221 What the… Master?
The mist parted again, reluctantly, as if unwilling to witness another absurdity. From its pale folds emerged a boy with tousled dark hair, a long red scarf trailing behind him like a stubborn thread of fate. His boots made no sound on the bridge, but his presence was like a ripple cutting through the stillness… sharp, intentional, and already annoyed.
Hei Mao froze at the sight before him.
There, beside the pot that governed forgetfulness, sat Da Wei and Meng Po, hunched like two conspirators at a very warm picnic. Bowls clinked. Laughter wafted. Steam swirled lazily around their faces. Da Wei was mid-sip, slurping loudly, while Meng Po stirred the pot with one hand and drank directly from the ladle with the other.
Hei Mao's brow twitched.
“What the…” he muttered, slowly stepping forward. “Master?”
Da Wei turned, still holding his bowl like a prized wine glass. “Hei Mao! You made it. Want some soup?”
Meng Po perked up. “Oh, cutie! Want some soup?”
Hei Mao ignored her completely, his gaze fixed on Da Wei. “Master, what in the nine ghost-ridden layers of the underworld are you doing?”
Da Wei gave a thoughtful hum, tapping his chin with the ladle. “I’m… not entirely sure anymore. It started with one bowl. Then two. Then thirty-seven. Then a hundred and counting… Now I think I’m in love.”
Meng Po beamed. “It’s my special recipe! A little lotus, a little voidroot, a dash of temporal mushroom, and maybe something borrowed from the God of Intoxication’s pantry…”
“You’ve been drinking it too?” Hei Mao’s eyes darted toward the pot. “That soup wipes memory! You’re not supposed to consume it, especially not directly from the ladle!”
Meng Po squinted at him. “Who are you?”
Hei Mao exhaled sharply. “I am getting tired of this…”
“Hey, don’t be rude,” Da Wei said, raising his bowl in a toast. “She’s been nothing but generous. Best tea service I’ve ever had.”
“It’s not tea, Master!”
“Well, it tastes like it wants to be.”
Meng Po smiled faintly, leaning over to whisper as if it were a secret. “Want some soup?”
Hei Mao clenched both fists. “No! I don’t want any soup! This is dangerous! Every bowl destabilizes memory, and you’ve had…”
“A hundred forty-one,” Da Wei said proudly. “Each one slightly different. This one has notes of regret and toasted sesame.”
Meng Po nodded sagely. “Ah, that’s Batch Twenty-Two. Excellent year. Brewed it during a minor reality collapse.”
“Master, please,” Hei Mao groaned, rubbing his forehead. “You weren’t even supposed to be here. Why are you… picnicking?”
Da Wei shrugged. “I forgot.”
“I forgot, Hei Mao,” he said, gesturing around dramatically. “That’s what the soup does, remember? Or don’t, I guess.”
Hei Mao stared blankly, mouth opening and closing. Then, as if something inside him simply broke, he walked over and sat down with a defeated sigh.
Da Wei smiled warmly. “You are staying for a bowl?”
“No,” Hei Mao grumbled.
Meng Po offered the ladle anyway. “Want some soup?”
Hei Mao grabbed it and threw it into the mist.
“HEY!” Da Wei and Meng Po cried in unison.
“Just trying to stop you both from collapsing the karmic order,” Hei Mao muttered, already regretting everything. “Goddess Meng Po, you got a job, don’t you?”
Meng Po reached for her backup ladle, plucked it from somewhere within the folds of her robes, and dipped it straight into the soup. Without a word, she brought it to her lips and drank. all while locking eyes with Hei Mao as if daring him to object.
“This is just impossible,” Hei Mao muttered, utterly defeated.
“Want soup?” she asked, eyes still fixed on him with innocent, lethal serenity.
Da Wei leaned forward from his sitting spot beside the pot, his bowl already half-empty. “I’m really craving roasted peanuts right now. You?”
Meng Po blinked thoughtfully. “I think I still got some peanuts in my pocket…”
The mist absorbed the sound, unimpressed.
After the fourth or fifth drawn-out howl, Hei Mao slumped forward, shoulders sagging, spirit crushed. It was over. His efforts were useless. His warnings were ignored. His master was lost to the soup. He gave the pair one last look: Da Wei sipping his memory away in cheerful little gulps, and Meng Po stirring the pot with a dreamy smile and a ladle that smelled like madness.
“I’ve had enough,” Hei Mao said to himself and turned his back on the mess.
He marched to the opposite end of the bridge, where the mist thinned and a pair of familiar silhouettes were hunched over a stone chessboard. Ox-Head sat cross-legged, his hulking arms folded as he glared at the board. Horse-Face rested his bony chin on one palm, chewing absentmindedly on a reed straw while waiting for Ox-Head to finish his move.
Hei Mao dropped beside them with a grunt.
“Hey, Ox-Head,” he said. “I tried my best… It’s not working. And now my master is going to kill himself with memory wipes.”
