This was the second time that Bai Lixin came to the Naihe Bridge. Meng Po was sitting at the edge of the bridge, as expected. She was busy, sometimes boiling soup in the pot and sometimes refilling a bowl for those to be reincarnated, so she was unable to spare a moment.
In the distance, a few souls tried to escape through the river of forgetfulness, and not long after the struggle on the surface, the water ghosts slowly walked ashore.
Farther away, the red flowers were in full bloom, so beautiful that it was almost impossible to distinguish between them and the thick, blood-colored sky overhead.
Everything was the same as when he visited.
Bai Lixin followed the numb ghosts to the bridge, and not only were the ghosts dull, but even Meng Po looked lifeless.
Her bony walking stick hung obliquely on her chest; she was holding it with one hand, yawning in boredom, and pouring a spoonful of Meng Po soup into a bowl with the other.
As Bai Lixin approached, he heard Meng Po softly singing to herself.
He could not understand the exact words, or rather, there were no words at all, just a simple melody.
There were ghosts in front of her hut, so Bai Lixin did not rush forward but leaned against the side of the Naihe Bridge as he silently observed the simple but very important point.
Fog filled the air, and the ghosts who drank Meng Po soup walked into the mysterious fog without hesitation, as if they had been summoned.
It was not until the last ghost was sent away that Bai Lixin came to Meng Po, gazing in the direction the ghosts had left, and asked, “What is beyond that fog behind you?”
Meng Po looked up, revealing a wrinkled face.
Her old eyes looked at Bai Lixin, then deep into the white fog, and she shook her head and said, “I don’t know, but it should be good.”
Her voice was hoarse, like the wailing cries of an old crow perched on a dead vine: “I’ve been here so long I don’t even remember myself.”
“I have sent away tens of thousands on this bridge,” Meng Po smiled to herself, “humans, birds, beasts, fish, insects, grass, trees ……”
“I’ve watched them walk in, walk into the new.”
“As long as you walk into this fog, you will get a new life.”
Meng Po gathered her walking stick into her arms and gazed into the distant fog: “Child, do you know what despair is?”
“Something may be within your reach, but you can only watch it from afar.”
“Well, that’s the punishment Yama has given me.”
“How horrible.”
Bai Lixin quietly watched the seemingly frail and lonely old woman, but there was not a hint of relief in his heart.
Meng Po finally moved her eyes away from the thick fog and placed them on Bai Lixin.
“I know why you are here,” Meng Po raised her eyebrows and locked her gaze with Bai Lixin’s; “he came to see me.”
Bai Lixin calmly pulled a small bench and sat next to Meng Po. “I’m actually more interested in you than the Saint.”
Meng Po’s dull eyes wavered for a moment, and she looked at Bai Lixin suspiciously and said, “Interested in me? You’re not looking for me because you want to know the Saint’s whereabouts?”
Bai Lixin: “That was one of the reasons, Ying Niang, but what kind of a strange woman were you back then?”
“What kind of person was the woman who could make the saint, who is supposed to be detached from worldly desires, give up his beliefs?”
Bai Lixin looked at Meng Po earnestly and said, “I went to see the Book of the Dead, but all the information about you disappeared with that wanton splashing of ink, so I could only come to ask you.”
Meng Po’s dull eyes grew brighter, and she slowly opened her hazel eyes like an old woman who had just woken up from a nap.
“Hahaha,” Meng Po looked at Bai Lixin and suddenly laughed, “Ying Niang, Ying Niang, I haven’t heard that name in a long time.”
“It’s been so long, and yet you know my name?”
“I am so surprised.”
Bai Lixin: “Did you just say that Saint came to see you?”
Meng Po: “Yes, he came to see me before he left.”
“Before he left,” Bai Lixin pondered over the words and asked, “Where was he going?”
Meng Po laughed and uttered a word that made Bai Lixin’s heart tremble, “Resurrection.”
Bai Lixin thought about it and took the golden body out of his backpack, saying, “I have his real body here; how is he going to resurrect?”
Meng Po’s eyes suddenly went wide, and her body, which had been leaning lazily on a bamboo chair, suddenly jumped up, and her cane landed on the wall with a loud “thump.”
“Why is this body here with you?”
Bai Lixin: “I picked it up at the Yama Temple in Yanwang Town.”
Meng Po propped up her walking stick and leaned over. She took a deep look at the saint’s body, which was cross-legged, and slowly extended her trembling fingertips to trace the features of the dried body.
It was as if she was stroking a precious treasure.
After a moment, she laughed softly and retracted her withered fingers back into her sleeve.
“What a beautiful job.”
Bai Lixin: “Really?”
“Didn’t you want to know about my old life?” Meng Po gestured towards the sea of manzanita flowers in the distance, saying, “I used to love flowers the most, and the more colorful they were, the more they won my heart. But in the Underworld, there is only one flower, the manzanita; moreover, I can’t leave this position, so even though they are pretty, I can only look at them but not touch them.”
