G581: Plague Tales II - Sample Chapter

• Post-Apocalyptic Survival

• Found Family

• Pandemic/virus aftermath

• Cryogenic status & revival

• Grief and resilience

• Governmental collapse

The Last Brushstroke

Beijing, China – Spring 2080

Xiao was fifteen the first time she told her parents she wanted to become an artist.

Her mother scoffed. “A hobby is not a career, Xiao.”

Her father didn’t look up from his tea. “There are no jobs for daydreamers. You want to draw? Do it after you finish your engineering homework.”

By seventeen, Xiao had won awards for her watercolor landscapes and been published in an international student art journal. Her art teacher had pulled her aside one day, eyes wide with excitement. “RISD,” he whispered, “you could get into RISD.”

She researched the Rhode Island School of Design late at night, scrolling through pages of portfolios, student exhibits, and testimonials that read like love letters to creativity. It felt like a lighthouse in a sea of cold practicality.
But when she brought it up at dinner, her father exploded.

“Rhode Island? America? For what? To waste four years smearing colors on a page like a child? That is not a future!”

Her mother tried to smooth things over, but Xiao could feel the tension crackling under the surface.

“She’s not going to be happy following a path she hates,” her mother said quietly.

“And you think she’ll be happy starving on the street? Or teaching art in a third-rate school for 4,000 yuan a month?”

They fought over it for three weeks. The house felt like a battlefield, every room tense with cold silence or erupting into shouted arguments. Xiao stopped painting. She stopped talking. One night, she overheard her parents arguing in their bedroom.

“You wanted her to be strong,” her mother hissed. “But every time she tries to become someone, you crush her.”

“She has one life,” her father said. “And I won’t let her throw it away on feelings.”

In the end, her mother won. Barely. Xiao was allowed to go, but only under strict terms: she would study art and design, but minor in something “practical”—computer science, if they could push it through the admissions office. And she would never speak of becoming a full-time artist.

They handed her the ticket with stiff expressions. Her mother looked proud and scared. Her father refused to speak, or even look at her at the airport.

Providence, USA – Fall 2080 to Spring 2082

RISD was everything Xiao had dreamed of and more. The freedom, the color, the chaos of creation—she had never felt more alive. She met Willem in her first year, a quiet graduate student in architecture who admired her sculptures and spoke to her in a gentle German-accented English that made her smile without meaning to.

By the end of the school year, she had fallen for Willem. He switched majors, falling in love with art right alongside her. Falling in love… with her.
It felt effortless, this love. Something simple, beautiful. When he asked her to spend the summer in Munich working with him at the Alte Pinakothek, she said yes—her heart soared at the thought of him securing them both positions there. They stayed together in his room in the apartment he shared with his older sister, Greta. At first taken aback by Xiao, Greta had quickly warmed to her and welcomed her into Willem’s life.

Xiao felt conflicted learning of Willem and Greta’s parents’ deaths five years earlier. A tragedy, one they still clearly struggled with. She couldn’t help feeling guilty for wishing, in darker moments, that it had been her parents instead. Mama had at least tried—but Baba was horribly traditional and didn’t seem to care what Xiao wanted, only what would benefit the family. She’d told them she was working at an art museum for the summer. Paid her own way with a small line of credit and planned to pay it back before Baba noticed. Still, they had been unhappy at the news.

“Bao Wang has been asking after you,” Mama said, as if she would drop everything and run home to date some rich snob like Bao. Every call home drained her. Her father’s disappointment was never direct—but it lingered in every short answer, every clipped goodbye. Her mother pleaded with her to consider transferring to a more technical field. “You don’t want to end up alone and poor,” she said. “Art is for the rich, Xiao. Not for girls like us.”

Xiao said all the words Mama wanted to hear, then cried in Willem’s arms after. “She doesn’t understand. And she never will. Art is my life!”

Somehow, she had convinced her parents to give her two years at RISD. She didn’t tell Willem about the deadline. She just… couldn’t. Instead, she threw herself into the beautiful vortex of learning and love during their second year. She and Willem spent every free moment together—working on class projects, some collaboratively, others side by side—and making love in his tiny off-campus studio. One of her brightest moments came when she learned she had submitted the winning design for a sculpture commemorating those lost in the nuclear attack on Austin, Texas. She celebrated by creating a tiny version of the sculpture for Willem. She hung it on a chain she’d bought in Munich the summer before and etched “Love, Xiao” in Hanzi on the bottom.

The look on his face said it all. He slipped it over his head, kissed her, and promised never to take it off.

It wasn’t until halfway through that second year at RISD that Xiao told them about Willem—about his interest, about the gallery show he encouraged her to apply to—when her father’s voice turned to ice.

“So you’ve added a foreigner to your list of bad ideas.”

She stopped calling home after that. 