Ox-Head didn’t look up from the game. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it. I’m more scared of Goddess Meng Po than your master. Your master is just an ant.”
“Hey, don’t talk like that about my master!” Hei Mao snapped.
Horse-Face raised a brow. “Is he really an ant, though?”
Ox-Head snorted. “He’s not even an Ascended Soul.”
Horse-Face burst out laughing. “Hahahaha~! So he doesn’t even have a sliver of immortality? Little cat, why is your master weaker than you?”
Hei Mao crossed his arms. “Time doesn’t move here, remember? Of course, I reached peak accumulation in no time. I’m a ghost. This world’s perfect for my path. If Master took advantage of this paused time, he could be invincible!”
Ox-Head stroked his chin. “Doesn’t your master walk the Transcendent Path? That path requires walking among mortals and bearing karma. This realm suits the Six Paths, and not a hack job like the Transcendent Path!”
Hei Mao scoffed. “Then he can just complete the Longevity Path first. He’s already in Soul Recognition. That’s enough to start building foundations.”
Horse-Face tilted his head. “What even is Soul Recognition? Sounds like some made-up title. Hahahaha~!”
Hei Mao glared. “Of course you wouldn’t get it. You were born with a sliver of immortality. It’s different for mortals!”
Horse-Face rolled his eyes. “Idiot. No one’s ‘born’ with immortality, except maybe the phoenix.”
Ox-Head interjected, “In our case, we were ‘reborn’ with it. The Underworlds gave us that sliver. That’s why we endure.”
Horse-Face leaned forward. “What are you even doing here, Hei Mao? You’ve been dead for what… five timelines?”
“It’s two, not five,” Hei Mao slumped. “I need help.”
Ox-Head blinked. “With what?”
Hei Mao growled, “How do I stop my master from drinking the damn tea?”
Horse-Face leaned back, laughing again. “Hahahaha! You don’t! He’s doomed! I find it weird, though, how he hadn’t lost his entire memory yet, but he’ll soon get there. The soup is powerful enough to even erase the memories of Goddess Meng Po, so of course it worked on him!”
Ox-Head shrugged. “Give it up. Your master’s definitely crazy. But maybe the tea is curing him. Memory loss might do him some good.”
Hei Mao sighed. “You two are no help at all.”
Ox-Head moved a piece on the board. “Check.”
Horse-Face cursed under his breath.
Hei Mao wandered through the misted vastness of Meng Po’s realm, his steps slow and uncertain. The bridge had long vanished behind him. There was no end. Instead, there was only the thinning of the world, the mist slowly vanishing and giving way to a path.
Finally, Hei Mao reached the edge of the world.
Before him stretched a void that shimmered like shattered glass under moonlight. The stars were distant, motionless, and impossibly bright. Each one was like a drop of ink splattered across a perfect canvas. There was no wind here, no sound, just the ache of infinity and the soft crackle of nothing.
Hei Mao sat, wrapping his scarf tighter around him. His gaze lingered on the stars.
His master… Da Wei… had seemed off even before this soup-drunk madness began. Their last conversation lingered in his mind: Da Wei speaking with a strange distance, cracking jokes too hollow to be real, and smiling like someone who had forgotten what joy was supposed to feel like. That wasn’t like him. That wasn’t the Da Wei that Hei Mao admired.
“This place is cursed,” he muttered to no one. “Even the stars feel heavy.”
Footsteps crunched behind him.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” came Ox-Head’s gravelly voice.
Hei Mao didn’t look back. “What are you doing here?”
“I got tired of Horse-Face calling me a cheater,” Ox-Head grunted. “So I laid it on him. Punched him right in the snout. Felt good.”
He sat beside Hei Mao without invitation, the wooden platform groaning faintly under his weight. Together, they stared out at the stars.
“I always find myself here when I’m thinking about something…” Hei Mao said, then immediately scowled. “Ugh. Why am I even telling you that? It’s not like you care.”
Ox-Head shrugged. “One thing I’ve learned from humans, they like to care.”
“I’m a ghost,” Hei Mao replied flatly. “A cultivator on the Ghost Path and the Longevity Path. I’m not like them.”
“Maybe not,” Ox-Head said. “But ghosts are known for their obsession. You think it’s a coincidence? Some say it’s just leftover ‘care.’ The residue of what they once cherished when they were alive.”
He pointed to the stars.
“So, little guy. What do you think? Beautiful, right?”
Hei Mao followed his gaze. “…Yeah. They remind me of home.”
“The Hollowed World?”
Hei Mao nodded. “Yeah.”
Ox-Head let out a low hum. “Why do you want to go back there? You have your master now. Neither of you needs to pass through the Wheel of Reincarnation. Just leap off this ledge, find the flow to a Lesser Universe, and keep going. With your cultivation alone, you could rule an entire world.”
