She could feel them in her mind. She could feel their thoughts and emotions. Incredible. Her hallucination was still so vivid in her thoughts. This was a story. This was a thousand stories. This was a million stories. Each of these faces was a role, was a hundred roles. She looked at a woman and saw a mother, a wife, a daughter, a granddaughter, a grandmother someday, a worker, a student, a teacher, an inventor, a lover.

A freedom fighter.

A billion stories.

A trillion stories.

Interwoven.

All intermeshing with hers.

She opened her mouth to speak and it was almost too much.

“Today,” she said.

And they cheered, cheered loud just to see her there, held cameras up, broadcast her, photographed her.

Zhi Li laughed. How absurd! They were actors and actresses as much as she was!

They were as famous as she was!

As important as she was!

She held up her left hand and smiled until it was over, until she could hear herself. A boy handed Lu Song a microphone, and Lu Song stepped up next to her, held it before her mouth.

“Today!” she said again, and this time her words crackled out, and she saw them ripple across the whole crowd.

She felt them ripple across the minds of the crowd.

She saw even the soldiers, beyond the barricades, watching her, listening to her.

“Today, we are China!” she roared, and the crowd roared back.

“China is not a place!” she said. “China is not a government! China is the people!”

They roared again, hooting for her, their minds exulting for her.

“I am not important!” she said, bringing her left hand to her chest. She showed it to them, showed them her sincerity, pushed it at them with her mind. It confused them. They cheered, half-heartedly.

“They are not important!” She gestured, vaguely at the troops, at the direction of Beijing.

The crowd cheered louder this time.

“Fuck the party!” she heard someone yell. Laugher followed. She smiled.

“But you are important!” She pointed at the crowd. “We are important. Because WE ARE CHINA!”

The crowd roared louder than ever now, roared its approval, showed it to her in their thoughts.

“If China oppresses its people, China oppresses itself!”

Their minds opened to her, gave her love, gave her passion.

She opened herself wide, threw it back at them, held up her left fist in defiance, let it show in her face, in her wide open mouth, in the fire in her eyes, let it be heard in her voice for everyone around the nation and the world to hear.

“Today we free ourselves, and so China frees China!”

They roared again, and with that, she lifted her sword out of the bucket where the blade had been soaking and held it up high, her hand wrapped around the little box and the wires that had been affixed to it.

The crowd cheered louder.