(A Divine Family Memoir)
My family used to live in Nazareth. Later, we relocated to Heaven for work reasons — Dad, Jesus, had been promoted to Chief Executive of Christianity.
You’d think being God’s family comes with infinite wealth, but no. Dad spends all day answering prayers like customer-service emails, and church donations have dropped ever since the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution convinced half of humanity they’re “spiritual but not religious.” Mom has to budget everything tightly — my sisters have to split the cost of their holy robes, and the heavenly glow around our house only gets renewed during Black Friday sales.
Every weekend, Dad takes us to the Gates of Heaven for a walk. Whenever someone ascends toward Heaven on a cloud, Dad always murmurs the same line:
“Ah… if only that were Xiuquan. What a pleasant surprise that would be.”
Uncle Hong Xiuquan is our family’s greatest embarrassment.
In Heaven we don’t talk about him unless someone is drunk.
🎓 The Exams That Broke Our Uncle
Before he caused trouble on Earth, he was just an uncle who kept failing the ancient Chinese civil-service exam — the keju.
To Americans: imagine taking the SAT, but
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you get one attempt every three years
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it decides not only your career, but your family’s honor for generations
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and failing it is basically getting disowned by destiny itself.
Uncle Hong failed it three times.
Great-Grandfather (God Himself) went into hiding from the shame, so all divine responsibilities fell onto Dad.
To cheer the uncle up, Dad mailed him a Chinese-language Christian pamphlet called Good Words to Admonish the World. God even gave him a dream and a sword — a divine DLC pack — hoping it’d inspire him to do something productive.
But on his fourth attempt, he failed again.
Dad smashed the chalice and yelled,
“I’ve got two nail holes in my hands, a whole wooden post in my back, and the Almighty upstairs as my witness —
and my own brother still can’t pass the most basic civil-service exam!
Fine. Send him to the Far East as a missionary!”
This career switch accidentally became his algorithm breakthrough.
🌏 How My Uncle Invented His Own Religion
The East — specifically 19th-century China — was full of land inequality and peasant misery. Uncle Hong sensed a business opportunity. He began preaching equal land rights, which, as history proves, is the fastest way to attract followers when you're speaking to poor farmers.
A few months later he sent us a letter carried by angels.
He wrote:
“I have founded the Society of God Worshippers in China.
I am now the Heavenly King.
Tens of thousands follow me.”
For American readers:
This really happened.
A real Chinese man named Hong Xiuquan truly believed he was Jesus’s younger brother and launched the Taiping Rebellion — one of the deadliest conflicts in human history, killing over twenty million people.
But at the time, we just thought,
“Oh wow! Uncle is a ‘Heavenly King’ now… must be something like Elvis?”
Dad was thrilled. We called this letter the “New New Testament.” Whenever Buddha, Muhammad, or any deity visited our home, someone would inevitably read a few lines out loud.
Two years later, another letter arrived. Uncle wanted to redesign Heaven into a Chinese imperial palace, complete with glazed tiles and golden dragon pillars. This became the family’s new hope for social mobility.
💍 A Heavenly Marriage and the Underworld Honeymoon
My sisters had trouble finding spouses — until one Sabbath, a monk knocked on our door asking for a hand in marriage.
He rubbed his shiny bald head and smiled,
“I have little wealth, but Shaolin Monastery has reliable incense revenue.”
His name was Shi Yongxin.
Not rich, but sincere. I’m convinced he only dared propose after we showed him Uncle’s “I am a Heavenly King” letter.
Heavenly custom requires newlyweds to honeymoon in the Underworld — tourism synergy, you know. We boarded a ferry steered by ghost officers along the River of Forgetfulness.
Dad spotted two judges distributing spirit money to wandering souls. One little demon was folding paper ingots like he worked on an Amazon assembly line. Dad, deeply moved by this poetic production efficiency, asked Mom:
“Should we get some spirit money for the kids?”
Mom frowned.
“Take it and you’re obliged to bless whoever burned it — last week a priest begged me to absolve his sins, made me work overtime for three days.”
But my sisters begged, so she relented.
“Fine, but take only a little. Accumulating too much moral debt is exhausting. And don’t take any for Jesus Jr. — boys shouldn’t be spoiled.”
I stayed with Mom while Dad, my sisters, and the monk walked toward the Hall of Judgment.
Suddenly Dad returned, pale.
“That old man on trial… he looks exactly like Xiuquan.”
Mom snapped, “Impossible! He’s ruling China as a Heavenly King right now!”
Dad insisted she go check.
She came back trembling.
“It is him! Find out what happened — and make sure this disaster doesn’t contaminate us!”
⚖️ The Trial of the Heavenly King
I followed Dad to see the King of Hell.
We first praised his excellent management — cloud-based storage for the Book of Life and Death, streamlined bureaucracy, great cost-control.
Then Dad casually asked,
“That elderly soul on trial seems… interesting?”
The King of Hell snorted.
“Him? His earthly family called themselves the ‘Wandering Hongs.’ Some dusty scandal about royal ancestry. In life he led a massive peasant uprising — preached land equality, did some good, some bad. Net-positive. Should’ve been promoted to Heaven, but he refused.”
Dad blinked. “Refused? Why?”
“He said he had no face to meet his older brother.”
The judge shrugged. “Family shame runs deep.”
Dad immediately changed the subject.
“So why revolt if he was related to royalty?”
“Class conflict trumps genealogy. And the imperial family would never admit such rumors — they deny everything even after a dynasty falls.”
Mom had already prepared our PR response:
“Return to Heaven immediately. Tell the Pope to issue a statement:
Hong Xiuquan was merely a distant relative of a friend of a friend.
His actions are personal and have nothing to do with Heaven.”
I squeezed through the crowd in the courtroom.
Uncle hunched forward as ghost officers placed chains on him. The clinking metal sounded exactly like the exam bells that once announced his failures.
I slipped nine paper hearts into his donation box.
His cloudy eyes brightened.
“May the Heavenly Father bless you, my young lord.”
We left through Hell’s secret exit.
Through the mist over the River of Forgetfulness, I heard Uncle singing while being lowered into the oil cauldron:
“You will build your city
upon ruins.
Go! With the humblest dream.
Fight! With the loneliest dream.
Who says only those in the light are heroes?”
Dad, horrified, pointed his staff from a distance and shut down his soul like a malfunctioning computer.
📢 The Family Statement
Afterward, our official position was unified:
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Hong Xiuquan was just an irrelevant guy clout-chasing us
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The rumors were fake
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DNA tests were tampered with
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Subsequent tests showed no relation whatsoever
We instructed the Church’s PR team to prepare hundreds of attack templates:
“You nobodies have no achievements, no followers, living off my Lord’s fame.”
“Stop using our Savior’s name for publicity!”
“Without leeching off our brand identity, no one would even know you exist.”
Dad behaved shocked whenever reporters asked.
“Oh? Those insults online? Must be fans. I barely knew the man. We only met once.”
As if they’d never shared blood.
But I know the truth:
Whenever a rainbow cloud drifts across Heaven, Dad still pauses — though he no longer speaks the old sentence aloud.
Maybe he finally understands:
Some blood ties are destined to sink to the bottom of the River of Forgetfulness, never to rise again.