Chapter 68 Grandparents and Grandchildren
Chang Xile felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity as she walked along that endless avenue. She had walked this road once before, but back then she was a confused soul, and now she was a ghost messenger.
Life is truly unpredictable. Chang Xile, amused by the thought, criticized himself in his heart: Please don't use polysemous words.
From time to time, ghost messengers would appear, dragging large groups of spirits along. Perhaps because it wasn't yet midnight, the road wasn't too crowded. However, compared to others, Chang Xile's combination of a single person and a ghost was quite rare. Most of the other ghosts walked on with a blank expression, paying no attention to the two of them.
By the time they reached a bridge, all the other ghosts they had encountered on the way had vanished. Half of the bridge was hidden in the mist, and they couldn't see what lay on the other side of the river. At the bridgehead stood a huge stone, and they could see their own reflection in it.
Chang Xile stared blankly at the scene before him, sensing a unique beauty amidst its strangeness. The vast river meandered endlessly to the horizon, and clusters of beautiful, bright red flowers bloomed along its banks. Chang Xile noticed that none of the flowers had leaves.
"When the flowers bloom, the leaves are gone; the flowers and leaves will never be seen again." Chang Xile inexplicably recalled a line he had heard in a nursery rhyme before, which was used to describe the red spider lily.
In other words, this is the Wangchuan River, and this bridge is the Naihe Bridge?
Chang Xile let out a long sigh, thinking they'd finally arrived. She turned and saw Yaya standing in front of the large rock, staring at something, her expression unpredictable.
Since they have reached the Naihe Bridge, this stone should be the legendary Three Lives Stone, which is said to be able to reflect the past, present and future lives of the dead.
"What did you see?" Chang Xile asked.
"Oh, after seeing me being born, grandma burst into tears and said that our family would have no descendants, my dad was an alcoholic, and grandpa got up in the middle of the night and wanted to throw me into the river." Yaya sneered, her tone flat as if she was narrating someone else's life.
"...What happened next?" If Yaya had been drowned as a baby, her ghost form would not be that of a child like she is now.
Yaya raised her chained hands and touched a certain part of the stone with her fingertips: "Later, my grandma picked me up and brought me home. After my mother died, she was the only one willing to raise me and love me. She gave me a home." She stared at the stone in a trance, with nostalgia in her eyes.
Chang Xile did not urge her, but just waited for her and asked curiously: "Do you want to see your next life again?" Although she would probably forget it after drinking Meng Po soup.
Yaya shook her head. "What's the point of knowing in advance? No matter how good it is, I still can't experience it. No matter how bad it is, I can't change it."
After she finished speaking, she suddenly showed a pleading look and asked Chang Xile, "Can you please loosen this soul-binding rope? It hurts me so much. I'm not a criminal. We're about to be separated. Please be nice to me."
This wasn't an unreasonable request, but Chang Xile was new to the job and unfamiliar with the use of the soul-binding rope. Tying someone up was easy, but loosening them appropriately was a challenge.
She concentrated, trying to control the soul-binding rope, but this time she used too much force. The red rope that had been tightly bound around Yaya's wrist softened, and at that moment, Yaya withdrew her hand and fled without hesitation.
"Hey, come back!" Chang Xile was shocked. After the Soul-Catching Rope returned to his wrist, he threw it out again, trying to tie up Yaya again. The red rope seemed to circle endlessly forward, completely blocking Yaya's way forward.
Yaya was forced to retreat step by step by the Soul-Snatching Rope. Seeing that she was about to be trapped by it, she turned back with gritted teeth and asked, "Can't you just let me go?"
"Reincarnation is not a bad thing. We have come this far, why do you suddenly regret it?" Chang Xile was a little confused. Her hands stopped moving. In fact, as long as she swung it down, the soul-catching rope would tie up Yaya, and there would be no chance of escape.
But she remembered the helplessness and fear Xie Wuya had felt when she and Dai Shanyan were together. At that time, she had asked, "Can't we try a soft approach to law enforcement?"
The same principle would apply to her when it came time to be Wu Chang. Chang Xile, however, had previously only thought of herself as completing a task, and only now had she thought of asking Yaya what she was thinking.
"I don't want to forget my grandma." Yaya's eyes were bleeding and she choked with sobs, "I would rather be a lonely ghost for the rest of my life than forget what my grandma looked like."
Chang Xile is silent for a while.
She certainly hopes to do her best to help every dead soul reincarnate without regrets, but what should she do when the other party's wishes conflict with her work?
"But would grandma want you to be like this? She worked hard to give you a home, so how could she want to see you wandering around all alone?" Chang Xile couldn't think of a better way, so she could only ask like she was coaxing a child, "Where is your grandma? I'll go with you to see her one last time, okay?"
Yaya shook her head and said, "Grandma is dead, and I don't have a home anymore."
Yes...if someone were offering sacrifices, Yaya wouldn't have fallen to the point of snatching food on the roadside.
Before Chang Xile could say anything, she heard an impatient voice behind her: "Why waste time talking to her? Tie her up and give her a bowl of Meng Po soup. All your worries will be gone."
