SECOND INTERLUDE
The One Who Returned
The most well-known scripture of the Deitist religion, the Pact of the Return, is the story of a pious man named Jenshu, who, a very long time ago, spoke out against the evils of a despotic king and was forced to leave his land. He packed his large family, including his younger brothers and sisters and their families, on a great ship and went in search of the fabled ruins of the original jade palace on earth.
After forty years of sailing the earth, stopping but never settling, aided by some gods and hampered by others, surviving adventures that would form the basis for many myths in Kekonese culture, Jenshu and his clan arrived on a lush and unspoiled island. Impressed by his dedication and piousness, Yatto, the Father of All, spoke to Jenshu, who was by now an old man, and led him into the mountains where he found stones of jade: the remains of the divine home once meant for humankind. A gift from the gods.
While his family constructed a village by the shore, Jenshu retired to a hermit’s life of meditation in the mountains. Surrounded by jade, Jenshu developed and mastered godlike wisdom and abilities, growing ever closer to a state of divine virtue. His grandchildren and great-grandchildren would seek him out to ask for his help, and he would emerge briefly from his isolation to settle disputes, quell earthquakes, beat back storms, and repel barbarian invaders. When he was three hundred years old, the gods agreed that Jenshu alone, of all their human descendants, deserved to be brought home to Heaven.
Devout Kekonese Deitists consider themselves the descendants of Jenshu
and closest in favor to the gods. Green Bones who practice the religion today trace their way of life to Jenshu’s favorite nephew, Baijen, who went into the mountains to learn from his uncle and, after Jenshu’s departure from the earth, became the protector of the island’s people, the first and fiercest jade warrior in island legend. While all Kekonese revere Jenshu as the One Who Returned, only Green Bones consider themselves close enough to his legacy to refer to him simply as “Old Uncle.”
Upon Jenshu’s ascendance, the gods further proclaimed that when the rest of humankind followed Jenshu’s example and achieved the four Divine Virtues of humility, compassion, courage, and goodness, then they, too, would be welcomed back to godliness. All Deitists believe in this final promised occurrence, which they call the Return.