​

Guiyang, China – Summer 2082
Nearly six months of bliss passed—until Baba’s presence outside her dorm room in mid-May made her stomach drop.

“I have come to take you home for the summer.”

His face was implacable, but Xiao knew better than to argue. She nodded, numb.

She didn’t tell them about the child. Didn’t tell Willem. She simply left RISD without a word, her dreams folded into a red silk dress and buried beneath her family’s expectations. She packed her things, messaged Willem to say she had to return to Guiyang for the summer, and left with her father. By the time Willem received her message, she was already in the air. His panicked reply made her heart ache—but what could she do?

Baba was here, and she had never been able to stand up to him. She could barely manage Mama. Baba, though—he was a force you didn’t argue with. You simply obeyed.

She was pregnant. She was sure of it now. A half dozen tests, all positive, and morning sickness already gnawing at her. Xiao could count the days until someone would find out. She had to tell someone. But before she could, Baba announced that the marriage agreement with Bao Wang was finalized.

He smiled—a rare, unsettling sight. He was overjoyed. Bao’s family was wealthy, powerful, secure.

Her mother looked at Xiao one day as she pinned up the hem of her wedding cheongsam. “I fought for you once,” she said softly. “And now I’ve lost. I’m sorry.”

Her father, Wang Jianyu, had grown up during the lean decades after the mid-century global economic downturn. His own father, a civil servant, died young, leaving Jianyu to support his mother and two younger siblings by the age of sixteen. He clawed his way out of poverty by sheer force of will, earning a degree in civil engineering and securing a modest but steady position with the Ministry of Infrastructure.

But Jianyu had always understood how fragile stability could be.
By the time Xiao was born, he had begun cultivating connections—relationships with school administrators, local officials, and eventually, the Wang family, whose patriarch, Bao Zhong, had amassed a fortune in construction and early investments in autonomous transport infrastructure.
When the Wangs expressed interest in aligning their family with a rising civil servant of good standing, Jianyu saw it as fate. A ladder from heaven.
Xiao was eight the first time she met Bao. He was twelve, obnoxious. He called her “shrimp” and flicked soup at her during dinner. She cried. Her mother gently scolded her, but her father smiled.

“He’s just teasing you,” Jianyu said. “That means he likes you.”

By the time she turned twenty, the agreement was all but sealed. It was spoken of in careful terms—“an understanding,” “a promising match,” “an opportunity for family growth.” To her father, the marriage was the culmination of his life’s work: not just a financial merger, but social elevation.

If Xiao married into the Bao family, they’d never worry about money again. No more scraping. No more begging for scholarships. No more choosing between heat and groceries in lean months. It was their ticket to generational security.

When Xiao applied to RISD, Jianyu didn’t rage because he thought it was impractical—he raged because it threatened everything.

“You think they will still want you if you come back with a useless art degree and a foreign boyfriend?” he shouted one night, face red with fury. “This is not just about you. This is about us. About the family!”

He had staked everything on this arrangement—his reputation, his savings, his identity as a provider. For Jianyu, Bao wasn’t a suitor. He was a contract. A lifeline. A guarantee.

When Bao’s family set the wedding date just a month after her return from RISD, Jianyu finally exhaled. He walked taller. Smiled more.

“All is as it should be,” he told the neighbors. “My daughter is marrying well. We are fortunate.”

​

One week before the wedding
The garden behind the Bao estate was drenched in humid stillness. A marble lion stood at the entrance to the winding path, watching silently as Xiao made her way toward the koi pond. Her satin flats made barely a sound on the stones. She had chosen a pale blue dress that morning—demure, flowing—but now the fabric clung to her damp skin. She sat on the stone bench, spine straight, heart pounding.

The man she was to marry arrived minutes later. Bao’s steps were smooth, assured—the confidence of a man raised never to doubt his place. His eyes swept over her face, then her figure, and she saw that flicker of calculation, just behind the smile. It was always there.

“You summoned me,” he said lightly. “How dramatic.”

“I needed to speak with you alone.” She clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “Before the wedding.”

His expression slid into mock concern. “You’re not getting cold feet, are you?”

Xiao didn’t smile. “I’m pregnant.”

The silence stretched.

Bao’s smile faded. Slowly. Deliberately. They had not slept together; it hadn’t been that kind of proposal or courtship.

“Is it someone local?”

“No,” she said, voice flat. “A student at RISD. His name is Willem. He is… someone I cared for.”

His jaw tightened, but he didn’t shout. That wasn’t Bao’s way. He preferred quiet menace.

“Well,” he said at last, “that’s… inconvenient.”

Xiao’s throat went dry. “You will want to call off the wedding, of course.”

He laughed softly, almost surprised. “Oh no, my dear. I don’t think that will be necessary.”

She blinked. “What?”

