Uncle Chen who misses his wife
A gray-haired old man slowly opened the door early in the morning and sat there indifferently staring blankly at nowhere, as if he was struggling in the vortex of his memories. “So, you’ll be back soon, won't you?” he murmured. The old man was always lost in thought, but his face was haggard yet with hope in his eyes all the time. However, when the day ended, and the person he had been waiting for still did not appear, he would reluctantly turn back to the empty house with a desperate sigh.
The person Uncle Chen expects is his wife, Aunt Wang. They are both from Huangpu District, Guangzhou Province, an ordinary couple in the countryside living an ordinary life with low educational levels.
Ignorance led her astray to “Almighty God” cult
Soon after their children grew up to make a living and were capable of improving the financial situation of their family, its fate was utterly changed by one person. In mid May 2012, a 40-year-old woman who called herself Xiaoliu came to their house, saying that she was guided by Almighty God to meet with them because they were destined to cross their path with Almighty God, and they could avoid all misfortunes and enjoyed endless fortunes once they devoted themselves to Almighty God. In the following days, Xiaoliu came to their house every day to teach them to read scriptures and sing songs of Almighty God cult. Furthermore, she preached lots of fallacies of Almighty God cult to Aunt Wang, and left her with three books, The Word Appears in the Flesh, Singing New Songs with Lambs, and Minutes of Discussion between Christ and Church Workers. Gradually, dozens of publications and several CDs about Almighty God started to appear in their house where there used to be no books at all. At first, Uncle Chen didn’t think much of it. He thought what Aunt Wang was doing would only confine to eating vegetarian food, chanting scriptures, burning incense, or simply saying the prayer "Amitabha" for the peace of mind, just like other people.
In her delusion, she was helping miserable people ascend to heaven, but instead she became the demon pulling people down to hell
But Uncle Chen soon realized that the situation was far more serious than what he thought. His wife would leave home every once in a while, and often stayed out all night when she left home. After she joined the cult, she even tryed to persuade Uncle Chen to believe in Almighty God together with her by nagging about “miracles” of Almighty God. But Uncle Chen is a down-to-earth man who neither objects nor respects the existence of heavenly things such as Deities, God or Buddha. For Aunt Wang’s increasingly religious zeal, he kindly suggested her to live more in reality for the sake of daily family life, but what he got from Aunt Wang were just disdain and swear words. Later on, after realizing that Uncle Chen was too stubborn to be persuaded, she gave up on him and turned to their neighbors to spread the “Gospel”. Their neighbors were so afraid of being disturbed by her preach that they all stayed away from her, which made Aunt Wang have to give up, but curse them “stubborn fools!”. In her opinion, only Almighty God truly understands her and cares for her. She decided not to waste any more of her time and words on those village fools, and she felt totally fine as long as she was surrounded by other believers under the guide of Almighty God.
Addicted to “Gospel”, She hurt her family members by leaving home without saying goodbye
Aunt Wang, who thought that she had everything figured out, devoted all her time and efforts to “Almighty God” related activities, and was deeply addicted to everything about “Almighty God” such as propaganda books, CDs etc. She even handed over the money that her children offered to support her and Uncle Chen’s elderly life to Almighty God cult, in the name of “dedication money”. Uncle Chen felt helpless about what Aunt Wang did, so he had to urge all their children to come back home, hoping they could help make their mother come back to her senses.
While Aunt Wang was absent from home, they decided to take it as an opportunity to get rid of everything about Almighty God in the house. So they burned the cult books and smashed cult CDs to avoid any further troubles. As for the VCD player that the whole family enjoyed dearly for many years, they also reluctantly sold out for scrap. When Aunt Wang returned, she looked for her “spiritual food” everywhere frantically. After she was aware that all her stuff was gone, she was so mad that she started to swear at them and even beat them. Uncle Chen was too old to stand firm when suddenly shoved by his wife, therefore he fell hard to the sharp edges and corners along the kitchen stove. The sharp pain made him lie on the ground in agony. While his wife just stood by idly, sneering at him, “You deserved it!” Then she ran away from home without even looking back again. Their children were astonished by what happened in front of them, standing there speechless for a little while, until they were wakened up by the anguished groan of their father on the ground and rushed to send their father to the local hospital with the help of their neighbors. How could members of a once happy family turn into enemies in the blink of an eye? And as the sayings goes, blood is thicker than water, so how could family ties be no match at all for the so-called Almighty God? The questions kept haunting them because they could never get the answer from Aunt Wang who just disappeared without any trace since then.
Uncle Chen is left with a permanent injury and a wife difficult to find
Since all Uncle Chen’s savings was “donated” to Almighty God cult by Aunt Wang, in order not to add any more financial burden to his family, Uncle Chen only gave consent to basic treatment at the local health clinic, which resulted in him being crippled permanently. From then on, Uncle Chen had to limp around with one injured leg. Learning about the situation, his daughter quitted her job to take care of her old father, and his son became the only breadwinner of the whole family. Uncle Chen was sad about the departure of his wife, and blamed himself for being incompetent. But he loved his wife so much that he asked his children not to blame their mother for what she did, and he believed that she would eventually come to her senses and return home. At first, it was quite difficult for the children to make peace with their mother in their heart, but they reluctantly agreed with their father’s pleading to pacify him. Later, the daughter found a new job after Uncle Chen was slightly better. The old man kept asking around about his wife’s possible whereabouts whenever possible, but all he got was nothing but unreliable hear-says.
Even now, nine years later, Aunt Wang still remains missing without any trace. Uncle Chen is unwilling to accept the fact and repeatedly talks to himself in his heart, “I’m old and ailing, and I’m like a nearly burnt-out candle flickering in the wind, wondering if I may ever see you again. Come back home my dear, or I’ll die with open eyes.”
