Taoist priest goes to America

Ang Lee swallowed the steak in his mouth. "What happened to all those people who came from Runlai before?"

Gu Jinghong removed his hand from his coffee cup. "The account is no longer being updated. Sometimes I'll stumble upon those old accounts and click in to see their last post."

"Usually no one replies, and then that post is like a stone thrown into water, it sinks to the bottom forever, it only makes a few bubbles and then it's gone."

"I have more than twenty clients who frequently post updates on social media during their first year after settling in."

"The posting frequency will decrease in the second year, and some accounts will stop updating in the third year."

"A few people will post a long message saying they want to go back to China but can't, and then someone will leave a comment saying, 'You have to persevere, the revolution has not yet succeeded.'"

"That post will soon disappear from the internet; no one will reply, and that person will stop updating it."

After he finished speaking, he looked up at Li An and said, "Fellow villager, you won't post what I told you online, will you?" Gu Jinghong said jokingly, with a hint of probing in his tone.

Ang Lee didn't continue that line of questioning. "Let me be more explicit," he said, "what did you do with them after they died? What happened to their bodies?"

Gu Jinghong's gaze swept across Li An's face, trying to ascertain Li An's true attitude when he said those words.

"Fellow villager, do you pity them?" Gu Jinghong asked tentatively, then shook his head and said:

"If I don't take their money, they'll find someone else to do it. If I don't help them, someone else will..."

Ang Lee shoved a cold steak into Gu Jinghong's mouth with his fork, interrupting his rambling.

"What are you babbling about?"

"You know perfectly well where they went. I just want to ask, if these people are dead, where did their bodies go?"

Gu Jinghong looked at him and continued, "I have connections with a gang in Brooklyn. The gang has people who specialize in disposing of corpses. They take money and do it without asking where the money comes from."

"I told those people in the group that if they were in an accident and were about to die, or if their companions or family members had already died, they should send a message in the group to let me know their location."

"I will tell them that someone will come to rescue you, someone will come to collect your body."

Gu Jinghong took a sip of coffee and shrugged. "Actually, no one will come to rescue us, but the body collectors will."

"If those bastards die in this shitty country and no one claims them, at least I can guarantee they won't rot in the streets, and there's a chance they'll be properly buried? Maybe? It depends on the mood of those gangsters."

Why are you asking this?

Ang Lee placed the knife and fork on the table. "Can you remember the professions of every deceased Runsheng? I need to buy corpses."

Gu Jinghong frowned. "What do you need a corpse for?"

"You don't need to know." Li An stood up. "You add me to that group. I'll check the goods myself."

"How much did the gang pay you?"

Gu Jinghong looked up at Li An, his gaze falling on the smart suit jacket.

"A corpse... four hundred US dollars, that's their rule. If it's below market price, it's considered protection money I'm paying. After all, people in my line of work will still come looking for revenge."

"I'll offer seven hundred dollars, a hundred dollars more than the market price, how about it?" Ang Lee wiped his mouth with a napkin and finished his meal.

It costs 900 to get a corpse with special skills from the cleaners, but we're only paying 700 here, saving 200.

"But...but I have to meet my monthly targets..." Gu Jinghong hesitated, torn between the gangsters and money.

"I only want intact corpses, fresh and whole. I don't want any with severed limbs or major wounds. How many can I take?"

"Think about it carefully." Li An walked over, put his hands on Gu Jinghong's shoulders, and whispered in his ear, "That's seven hundred US dollars. You'll make an extra three hundred dollars from each one."

"It's rare for us to meet in a foreign land, so let's do each other a favor, okay?" Ang Lee continued to coax.

Gu Jinghong glanced down at his phone's lock screen, then unlocked it, opened the QR code page, and handed the phone over. "Scan me. I'll add you to the group."

Ang Lee scanned the QR code and put his phone away. Gu Jinghong took the phone and, while looking down at it, said, "Just pick any ID, you can change the profile picture yourself. Don't post your own photos in there."

After he finished speaking, a group chat interface popped up on the screen, and Ang Lee put his hands back in his pockets.

