Chapter 109 - My Costar Is The One I Love

Qing Yu told Yao Shen that he could find Meng Po around the Bridge of Forgetfulness, either on the bridge itself, or at her house nearby. 

The roads leading up the bridge over the Spring of Forgetfulness were no less crowded, but there was a different energy about the ghosts there.

Yao Shen expects to see some grand open area, and a magnificent bridge rising over the a large swath of the springs.

Instead, he finds a narrow wooden viewing bridge linking two banks of the river, which could more accurately be called a stream. The towering buildings seem to lean towards each other as Yao Shen makes his way to the bridge, almost forming an archway.

The other side of the riverbank looks just as crowded and busy as the rest of Youdu. Yao Shen is confused about where exactly the souls are supposed to "cross" to.

That is, until he notices an elderly woman standing in the middle of the bridge, her back bent under the weight of her years. She's giving something to drink to a little girl.

After the girl drinks everything she returns the cup to Meng Po and continues on across the bridge, before she can reach the other side she disappears in a wisp of smoke.

Well, that's one way to do it.

Old Granny Meng turns around with her hands clasped behind her back, a distant look in her rheumy eyes. All around her, ghosts go on their way, able to cross the bridge without anything happening to them.

Some of them give her a wide berth, as if afraid that proximity alone is enough to rid them of their memories.

Slowly, Yao Shen makes his way towards her. Maybe he's afraid too. 

For the most part his current lifetime hasn't been particularly happy, but the past few months have been a bright spark in a squalid field of grey. Yao Shen doesn't want to forget even a second of that.

Maybe he could have remained perfectly content with his middling life if he had never met Xin Hulei, and discovered an entire new world he had no idea about. But now the idea of returning to that drab existence is unbearable.

It's true what they say, once expanded a mind will never return to its original size.

"Ah, it's you again," Meng Po says, as Yao Shen draws nearer. The corners of her heavily lined lips turn downwards in a displeased frown. "You must be in love with me with how quickly you run to my side. Either that or you're allergic to being alive."

Her words stop Yao Shen in his tracks. "Uh, hello."

She cracks a gummy smile at him and waves him towards her. "Come on over then, maybe you'll have better luck this time."

"That's not why I'm here," Yao Shen hurries to say, looking from side to side. He feels too exposed out here in the open. "Actually, can we go somewhere else to talk?"

Meng Po sizes him up for a moment, smacks her lips twice, and finally nods. 

With slow halting steps she makes her way across the bridge, Yao Shen hurries to her side and takes her arm, helping her along.

She shakes her head with a mournful sigh. "I knew it, you really are in love with me."

Yao Shen humors her with a thoughtful hum.

---

Meng Po's house is the first level of a huge tower. The walls are short and made of clay, but the inside is surprisingly spacious. 

She putters around the rough wooden furniture in her kitchen, bumping into things without a care. Her shuffling makes Yao Shen flinch, and want to rush to her side to help her around, but he worries she would take offence.

He's sitting on a straw mat by the hearth Meng Po has going. She hooks a pot of water over it and sits down across from him, crossing her legs with surprising limberness for someone her age.

She tilts her head towards the fire, some hairs coming loose from her messy bun. "Tea is probably my favourite invention."

Yao Shen's eyes widen. Of course, she's much older than tea, much older than wooden houses, and carved furniture. She might be even older than Youdu itself.

"Feel free to confess your feelings while we wait for the water to boil, boy."

Yao Shen clears his throat. "I need my memories back."

Meng Po gives him an incredulous look and then breaks into wheezing laughter. "That's not how things work around here."

Yao Shen isn't above begging, and so he does, "Please, I really need them."

She tsks at him. "You think that's the first time I've heard that? Why are your memories more important than everyone else's?"

"Granny is right, they aren't, but I need to remember in order to save someone I love."

It's only after the words are already out of his mouth that Yao Shen realizes what he said.

His heart starts beating frantically inside his chest. 

He does, doesn't he?

Yao Shen loves Xin Hulei.

Fuck, he can't believe he's just realizing this in front of the woman responsible for wiping people's memories before reincarnation.

Is fate trying to tell him something?

This is why it's better not to believe in the supernatural, it paralyzes people with uncertainty about possible ominous portents.

Meng Po waves in his general direction. "Your face is doing very complicated things. I'm assuming this is news to you as well?"

You Shen nods. 

The old woman sighs. "I do like a good love story. You must know about my tragic past."

"No, I'm sorry."

She lets out a disgruntled sigh and lowers a wooden ladle into the boiling water. She fills two wooden cups with water and adds rather modern looking tea sachets.

Yao Shen accepts his own cup, but doesn't drink from it.

Meng Po notices his apprehension and clicks her tongue. "It's not water from the springs of forgetfulness, silly boy, you can drink."

Yao Shen would rather not. He sets down the cup at his side, and pleads his case once again. "Please Granny, I'm afraid the ghost kings will kill him if I don't do something."

That gets her attention. "The ghost kings you say?"

For a moment, Yao Shen worries he has said too much, but the glint in Meng Po's eyes sets him at ease. He nods.

"Those fuckers need to be taught a lesson," she says, almost spitting out the words.

Yao Shen can't hide his shock at her crass language. 

Meng Po glares at him. "What's the matter, boy? You've never heard an old lady swear? Back in my day that's all the old women did. Had little reason to do anything else."

Yao Shen takes a sip of his tea to excuse himself from having to answer.

"Youdu has been lawless for a some time now. There was a time when the ghost kings respected their posts, now it seems they're content to laze about all day, more worried about their silly squabbles."

She leans towards Yao Shen as if sharing a secret with him. "These days, I see less and less ghosts, and I know folks keep dying just the same. It's them who aren't doing their jobs properly." 

Her frown deepens, the lines on her wizened face becoming more pronounced. "It just means that some poor souls are left wandering the mortal realm aimlessly, or worse, they make it here only to end up thorn to shreds in the wastes."

"Then..." Yao Shen starts, feeling slightly hopeful.

Meng Po curls one knotted hand in the air, beckoning him. With great effort she stands up. "Follow me."

---

She leads him to a back room in her house, that looks deceptively small at first. It resembles a pantry with a few rough shelves carved directly into the wall, but when Yao Shen looks up he can see that the walls go up until he loses sight of them. 

On each shelf there are thousands of little clay vials with writing scratched all over their surface. Some of it Yao Shen recognizes as oracle bone script, but has no hope of understanding.

Pushed up against one of the corners of the narrow room is a rickety stepladder, apparently as tall as the room itself.

Meng Po points at it. "Feel free to search for your memories."

Yao Shen gives her an incredulous look. "What? How am I supposed to find them among all this? There must be billions of vials here."

Meng Po nods. "Thousands of billions, so you better not waste any time." She shrugs. "This is the most I can circumvent the rules that bind me for you."

Yao Shen looks up at the shelves in utter dismay. He's probably going to die here trying.

He feels Meng Po patting his back in comiseration. "If you manage to find your memories among all of these, I'll consider it fate's intervention and let you leave with them. If it helps, I hope you succeed."