At first, Ryan Choi was obstinate, but he eventually crumbled at the realization that he must choose between two lives dear to his heart. Alvin agreed to allow Choi time to consider whom the zombie creeps would be taking back to hell with them. Jia continued to campaign for herself, but Ryan quieted her lying mouth, which pleased Alvin. “Listen, rules are rules. My friends and I only get to keep our physical forms ‘til our revenge is complete. So the game plays through. The Big Buddha. Lantau Island. You get to take one of them home with you.”
Ryan Choi loved Jia dearly, and kissed her passionately, claiming he didn’t mean any of his harsh words. “Promise me… that you’ll never make me have to watch you cry again.”
The monks had kept the Chinese from turning the resting place of the Tian Tan Buddha into a tourist attraction. “Good for you guys.” Ryan had always found Lantau Island to be a place of peace, far from his own hectic Hong Kong. That peace would be broken this night, as an Atom without his size-altering belt faced the challenge of the undead. After some council from the mediator, Ryan had decided to make the choice of re-killing Alvin and his pals. To that end, the Atom had to recreate the moment of their deaths, which in Eddie and Qianfan’s case meant spraying them with lighter fluid and firing up a Zippo. Alvin had already uncovered the means to his own end, so Atom retrieved Jia’s shovel and put it through her husband’s head. Ryan’s dad was once quite the cricket player, so he helped out by smashing a wooden chair over one ghoul. Ryan was proud of his father, and hoped in the future to avoid this nonsensical magic business.
Jia thanked Ryan with a kiss, but she had a librarian lover to get back to, whom Dad noted must have already been involved with her before Alvin’s death. Ryan was hurt, missed his friends in Ivy Town, and was set to return to a place where he could smile again. Meanwhile, the motionless Alvin recalled that Jia’s cheating was the reason he had broken her arm, and that when no lover had agreed to kill her husband, Jia finally ended him herself. Alvin figured the shovel would fall out of his skull casing eventually, so that he could travel to America, and take every woman Ryan Choi ever cared about…
“Jia: Part Three: The Border Between” was by Gail Simone, Eddy Barrows and Trevor Scott.
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