Reincarnation (Word of Honor Fanfiction)

Ch.1 Road to Hell

Disclaimer: The following chapter is loosely based on an extra chapter written by Priest. My knowledge about Chinese underworld mythology is extremely limited truth be told. Not all details I conjured up are necessarily accurate.

Link to Extra Chapter in Chinese By Priest: https://www.zhenhunxiaoshuo.com/678.html 

      A'Xiang adorned in Aunt Luo's （Tragicomic ghost's) hairpin and golden-embroidered evergreen wedding dress surreptitiously approached the pair, a young man crying a river and a thousand- year-old hunched hag. In the underworld, the two souls glowed like fireflies on top of the misty, murky river.

      The young guy tugged at his red wedding sleeves as if furiously scratching an itch while desperately pleading to the old hag： "Please, I won't keep you for long. My fiancé is coming soon, or. . . I guess maybe in seventy-or-so years. I'm not sure. I think she'll have white hair by then." The prospect of patiently waiting on the bridge for several decades turned the entire world blurry for him.

      "Oy!" the old hag with etched wrinkles snapped him out of his reverie. Before he could shove his heart out and apologize like his life depended on it, the hag pointed at a chest-fallen figure with disheveled hair in the distance. A'Xiang immediately waved her tiny hands frantically with a bittersweet smile plastered on her face, "Cao Da Ge! (Big brother Cao)"

       "A'Xiang!" he cried out simultaneously. The couple scrambled towards each other to the center of the Nai He Bridge. Clasping their hands together, Cao Wei Ning was the first to ask tenderly, as if a knife pierced into his heart, "How come you don't have grey hair?" in all seriousness.

      "I died too," A'Xiang exclaimed and burst into tears. It occurred to Weining that A'Xiang was actually laughing up a storm. 

      "My  A'Xiang, I'm sorry I didn't protect you well like I promised Brother Wen." he said. A'Xiang furiously shook her dainty head.

      "Idiot! Protect me with your martial arts? You and what army?" A'Xiang exclaimed, flabbergasted, but when Weining bit back tears, A'Xiang shuffled her feet.

      "It's okay. This little ghost is the reason why you're here in the first place," she replied half a second later, eyes downcast.

      "It's not like that, A'Xiang-- " Cao Wei Ning cut in. A million reasons were at the tip of his tongue.

      "Cao Da Ge, what's that soup in your hand?" A'Xiang interjected. She fidgeted and beamed at him.

      "A-- It's a bowl of the water of Lethe," Cao Wei Ning answered, successfully diverted.

      "Like the Meng Po soup Master drank before entering the Ghost Valley?" A'Xiang pointed out. 

       A ghostly guard, sweeping dust on the weathered bricks of the bridge, jumped the gun : "Exactly, little one. All souls in the underworld drink the water of Lethe so they can forget their past lives and start anew using reincarnation. Come on, get a move on. If you babble on, who knows if you'll turn out to be a pig or horse in your next life?" The guard doubled over and cackled to himself.

      "What in the world? Don't scare the little girl you old maggot," the old hag called Meng Po  reprimanded.

      The ghostly guard upturned a thumb at Meng Po, "For centuries, I've been tortured under this old hag's reign of terror in this gloomy place." Meng Po shot daggers at the ghostly guard, but resolved to ignore his shenanigans. She beckoned Cao Wei Ning and A'Xiang forward with a sideways grimace.

      Wordlessly, Meng Po rummaged in her pocket, revealed a red string, and said: "If I tie these red strings on your wrists, whether you like it or not, you'll meet this life, and the next life, and the next," Meng Po  directed her question towards the two, "Do you follow?"