Buddhist-Daoist forest

A celebrated writer at Renmin University, in whose summer school I taught for a few years, was described to me as an international literary star. His works - dark satires of contemporary Chinese life - were not published in China, but somehow this didn't seem to be a problem. His newest novel (at least in translation) lampoons the program Renmin runs for leaders of China's five officially recognized religions. I've only read about a fourth of it so far, but it's savage. Grimly funny, too, and occasionally unexpectedly lyrical. Two main characters, a young Buddhist nun and a young Daoist priest, sort of fall in love, something she makes sense of through elaborate paper cuts imagining a relationship between the bodhisattva Guanyin and Laozi. Fascinating! But I didn't expect it might involve trees, too...!