Gu Jinghong also put his phone in his pocket, but as if remembering something, he took it out again, swiped the screen twice, and turned the phone towards Li An.

"There's one that fits your criteria. He died this afternoon, a fresh, intact body with no external injuries."

Ang Lee paused for a moment. He turned around, walked back to the table, but didn't sit down. "What's your profession?"

Gu Jinghong placed his phone on the table, screen up. The photo was a copy of an ID photo of a young man, around twenty years old, wearing round-framed glasses, with neatly combed hair and a smile on his lips.

"The deceased was his father, a software engineer. He didn't have a formal job, but he did some things—"

"If you had to give him a profession, he would be a content creator."

Ang Lee looked down at the photograph. "What's on it?"

"Vulgar video." Gu Jinghong picked up his phone, swiped to another picture, and showed it to Li An. "Uh... he's a 'transgender woman,' it was voluntary, he needed money to buy estradiol and anti-androgens."

Ang Lee didn't press the matter. Seeing that Ang Lee remained silent, Gu Jinghong also paused for a moment before speaking again: "Fellow countryman, let it go. He's just like me, quite pitiful. He was also brought to America by his parents."

"His father's income in China is not low, but his mother is determined to go abroad, so she forced his father to quit his job and bring the whole family over."

"After he came here, his father couldn't find a job that matched his skills. He worked as a warehouse worker in a supermarket for two years. Later, he went back to being a programmer in a small company, where his income was even lower than in China."

"His mother couldn't handle the change in circumstances and ran off with someone else, leaving him and his father alone."

Gu Jinghong tapped his phone, which displayed the young man's social media profile.

"When he first came, he was just like me, reluctant and cursing those 'run people', cursing those rare people, and cursing LGBT things in the group."

"I admired him quite a bit at the time. I thought he was a young man, but he was very clear-headed."

"What a pity... He later said he wanted to learn more about LGBT people, because only by knowing yourself and your enemy can you better oppose them."

"He joined some online communities and read a lot of theories there. At first, he refuted them, but the more he read, the more his own thoughts began to change."

"He told us in the group that he felt he was transgender and wanted to take medication to change his gender."

"Some people in the group cursed at him, while others tried to persuade him, but he didn't reply to any of them. Later, he left the group and then joined another one."

"When he came back, he had changed his profile picture to a woman's and changed his name to an English name, a very long female name with a bunch of random characters."

Ang Lee looked at the screen. The account's pinned post was a selfie with a filter, making it impossible to recognize the boy's original appearance. He was wearing makeup and Lolita fashion, posing provocatively while holding up his skirt.

"He started borrowing money in the group, saying he needed to buy transgender medication. He borrowed 300 the first time, 500 the second time, and when no one lent him money the third time, he started posting those vulgar videos on Twitter for a fee, making money from that."

"His dad found out and argued with him a few times, but then they stopped arguing."

"Because his father's health was not good to begin with, he had never had a physical examination after coming to the United States. Last year, he was found to have a liver problem, was hospitalized for a month, and went back to work after being discharged."

"His father passed away this afternoon in their rented apartment due to liver failure."

Gu Jinghong locked his phone and placed it on the table. "His father's body is still lying in the rented room. He hasn't dared to touch it, and he doesn't have the money to dispose of it."

"He just sent a message in the group, asking if anyone could take his father's body, he just wanted some money, he needed the money to buy medicine."

Ang Lee looked down at the phone on the table. "His dad's a software engineer?"

"Yes, there are several well-known software programs he developed in China. He worked as a programmer for more than ten years, which ruined his health," Gu Jinghong said.

Ang Lee nodded in satisfaction. "Where is his father's body now?"

"He hasn't dared to call the police yet, as it's a rented apartment."

"How much does it cost?"

Gu Jinghong looked at him in surprise. "Are you serious, fellow villager?"

"His father died, but it's not like my father died. If he likes Run America, he can suffer the consequences himself." Ang Lee reached into his pocket. "Take me inside and have a look."