In an instant, that splashed color transformed into swarms and swarms of fireflies that took flight once more.

Her right hand reached to touch the cliff face in front of her, the face that was even taller than her own body. The mural’s contents grew richer, more detailed. Under the giantess’s casting of color, the image of a male true god gradually took shape.

The giantess was not a god, but the creator of the mural. She was painting a mural for a true god.

And yet she was also a goddess, because the slaves and the purple-robed people all worshipped her.

God was a broad term. An example was that female follower of the Mios faith Karon had seen in Mr. Morf’s study. If prostitutes on a sea island could create Mios, the Sea God’s lover, as their faith, then why couldn’t mural craftsmen and slaves create a goddess of their own?

People prayed that earthquakes would not happen, and so they called forth the Mother of Earth.

People prayed for calm seas and safe voyages, and so they called forth the Sea God.

People prayed for light to drive away darkness, and so they called forth the God of Light.

People prayed for Order to descend and enforce the rules, and so they called forth the God of Order.

A god always appeared when people needed one.

Finally, at the very top of the cliff face, the giantess painted a sun. The sun cast down tens of thousands of rays, and they instantly shrouded the entire valley in light.

Karon instinctively raised both arms to shield his face, afraid the glare would burn his eyes, yet when he lowered his arms, he saw bright sunlight outside of the bedroom window.

He was still lying in bed, in the guest room of Piaget’s house. “Hah...”

It had been a very good dream. Not frightening or horrific, but still overwhelmingly epic. He reached for the tea on the nightstand beside him. It was already cold, but he still took a deep drink.

Then, he froze.

He saw that the ceiling above him wasn’t a simple surface with an ordinary hanging lamp. In fact, there was no fixture at all. In the entire guest room, there was only the lamp on the nightstand to offer any light.

That was why he hadn’t noticed last night, but in the light of the bright morning sun, he saw that the ceiling above his head was a work of art.

It was a depiction of a canyon and chasm identical to the one from his dream. The difference was that the painting showed only the setting. There was no mural of a true god on a cliff face, no dense crowd of slaves, no purple-robed craftsmen, and no giant woman.

Had it all been just a psychological suggestion?

Even if Karon hadn’t noticed, had his half-asleep mind seen the ceiling mural last night, and that had led to his dream? Was that the reason?

Karon got out of bed and got dressed.

As soon as he stepped out of the guest room, he saw Piaget, his hair disheveled, emerging from his own bedroom. Seeing Karon, Piaget smiled with contentment. “Do you need a shower, Karon? Hehe. Linda even wiped me down last night.”

“I’ll just do a quick wash.”

“Mm, good. If I had to guess, Linda must’ve already prepared breakfast. My wife never loses her manners when we have guests over, no matter how many times I tell her that anyone I invite into my home is a friend I’ve acknowledged, and that there’s no need to fuss over so much between friends.”

“Absolutely,” Karon agreed.

He turned on the tap in the washroom and splashed water onto his face. On the sink, he saw a brand-new toothbrush and a neatly folded towel. They had clearly been prepared for him.

“Did you sleep well? We talked too late,” Piaget commented, leaning against the doorframe to the washroom.

“Yes.”

“I haven’t had a conversation that enjoyable in a long time. Many of your ideas feel more advanced than what I know; It’s fascinating!”

Karon began brushing his teeth. As he squeezed out toothpaste, he suddenly thought of the giantess’s hands from his dream.

And then, at last, something from the books Grandfather had given him popped into his mind. He seemed to have seen a record there of a small church.

In truth, even in the dream, he’d vaguely felt that he already knew something, or else he wouldn’t have connected it to gods being called forth by human need. Still, there are times when you see something and need a little time before you can recall it clearly.

In a book, the small church worshipped murals. Its believers were mostly craftsmen who worked on murals, including those who painted religious murals for churches and holy sites across the land. There were even many painters and artists among the believers of this church. Because the number of believers was small and they were too scattered, the church had never formed anything worth noting.

The name of that church was the Wall God Church.

The god they worshipped had, since the previous epoch, helped true gods to depict their majestic forms, using murals to record and convey the gods’ stories. To some extent, that god and her believers, in the early ages of the previous epoch, had not been merely painters and craftsmen, but had been considered more of historians who used the churches as their vessel.

After brushing his teeth and washing his face, Karon wiped his face and suddenly asked Piaget, who stood behind him yawning, “Piaget, is Linda really a believer of the Berai Church?”

“Hm? Why ask that all of a sudden?”

“Because, aside from the Berai Church, there are a number of small churches that also advocate cremation. For example, the Wall God Church. Their believers also advocate cremation, because ashes can be used in the pigments to create murals. They believe that such pigments are able to better communicate with divinity, which allows the murals to express the gods’ forms and stories more powerfully. And considering how long it takes to create murals, they could even create murals ‘in advance.’”

“Linda is a believer of the Berai Church,” Piaget affirmed.

“Oh.” Karon answered. He asked nothing further.

Once the two men had finished washing up, they went downstairs. Breakfast was already on the table for them. Cutlery had been laid out, but perhaps because Linda had known they’d drunk too much milk last night, their cups held water instead.

Karon and Piaget sat down and ate breakfast together. When they finished, Karon set down his knife and fork. “Please thank Linda.”

“Hehe.” Piaget laughed again.

“I’m heading back.” Karon stood to take his leave.

“Ah, wait. Look, there’s a gift box here. Linda must have prepared it for you. Please accept it.”

“Alright. Thank you, Linda.”

“Mm. I won’t see you out.”

“As you said yourself, there’s no need for formalities between true friends.” Karon picked up the gift box, left Piaget’s house, and got into the car, buckling his seatbelt.

Before starting the engine, he hesitated. He picked the gift box back up and opened it.

Inside, he found a box of pigments.

Karon stared for a moment, then sighed. “What a heavy gift.”

Beneath the pigment box was a letter.

Karon picked it up.

“Respected Mr. Karon,

It has been a very long time since I have seen my husband so happy. I sincerely thank you for appearing and giving him the care of a friend. I should have created a painting for you as a heartfelt gift to present to my husband’s closest friend, but, I am sorry to say, I sat in my studio for three hours, and did not know how to begin.

Perhaps the brush that paints your life is already held in your own hand and no one else can take it up in your place. All I can do is give you a fresh set of pigments.

Finally, I wish to once again convey my deepest gratitude for the grace you showed in becoming my husband’s friend, Great Heretical God.

1. “Qianlong” (乾隆) refers to the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty. In Chinese pop history he’s famously associated with stories about touring the south incognito (下江南), and countless local foods/brands later claiming “Qianlong tried it and named it,” as a tongue-in-cheek way to say someone’s presence gets credited for everything. ☜