Bound by Blood - Chapter 10
Chapter 10
I’m Quitting as Meng Po; From Now On, I’ll Only Serve You Sweet Soup
We would make a new Pact, but it couldn’t be like the one before.
That previous Pact was one where I traded myself for his life, with the prerequisite being his forgetfulness. In essence, I had still handed my life over to someone else.
This time, I refused to accept that arrangement.
I stood in the center of the Reincarnation Platform, the wound on my palm still seeping blood. Xie Wujiu leaned against my shoulder, his soul as light as a passing breeze. On the bridge, by the river, and before the Hall of the King of Hell, everyone in the Underworld was watching me.
Suddenly, I didn’t feel any panic at all.
Because for the first time in seven hundred years, I finally knew exactly what I wanted.
I didn’t want Heaven’s Mandate.
I didn’t want the rules.
And I didn’t want anyone saying “it’s for your own good” from a position of high authority.
I wanted Xie Wujiu to live.
I wanted to live as myself, too.
I pressed my hand against the Reincarnation Platform, looked up at the King of Hell, and said, “I wish to invoke an old law of your Underworld.”
The King of Hell frowned. “Which one?”
“Any wronged soul with a lingering obsession may delay their reincarnation and petition for a public judgment.”
The King of Hell froze.
This was the oldest rule in the Underworld, so ancient that even many Ghost Officers no longer knew of it. When heaven and earth were first established, if a departed soul felt they had been wronged, they could strike a drum before the Naihe Bridge to voice their grievance, and the King of Hell was required to personally preside over the trial. However, as the weight of the Destiny Plate grew heavier and the Meng Po Soup grew stronger, people gradually forgot that souls actually had the right to speak.
Cui Jue was the first to react, hurriedly flipping through the Judge’s Ledger.
“It exists,” he said, his voice tight. “The text of the law is still there.”
I smiled.
“Then this will be easy.”
I helped Xie Wujiu stand straight and made him look at me. “Xie Wujiu, are you willing to strike the drum for yourself just once?”
He looked at me, startled at first, before a spark began to glow in the depths of his eyes.
“I am.”
I nodded and pulled out that old copper coin I had kept close to me all this time.
It was something he had left behind in one of his past lives, a memento I had refused to throw away for seven hundred years. I placed the coin in his palm, then took his hand in mine. Together, we struck the Drum of Grievance by the side of the Reincarnation Platform-a drum that had been sealed for many years.
Dong!
The sound of the drum echoed, shaking the entire Underworld.
The waves of the River of Forgetfulness stilled, and the ghost fires flared in unison.
That sound wasn’t for me, nor was it seeking justice for anyone else. It was Xie Wujiu finally demanding an explanation for these seven hundred years of fate on his own behalf.
In the next instant, the Soul-Annihilating Talisman on the Reincarnation Platform actually began to loosen.
Because the talisman was essentially a form of private punishment; it had been nailed into his soul to suppress the words he couldn’t say and the grievances he had nowhere to appeal. Now that he had voiced his grievance, the old law took effect, and the private punishment naturally had to withdraw.
I watched as the talisman floated out of his chest. My heart eased, and my legs nearly went weak with relief.
Xie Wujiu was also stunned.
He had likely never imagined that his path to survival would be like this.
It didn’t rely on the mercy of the heavens, nor did it require one person to die for another.
It was simply a matter of saying, with perfect justification:
“I have been wronged.”
Cui Jue had already stepped forward, tapping the Soul-Annihilating Talisman with his Judge’s Brush. He announced to the crowd, “Regarding the case of Xie Wujiu from seven hundred years ago: his fate was altered by the heavens and his family was slaughtered for private interests. The punishments of his nine incarnations were inappropriate. As of tonight, all are hereby revoked.”
As soon as the verdict was delivered, the bridge fell silent before a massive uproar broke out among the countless old souls.
Some cried, some laughed, and some suddenly fell to their knees heavily, as if they had finally seen a glimmer of hope for themselves as well.
The King of Hell let out a long breath, looking as though he had finally managed to break an inch free from some invisible shackle. He looked at me with a deeply complex expression.
“Meng Qi,” he said. “This time, you’ve truly torn a hole in the Underworld’s sky.”
“Then you go patch it,” I replied.
The King of Hell was actually left speechless by my retort.
Feeling a rare bit of good humor, I turned to look at Xie Wujiu.
The Soul-Annihilating Talisman in his chest was gone. Though his soul was still weak, it had finally stabilized. As the night wind blew past, his features looked incredibly gentle under the glow of the ghost fires.
