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Yan Mo finds his first candidate by following rumours of a cult. He picks a second based simply on biodata. Orphan, unattached, working an unremarkable job – and, crucially, with a Trust Value of zero.
Shang De has already left Mighty Glory. All the necessary conditions are in place.
“I’ve found what I needed,” he tells Zac, at the end of the next board meeting. Their long years of partnership are worth at least that courtesy.
Zac merely looks up at him with that wide-eyed, would-be-childish gaze of his. Yan Mo’s wondered, before, if that too is a function of Trust Value: an entrepreneurial prodigy frozen forever in the public’s imagination, never allowed to age beyond his university days.
“Congrats,” Zac says.
The rest is logistics.
It’s easy to insinuate yourself into a life that is empty. ‘Uncle Yan’ is a simple enough creation: the friendly owner of a neighbourhood bubble tea shop. And it turns out, conveniently, that Yang Cheng works for Mighty Glory’s Children’s Paradise theatre.
Yan Mo doesn’t think much of it until he attends a performance – easing into his own role as a supportive older figure – and sees Yang Cheng in costume. The boy is meant to become Zero; he wears the mask of Zero’s murderer, instead.
After the show, between enthusiasm and encouragement, Uncle Yan slips the question in.
“E-Soul’s my idol,” Yang Cheng replies, with a mix of pride and embarrassment. “I’d... I’d like to meet him someday.”
The backstory emerges later, over afternoons and cups of bubble tea. Yang Cheng opens up with pitiful gratitude, desperate to finally have someone to tell. Says anew, soft-eyed and sincere: My dream is to meet him someday.
Oh, you will, Yan Mo thinks. I’ll make sure of it.
A familiar story: A child meets a saviour. He holds the memory of that hero close, for years and years afterwards; a light in the darkness.
The child becomes a man. The man has a dream for which he would do anything.
As the leader of Mighty Glory, Yan Mo faces that familiar mask day after day; that cold, unmoved visage once stained with Zero’s blood. He watches a sea of would-be E-Souls emulate their false idol. He listens to Zero’s murderer speak of courage and justice, of fireworks in the darkness and bringing light to the masses – even as he was the one who snuffed out the brightest flame.
No matter. Yan Mo has borne society’s misplaced worship of E-Soul for decades. He can bear a few more weeks of it.
He watches the steady climb of the new E-Soul’s Trust Value. He watches a new light fill Yang Cheng’s eyes; feeds it as he would a young and wavering flame. Yang Cheng flourishes under the glow of the public’s love and admiration, growing into his hero suit at last. His dream sharpens, all-but-solidifies, close enough to almost touch. Yan Mo just needs the right moment to destroy it.
As Yan Mo told another young man, not long ago: “Before becoming a god, experiencing pain is a necessary trial.” Zero had been raised with warmth and love; knew only how to grant such softness to others. That left him too weak to bear the world’s fear, in the end.
Yan Mo’s two candidates were picked because they lacked that weakness. Because they were shaped by pain long before they were entrusted with the hopes of others.
A man creates a hero who becomes a god. The god tries his best. It isn’t enough. The public turns him into a god of death; another man creates the hero who destroys him.
The first man is disgraced. The second starts an empire.
Yan Feng leaves his son with an aborted dream and the funds to resurrect it. When FOMO appears, Yan Mo sees a glimpse of the future; invests his inheritance to secure it.
Three decades after Dawnfall, Shang Shi’s grandson becomes an eager and unwitting pawn. Shang Chao designs the technology that will destroy the old E-Soul; spends his father’s money in service of Yan Mo’s plan; dies, eventually, for the same reason. It’s almost satisfying.
Once only E-Soul remains, everything is easier.
Yan Mo takes off his own mask. Faces the new E-Soul, finally, as Mighty Glory’s chief executive officer.
There’s no visible reaction. That’s just as well, Yan Mo supposes. A confirmation that there’s no one left to feel betrayed by Uncle Yan; that Yang Cheng died, too, on that rainy night.
It’s safest to raise piranhas individually. If there must be more than one in a tank, it’s crucial that they aren’t left too hungry.
“You’ve been spending lots of time on that fraud, huh,” Liang Long says, sprawled unhelpfully across Yan Mo’s paperwork. He kicks a heel against the side of the desk, affecting carelessness. It doesn’t quite disguise the annoyance in his tone.
Yan Mo feeds his E-Soul with the public’s arm’s-length attention: a steady stream of trending topics and magazine covers and glowing commentary, a surfeit to a starving child. He’s raised Liang Long with a more personal touch. Different approaches, their efficacy tested in their outcomes. E-Soul craves the worship of the world; Liang Long cares only for the devotion of one follower.
Liang Long has proven the more promising candidate. But also the more troublesome one, in certain ways.
“He requires the extra time,” Yan Mo says evenly.
Liang Long snorts. “Why bother? When I climb the rankings, I keep my place. That guy can’t hold on to anything. Once I get into the top ten, you won’t need him.”
An accurate enough assessment. Yet Yan Mo sees right through that offhand confidence to the shivering child beneath. All those words just to say: Don’t abandon me. You chose me. You chose me.
“Once you get into the top ten,” Yan Mo agrees. “But there will be other uses for him.”
Decades ago, the original E-Soul brought an end to a bright and beautiful dream. Decades later, the boy he saved became his destruction; was reborn from the ashes of their encounter. One E-Soul sacrificed to feed another.
When the time comes, this new E-Soul can do the same. This time, at least, Zero will be the one who survives.
Liang Long sits up, back arched – an angry cat, hissing at imagined enemies. “I can do anything that fraud can–”
“No,” Yan Mo says, soothing. “You won’t have to.”