The radio buzzed, and a calm, warm voice permeated from the radio.
     “Today, we will tell a true tale from eighty years ago,” the radio host paused and cleared his throat. “In the year 1937, the Japanese army invaded the city of Nanjing. However, we are not talking about the Rape of Nanjing today. The story I am sharing is one about thirteen women who tasted the afterlife too soon, without really ever feeling the beauty of existence, and they have now been molded into thirteen figures of legend.” And so, he began:
     It was 1937, and gunfire from the Japanese army and the scream of Chinese citizens hovered over the skies of Nanjing. General Li of the Nanjing Military Academy heroically rescued ten students from the siege of Japanese soldiers, and he brought them to Central Church, a temporary refuge.
     Most of the thirteen Yao Sisters, another phrase for prostitutes living upstream on the Qinhuai River, did not have names. Although later, the procuress gave each one a name, no one ever tried to remember their names—not even the men coming to them for pleasure. One day, the thirteen Yao Sisters broke into the church, where female students dwelled for shelter. Since the day the Yao Sisters came, the female students had been struck by the image of colorful body-hugging cheongsams. But those that made them feel most ashamed and disgusted were the curves of the Yao’s mature bodies wrapped in silk—bodies that were watched and touched by men. The female students, therefore, had never accepted the Yao Sisters as their guests, not even once. Instead, restless quarrels filled the already stifling air of the church at all times.
     Indeed, the students were the purest souls, and they were guarded by sacred splendor. They were the most educated and were bore of the most affluent families, unlike the Yao Sisters, and therefore had despised the flirtatious women. However, there was much the female students did not know.
     Then, the Japanese army invaded and demanded that the female students perform a song, and the Yao Sisters knew that the sisters were going to lose their lives. After a series of debates amongst themselves, the Yao Sisters decided to brush their hair back, remove their crimson lipstick and dress in the school uniforms of the female students. The students, in turn, seemed too surprised to care enough about the fate of the women who were to perform in place of them. At least at that time, the students thought that the Yao Sisters were obligated to do this for them. In Nanjing in 1937, the Yao Sisters became the most brilliant fireworks that lit up Nanjing, a city like a human purgatory. 
     The radio host fell into silence, and so did the women on the other side whose ears were glued to the radio. An email suddenly lit up the women’s faces with one single line: You are invited as a special guest to the 80thAnniversary of Rape of Nanjing next Wednesday, December 13, 2017.
    If Yumo received the email hours before, she would undoubtedly frown and decline the invitation, remembering that she had an important presentation for her boss, and more importantly, a date with her sweetheart she met just that day. “Why does it have to be on a Wednesday?” Yumo would have groaned.
    After listening to the radio, though, her anxiety was eased. “Right, it is for the Rape of Nanjing,” she murmured. “It is for my great-grandmother.”
     On the night before the anniversary, Yumo crept into the room where her grandmother used to stay. Running her hand along the wall, she saw her great-grandmother’s favorite ultramarine cheongsam in the closet—the one she used to wear every day in that church. Yumo meticulously wrapped the cheongsam with a piece of silk, and put it in her handbag.
     The next day, the rain fell hard as if it was echoing with the bitterness that fell upon the city of Nanjing. Yumo emerged from the taxi and walked toward Memorial Hall. She stopped beside the wall carved with eleven lines which began: “Victim: Three Hundred Thousand”, and written in eleven different languages. Yumo saw over two handfuls of other women who seemed to be the same age as herself, except one of them who seemed to be her grandmother’s age. Most of the younger ones appeared as business women who were more or less troubled by something—probably their demanding boss or a boyfriend who turned out to be a bastard, Yumo thought. Then, Yumo zoned in on the cheongsams held by each one of the young women; there were twelve women in all she counted. Suddenly, she realized that they came for the same reason and, in that moment, she could not help her tears from welling up in the pockets of her eyes. 
     “Hi,” they greeted each other quietly.
     Yumo’s gaze then became fixated on the grey and outdated uniform held by the old woman. “May I have your name, please?” Yumo asked the old woman gently.
      “Yumo, ”she answered softly. Turning to the wall, she said, “And I’m here for one of the Yao Sisters, whom we called Doko. She was the woman that died for me,” she paused. “I think all my fellow students back then have passed away. Leaving me alone.”
     Yumo’s eye widened. Doko was her great-grandmother. She never knew that her name came from her great-grandmother’s favorite student, the very one that made her lead the Yao sisters to save the students.
       “Since the end of the Rape of Nanjing, I had never come here until today,” the old woman said in a shaky voice. “I dared not see Nanjing even though it is so different than before. Everything associated with this city takes me back to the inferno.”
     For a moment Yumo did not know how to respond.  “I understand,” Yumo finally said. “I understand.”
     Yumo fell into silence and found herself still processing everything that had happened. However shocked, she found it incredible that all thirteen great-granddaughters of the Yao Sisters and even the student in the church was there, united by invisible strength. She looked at the other women and realized how different they were: some were young and lively, while others had been touched by the vicissitudes of their lives. Yet here they were, standing in front of the same wall and honoring their great-grandmothers, the heroines, whom most of them did not even know but honored them just as well. Yumo could tell, however, that a voice inside propelled her to decline her boss, her new boyfriend, and come to such a solemn place within these now thirteen other women whom she never knew before this day.
     “It’s time for the memorial,” the old woman said gently to the thirteen other women.
     The fourteen women then walked to the Memorial Hall side by side with firm steps, like the Yao Sisters as they walked away from the church that fateful day to play their one last song for the Japanese soldiers.