She turned around and saw a ferocious middle-aged man walking towards her from the other side of the Naihe Bridge. As he slowly approached, Chang Xile realized how tall he was. She was only as tall as his waist.
"New Wuchang? Are you capable? If not, let me do it." He looked down at Chang Xile, clenched his fists, and seemed eager to try. "Every year, there are a few indecisive people who only delay things."
Chang Xile took a step back to block Yaya's figure. She said affirmatively, "Of course I can do it."
She leaned slightly to the right, made a "please" gesture, and asked, "Do you want to go over? Please help yourself."
The man looked at her for a moment longer, sneered, and slowly walked forward. He kept staring at Yaya until he disappeared into the mist.
"Without a yincha to lead the way, you'd easily get lost. And if you go back, you'd probably run into other yincha, like the one just now." Chang Xile extended his hand to her and said gently, "Come with me? I'll walk you across the bridge."
Yaya lowered her head, and after a long moment, she finally took Chang Xile's hand. Chang Xile took her hand in return, slowly pulling her forward. The soul-binding rope didn't retract, but only loosely wrapped around the two of them, like a beautiful shawl.
After crossing the bridge, the fog became less dense. Chang Xile blinked and saw an old woman simmering soup in a large pot by the Forgetful River. The broth was steaming, and bubbles would occasionally bubble up and burst.
If one didn't know this was the underworld, the scene would have been quite heartwarming. However, the blue flames rising from the bottom of the pot suddenly brought Chang Xile back to his senses.
Is that the legendary Meng Po?
The old woman had white hair on her temples. Seeing someone coming, she scooped out a bowl of soup with a large spoon and handed it to him, saying, "It's just cooked. Drink it while it's hot."
Yaya took the bowl but hesitated to eat. Her hands trembled slightly, and tears of blood fell into the soup.
"Oh, little girl, don't cry." The old woman turned around, took the bowl back from her hand, and muttered, "If you mix it with other things, the effect will be poor. Don't waste it when you are young."
Chang Xile silently wiped her tears with her hands.
At a moment like this, even words seemed pale and powerless. She couldn't force anyone to drink the soup, so she could only wait for Yaya to calm down.
Yaya has figured it out, she just needs a little more time.
"Are you the new Wuchang?" asked the old woman.
Chang Xile realized that she was talking to him and agreed, "That's right."
The old woman hummed, then asked, "What's the ghost's name? Have you found it out?"
"Call me... Yaya." Chang Xile still didn't know Yaya's full name. She said the last name wasn't important, and Chang Xile thought that made sense.
I just don’t know whether the underworld recognizes this truth.
The old woman listened and finally raised her head: "You can't do this. If you send someone away without even knowing their name, how can you be sure that you sent them to the right person? If you keep doing this for a long time, the underworld will be in chaos."
Seeing Chang Xile remained silent, the old woman assumed she was a thin-skinned impermanent person. She sighed and said, "Alright, keep going forward and then turn left. Go find Xiao Xie. He has the list and is the most experienced in getting people's names."
Chang Xile nodded, thinking, "That's right." Xie Wuya was truly a man of unwavering resolve. He'd been chasing her for days just to find out about Chang Xile, and he couldn't get away from her. No wonder he was working overtime.
"Alas, there are always people like this who don't want to drink the soup. We can't force them to buy or sell, right? They have to figure it out on their own." The old woman sighed. Perhaps it had been too long since she spoke to anyone, so she continued to ramble, "If one doesn't want to forget, even after reincarnation, it's easy for residual memories to remain. But you, Wuchang, are very kind. You're patient and helped me remember someone."
Chang Xile forced a smile and asked, "What happened to those people who refused to drink the soup before?"
"Drink them all. Those who didn't drink are just like that one." The old woman pursed her lips at a shadow on the edge of the bridge. "Look, that person came a few years ago and insisted on waiting for her granddaughter to come before she left. I wonder how old her granddaughter is? I don't know how many years it will take for her to reincarnate in the underworld. She did good deeds in this life, so she will definitely be reborn in a good life in the next. Why is she wasting her time here with an old woman like me? Hey, she just doesn't want to be bothered. She said she can wait any amount of time."
The old woman reached out and stirred the iron pot with her long spoon to heat the soup more evenly. She sighed and said, "Wait, wait. Where is life's destination? It's all the same wherever you waste your time."
Chang Xile looked in the direction the old woman pointed. She had indeed seen a figure in the fog when she was getting off the bridge, but she didn't pay much attention to it.
When she looked again, the little girl beside her had already run away, shouting, "Grandma! Grandma!"
"Hey, wait for me!" Chang Xile hurriedly followed and stopped only when she was three steps away from the two people.
The old woman who was standing by the Forgetful River and looking at the Naihe Bridge slowly turned her head. She stared at Yaya for a while and suddenly said, "Yaya?"
"It's me, grandma!" Yaya suddenly threw herself into the old woman's arms and burst into tears, "Yaya misses you so much... Yaya never wants to be separated from you again."
The old man was stunned for a moment, then he grabbed the girl's body and held her in front of him.