I suddenly remembered seven hundred years ago, when he had said to me in that ruined temple, “Ah Du, don’t be afraid. I’m taking you home.”
It’s a pity we never made it back then.
Fortunately, it seems we can make up for it today.
The Underworld was in total chaos for three whole months afterward.
Siming was taken to Youdu for trial, and the fragments of the Destiny Plate were reclaimed by the Heavenly Realm overnight to be reforged. Soup service at the Naihe Bridge was suspended for ten days, and all wandering souls were given the choice between “Retaining Memories” or “Forgetting Sorrows.” The queue by the bridge became much quieter than before. Cui Jue was so busy he barely had a moment to breathe, and he cursed me eight hundred times, claiming he’d never seen anyone quit a job in a way that forced the entire system to be overhauled.
I was actually quite proud when I heard that.
As for me, I really was done.
I returned Meng Po’s ladle to the King of Hell and took off my green robes. At first, the King of Hell tried to convince me to stay, saying the Underworld reforms were short-staffed. I just rolled my eyes at him. “Seven hundred years of seniority without a single cent of compensation, and you want to re-hire me?”
He was so choked by my retort that his face turned black, but in the end, he approved my resignation.
On the day I left, many souls on the bridge came to see me off.
Some were those I had secretly shown mercy to in the past; others were those who had spoken to me before heading on their way. A little ghost child clung to my leg and cried, asking who would give him candy now. I reached into my sleeve, pulled out the last piece of osmanthus candy, and stuffed it into his hand. My nose suddenly felt a bit prickly.
It turned out that what I had been simmering on this bridge wasn’t just soup.
It was seven hundred years of witnessing so many people’s final moments.
Xie Wujiu stood at the far end of the bridge, waiting for me.
He wasn’t exactly a ghost now, nor was he a man. Since the seven-hundred-year-old case hadn’t been fully cleared, the King of Hell simply gave him a do-nothing job, letting him help watch over the drum by the Naihe Bridge for the time being. To put it bluntly, they were just afraid he’d run off again and wanted him to nourish his soul in the process.
As I walked over, he was holding a small lantern.
It was the kind of rabbit lantern I used to love most in the Mortal Realm. It was a bit ugly, clearly something he had pasted together himself.
I felt like laughing when I saw it. “You made this?”
“Yes.”
“It’s really ugly.”
“You used to say that back then, too.”
“But back then, I ended up taking it anyway.”
He smiled and reached out to hand me the lantern.
The ghost-fire illuminated his profile, giving rise to a ridiculous thought in my mind.
Seven hundred years wasn’t actually that long.
At least, by the time it finally ended, he was still here.
“Ah Qi,” he called out suddenly.
I looked up.
He was incredibly earnest. “I said before that if I could live, I wanted to marry you again.”
“Can I ask you now?”
The wind from the River of Forgetfulness blew up from beneath the bridge, carrying a damp mist. In the distance, Ghost Officers were shouting out the new regulations, and little ghosts were chasing each other around the Drum of Grievance. Everything was very noisy, yet I felt a profound sense of stillness.
It was so quiet that I could hear my own heartbeat.
I intentionally kept my face stern. “Ask what?”
He looked down and smiled, then looked back at me. It felt as if he gazed at me for a long, long time before he spoke softly.
“Whether you are Su Du or Meng Qi…”
“Are you still willing to go home with me?”
My eyes instantly grew hot.
The words we didn’t have time to say seven hundred years ago could finally be heard seven hundred years later.
I didn’t answer immediately.
I simply took the ugly rabbit lantern and naturally took hold of his hand.
“Let’s get one thing straight first.” I sniffled. “I’m unemployed now, and my temper has gotten even worse. If you ever dare to make decisions for me again, I’ll still hit you.”
Xie Wujiu tightened his grip on my hand and nodded with a smile. “Alright.”
“And one more thing.”
“What else?”
I tilted my chin up, looking back at the Naihe Bridge that had accompanied me for seven hundred years, and finally let out a very, very soft laugh.
“I’m done being Meng Po.”
“From now on, I’ll only serve sweet soup for you.”
The River of Forgetfulness Water flowed slowly past, and the ghost-fires at the head of the bridge lit up one by one.
I suddenly felt that the best reincarnation in this world isn’t about who forgets whom.
It’s that after walking for a long, long time, you look back and find that the person you were most loath to leave is still there, waiting for you where it all began.