“Go and pick some flowers for me. I want three of them, the beautiful ones that bloom in the middle of the sea of flowers.”
“Give me the flowers, and I’ll tell you something about my past with Saint.”
[Ding!]
[An exploratory task has been triggered.]
[Beautiful Manzanita Flowers]: Please help Meng Po pick three beautiful Manzanita flowers. The difficulty factor of this task is D. Upon completion, you will be rewarded with 2,000 mall points.]
[The mission is automatically accepted once triggered.]
[Time limit: 30 minutes. Failure will lead to punishment. Punishment method: Beheading.]
Bai Lixin looked at Meng Po, braced his thighs to slowly stand, and put the saint’s body back into his backpack. “Okay, please wait a moment.”
“Wait,” Meng Po opened her mouth hesitantly, “can you leave the body here, I want to see it again.”
Bai Lixin didn’t even give Meng Po’s rising hopes a chance and refused outright, “Impossible. Be good, I’ll let you see to your fill when I come back.”
Meng Po: “……”
The foggy edge of the underworld always had an aura of desolation and despair.
It was spacious and unusually quiet.
No birds chirped overhead, and no beasts cried in the distance.
There were only old vines and withered trees by Naihe Bridge.
It was so lonely.
Bai Lixin soon arrived at the sea of flowers on the other side of the shore. He went to the center according to Meng Po’s request and picked three flowers that were in full bloom.
When he turned back, he found Meng Po sitting in her chair, leaning her whole body back in the chair; her eyes were narrowed, and she was yawning lazily.
On the table lay an empty bowl with some residue of Meng Po soup at the bottom.
It was only when Bai Lixin approached that Meng Po opened her eyes. She was stunned at first, then, as if remembering, she looked at the red flowers in Bai Lixin’s hands with burning eyes.
Bai Lixin placed the flowers on the table and said, “The manzanita flowers you asked for.”
Meng Po quickly fished one off the table, lifted the hood she wore day and night, and carefully pinned the flower to her white hair.
The white hair was adorned with a bright red manzanita, looking very incongruous.
Meng Po wrapped the second flower around her wrist, then the third around her neck with a smile.
Only when they were all done did she look at Bai Lixin with an expectant look on her face and ask excitedly, “How is it? Does it look good?”
Bai Lixin cupped his chin, looked her up and down seriously for a few seconds, and said, “It looks good.”
Meng Po, who was fixing her hair, suddenly stopped, her smile quickly disappeared, and she looked at Bai Lixin gloomily. “You’re lying to me; how is that possible?”
“I’m so old, I’m no different than a maggot on the ground; how could I be worthy of such a beautiful flower?”
Bai Lixin let out a laugh and sat back down on his little bench. “Age never defeats beauty.”
“Besides, there has never been a uniform definition of beauty. In my case, you’re good-looking anyway.”
It was only when the hood was removed that Bai Lixin got a good look at Meng Po’s face.
Although she looked old, her features show that she was very beautiful in her youth.
Meng Po was lost in thought as he pondered on Bai Lixin’s words, “Age never defeats beauty,” for a long time before her hostility slowly faded away and her whole aura became benevolent.
She stroked the manzanita flowers on her wrist in fascination and spoke slowly, “I was only eighteen years old when I met Saint, but Saint was nearly eighty.”
Seeing Bai Lixin’s slightly stunned expression, Meng Po snorted, “Yes, you didn’t hear. I was still a flower, and he was already old.”
“Even the saint with the so-called immortalized body couldn’t stop the fact that he was growing old.”
“That year, our town had to choose the peony fairy. I was the most beautiful peony fairy in our town, and he was the eminent monk on the way to immortality.”
“I was standing on the stage, and he was standing off the stage. I was at a spirited age, with eyes shining with youth, while he had all the compassion of the universal beings in his eyes.”
“We didn’t have any intersections at first.”
“He didn’t like me at that time, and he was still on the path of a saint.”
“But then something happened; the tree was so big that it attracted the wind. Women always attract men, let alone me, who became a peony fairy.”
“By the time I realized something was wrong, I had already been given an aphrodisiac; either I had to have intercourse or die a violent death.”
“I would rather die than obey, so I jumped off a cliff. However, I didn’t die and happened to fall into the cave where Saint cultivated.”
Meng Po’s face suddenly showed some embarrassment; she gulped and paused for two seconds before speaking again.
“I broke my leg then, but the effects of the aphrodisiac never dissipated. I didn’t want to die that way, but there were no other men around except Saint.”
“Well, I yelled at him for not saving me from death and being a fake benevolent person while taking off my clothes to seduce him.”
“Anyway, the situation was quite chaotic, and he probably realized that I really wanted to live.”