He circled around the bench, now thoughtful. “I was born six weeks early, did you know that? My mother always said I couldn’t wait to enter the world and take what was mine.” He looked at her belly—still flat, still silent. “If your child comes early, no one will question it. You’re not showing. Not yet. There’s nothing to hide.”

“But people will count,” she whispered. “They’ll know.”

“No. You’ll know. And I’ll know.” He turned to her, eyes cool and sharp. “But the others? They’ll believe what I tell them to believe. And what they’ll believe is that the child is mine.” His gaze sharpened. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

“A girl.”

“Good. Very good. I wouldn’t want a bastard taking my name if he were to inherit, but a girl—well, we can work with that.”

Xiao’s breath caught.

“This isn’t about love, Xiao,” he said, finally. “It’s about alliance.

Appearance. Control.” He leaned closer, voice low and deadly calm. “And you… you are still a beautiful, valuable bride. Nothing changes that.”

She stared at him, unable to speak.

He straightened, satisfied. “You’ll walk down that aisle with your head held high. And when the child comes early, we’ll call it destiny. Or genes. Or fate.”

“And Willem?” she asked quietly.

Bao’s smile returned, thin and cruel. Xiao suppressed a shudder.

“Willem is a foreigner. You’ll forget him. I’ll make sure of it.”

He stepped away, already finished with the conversation, already thinking ahead—to flowers, photographers, the press.

Xiao sat on the stone bench, hands still folded, staring into the koi pond, where orange and white bodies slipped through the water without care.

She was no longer a person.

She was a vessel.

A prize.

​

Guiyang, China – January 2084
Ten months after Jia’s birth

The sculpture space in the storage shed had been the one indulgence Xiao fought for when they moved into the cramped, crumbling house in Guiyang’s Fifth District. It was barely larger than a closet, with cracked plaster walls and a barred window facing a rusted stairwell. But it had light—weak, filtered light that pooled across the floor in the late morning. She placed her clays and tools there beside the window. Her meager art supplies were cobbled together to replace those left behind at RISD.

She hadn’t used them in weeks.

Today, she sat in front of the easel with her daughter sleeping nearby, tiny fists curled against her chest. Jia’s breaths were shallow and soft, like whispers in the silence. Her cheeks were red from the cold. The wall heater buzzed on and off, barely pushing back the chill.

The building creaked with the weight of winter and poverty. Outside, a woman shouted at her child. A dog barked. Someone coughed—hard, long, the sound hacking through the paper-thin walls.

Xiao stared at the glob of clay on the table, her mind blank.

She hadn’t sculpted since the month after Jia was born. Bao had made sure of that.

At first, he had been cold but distant, coming home late and smelling of baijiu and regret. Then the anger came.

The news of his father’s arrest for embezzlement had broken ten months after the wedding. Accounts frozen. Projects seized. Investors pulled out. The Bao name, once whispered with admiration, now drew only scandal and pity. The empire crumbled in days.

Bao snapped shortly after.

He cursed her foreign education, mocked her “Western filth” and “obsession with insignificance.” One night, in a rage, he kicked over the tiny table, shattering a piece she had carefully created—Jia, curled on her side, thumb in her mouth. She had carried it to a friend’s kiln, fired it, and was preparing to glaze it. Now it lay in pieces.

“Do you think this will feed her?” he had growled, pointing to the broken remnants. “You think your useless two years of art education will matter when our rice ration runs out?”

She said nothing. Just gathered the shards and wept after he passed out.
Now, sitting in the cold, she reached for the clay—then stopped. Her fingers hovered.

Something inside her had begun to fade. Her dream of the future dimmed. Her creations, once described as magical and lifelike, had become hesitant. Uncertain.

Jia stirred in her basket. Xiao stood and rocked her gently until she settled again. Her daughter deserved warmth. Stability. And Bao, for all his cruelty, had made it clear: he blamed Xiao for everything. For the fall. For the child. For the life he could no longer afford.

Two days ago, she had come home from the market to find Jia screaming. Bao shaking her so violently, Xiao was sure her neck would snap. 

She had screamed. Not words. Just fear, raw and primal.

Bao shoved the wailing child into her arms and stormed into the bedroom, slamming the door. He hadn’t spoken to her since.

Xiao turned back to her art supplies, took a hunk of clay, and felt it warm, soften in her hands.

And then, just as slowly, she set it down again—no longer raw potential, but instead an impossible dream.

One by one, she packed the clay and tools away. She placed everything in a box and pushed it to the back of the closet, behind Jia’s clothes and an old rice cooker.

There was no rage. No sorrow.

Only stillness.

The artist was gone.

And in her place stood a woman hollowed out by obligation, shame, and survival.

As night fell, she rocked her daughter in the cold. She no longer whispered lullabies in German or Mandarin.

Instead, she held Jia and rocked, choosing silence.