She looked at Yaya carefully, anxiously and frantically asking, "Why are you coming down now? Did the underworld messenger make a mistake? You're so young, how could you enter the underworld?"
Yaya choked up and said, "Dad and his men came over and took away all the things you left for me... I couldn't fight them off, grandma, I'm sorry..."
After hearing this, the old lady was overwhelmed with grief. She took Yaya back into her arms, stroking her back with her palms, and sighed, "I don't blame you, I don't blame you. It's just that grandma was thinking about waiting for you here for decades. Seeing you for the first time, grandma didn't expect it..."
Yaya stopped crying. She looked up at her grandma, her face full of admiration: "Now we can meet again, I'm so happy, grandma."
"Grandma is happy too." The old woman stroked her hair cheerfully. After a while, she said, "Yaya, it's time for us to go."
Yaya knew what her grandma meant. Tears welled up in her eyes as she asked, "But what if you're not my grandma in my next life?"
"Silly child." The old woman covered her hair with her big hands and sighed softly, "Grandma will always be Grandma. In the next life, I will recognize you as a little brat the moment I see you."
The old man and the child came hand in hand to the old woman who was making soup.
"Have you figured it out?" The old woman raised her eyes, seemingly neither surprised nor touched by this amazing coincidence.
Seeing that the ghost was finally ready to leave, the old woman handed over a bowl of soup. The grandmother took the bowl and asked, somewhat puzzled, "There's only one bowl, so my granddaughter..."
The old woman glanced at Yaya and said, "You have to tell me her name."
After hearing this, Yaya turned her head away and said angrily, "I don't want the name my father gave me. Why should he have a role in my affairs after my death?"
Chang Xile listened, feeling somewhat embarrassed. Children didn't understand the pros and cons of things, but if she wanted to be reincarnated, she had to follow the rules of the underworld, and she had to reveal her name.
But the grandmother pinched her cheek lovingly and said to the old woman, "My granddaughter will take my surname and be called Wang Yuejun."
"Grandma?" Yaya raised her head and stared at her in surprise.
The old woman looked up suspiciously and said, "What you took out yourself doesn't count. You have to look at what's written in your household registration book."
"Yes, the best thing I did before I died was to change my baby's name," Grandma said proudly. "My name is Wang Jun, and my granddaughter's name is Wang Yuejun. If you don't believe me, just go and look it up."
The old woman looked at her deeply before handing her the second bowl of soup.
After they both drank the medicine, before it took effect, she raised her hand and poked Wang Jun's neck, saying to him, "Remember, in your next life, your grandmother will have a birthmark on her neck the size of an index finger."
Without waiting for them to say anything else, the old woman waved her hand and said, "Okay, let's go. I'm really tired of listening to your grandma nagging about you these days."
Chang Xile watched the old man and the child smile at each other, they bowed to the old woman, held hands and slowly disappeared into the mist.
The ending seemed perfect, but she still felt a little resentful: "What about those evil people who killed Yaya? They are just living happily like this? It's so unfair."
The old woman was neither happy nor sad, she just told her: "The evil you did in life will be repaid in the underworld after you die. It's fair."
Chang Xile nodded, not quite understanding. She was still a little confused: "Don't they say that after drinking Meng Po soup, all past events will be forgotten? How is Yaya supposed to remember that Grandma has a birthmark?"
"Her tears are in that bowl of soup." The old woman didn't explain much, but said as a matter of course, "We can't waste it."
"Oh..." Chang Xile suddenly realized and stretched out her tone. She held her face with a smile and said to the old woman, "You are so kind."
The old woman glanced at her, then looked behind her and said, "You're here?"
Chang Xile turned around and saw Xie Wuya standing behind her. She stood up and heard Xie Wuya say to the old woman in a familiar voice, "Well, I heard she's finally willing to go. Let me take a look."
"Yes... You and this new Impermanence are destined to be together." The old woman smiled and warned Chang Xile, "It's time for you to go. Living people shouldn't stay in the underworld for so long. Daybreak will soon be here."
Xie Wuya also stepped forward and said to Chang Xile, "I'll take you back."
Along the way, the two of them walked in the opposite direction of all the ghosts. Xie Wuya would occasionally push Chang Xile's shoulders to prevent her from being hit by the oncoming souls who didn't know which way was east, west, or north.
"If a ghost passes through your body, you will get sick." Xie Wuya said concisely.
Chang Xile nodded and asked curiously, "Are you in charge of the ghost named Wang Jun?"
"Yes." Xie Wuya nodded and asked, "Why?"
"You have such a humane side?" Chang Xile joked in surprise. She thought Xie Wuya would carry out his work in a one-size-fits-all manner like the tall Wuchang, but she didn't expect that he would be willing to let Wang Jun wait by the Naihe Bridge for so many years.
"Yes, but it brought me a lot of trouble." Xie Wuya was neither happy nor angry about this "compliment". He turned his head to look at her and simply said, "You'd better follow through on what you said and stick to it."
"Otherwise, I'll be very disappointed." Xie Wuya pushed Chang Xile. In the extreme dizziness, Chang Xile only heard a murmur, "Go back, it's almost dawn."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com