“I don’t want that,” Hei Mao said firmly. “There are people I still cherish in the Hollowed World.”
Ox-Head’s tone darkened. “Do you know what humans are going to do in your situation?”
“They’ll move on. Persist in their little ways. Then die. Their lives will pass meaningfully or not, but they will move on. They won’t be waiting for you.”
Hei Mao’s face twisted with anger. “I don’t want your advice anymore! I want to go home and that’s it! I want to go home!”
Ox-Head didn’t flinch. “And that is why you’re a ghost.”
Hei Mao stood, breath trembling, a childish bitterness rising in his chest. “If you don’t have anything useful to say, I’ll leave.”
But Ox-Head didn’t let him. “Do you even know your master is not human?”
“Duh,” Hei Mao snapped. “He’s dead. Obviously.”
Ox-Head chuckled. “No. I mean, he’s not human. Not even dead in the way you think. His soul hasn’t decayed yet, and it won’t be, anytime soon.”
Hei Mao’s brows drew together. “What are you saying?”
“No one—no one!—can drink that much Meng Po soup and retain a sense of self. Not unless they were something different to begin with.”
“My master is special,” Hei Mao growled. “He’s unique. Yes, he’s flawed. But he makes up for it. He’s not some monster. So if you’re going to defame him, then whatever goodwill we had is gone.”
“How about I tell you a little story first, before you go?” Ox-Head added solemnly. “Once upon a time, the Underworld had ten realms. Ten kings. They governed the cycle. They were revered and respected. Then a stranger came.”
Hei Mao blinked. Ox-Head’s voice had shifted to less casual and more reverent. Like telling a ghost story he almost believed in.
“This stranger couldn’t be categorized. Not by the Wheel. Not by Law. He didn’t belong to any of the six paths of rebirth. He was new. Something never seen before. He was kind. Strong. Eccentric. Charismatic. The Ten Kings adored him.”
Hei Mao felt a chill despite himself.
“Then one day,” Ox-Head continued, “this stranger killed them. All ten. As proof of his dominion, he shattered one of the realms beneath his feet. No warning. No betrayal. Just the sudden choice to reject everything… connection, memory, and emotion.”
He paused, letting the weight of it settle.
“He became a Supreme Being.”
“…So what?” Hei Mao muttered, voice low.
Ox-Head looked him dead in the eyes. “This ‘story’ wasn’t so unique that in fact, the same thing had happened to different places across the Greater Universe, in different forms, with different masks… but always the same story. A stranger. Out of place. Powerful. Detached. Who leaves ruin behind. And your master, Da Wei… he could be that stranger again.”
Hei Mao clenched his fists.
“Why are you saying this to me?”
Ox-Head didn’t answer immediately. He breathed out slowly, like a man unburdening a heavy truth. His voice, when it came, was lower than before, gentler, and almost weary.
“I used to be just an ox,” he began. “Nothing more. I pulled carts, tilled fields, suffered beatings, and worked harder than anyone expected me to. When I died, one of the Ten Kings took pity on me. Said my spirit was unlike any they had seen. He raised me, rebirthed me in the Underworld, and made me one of its guardians.”
He looked down at his massive hands, callused from centuries of labor in a realm without seasons. “For eons, I guided the dead. Watched them cry, forget, laugh, scream, and pass on. I walked them to their endings. And for a while, that was enough. It had its moments.”
Ox-Head smiled faintly, but there was no joy in it.
“But now… I’m tired, Hei Mao. I’ve lived too long. Seen too much. I desperately want to drink that soup. I want to forget. To walk to the Wheel of Reincarnation, like everyone else, and finally… rest.”
Hei Mao turned toward him, eyes narrowed with the first stirrings of unease.
“But I can’t,” Ox-Head continued. “Not because of duty. But because I still love this world. Because I still remember the promise I made… to protect the dignity of the Underworld. And that damn promise is heavy, boy. It won’t let me go.”
Then, slowly, he looked at Hei Mao.
“So I ask you… would you take over my mantle, so I may rest in peace?”
There was silence. The kind that stretched with meaning.
“…It’s a nice story,” he said at last.
Ox-Head’s eyes widened, just slightly, as though he dared to hope.
But Hei Mao shook his head. “But no.”
Ox-Head blinked again, stunned.
Hei Mao continued, voice firm and soft at once. “I cherish the time you’ve been kind to me, and I’d like to think of you as a friend. Maybe even more than that. But I can’t take your place. I won’t.”
He turned, looking back toward the swirling mist behind them where the Bridge lay, where his master still sipped soup, laughing like a fool.
“I don’t care if my master turns out to be like that stranger in your story. If he does, he still remains my master. That’s all that matters.”
His voice dropped, touched with steel. “If he does bad things, I’ll tell him. If he strays too far, I’ll pull him back. If I must, I’ll atone for everything as his disciple.”
And then Hei Mao bowed. Deep and full, a gesture not of defiance, but of gratitude and sorrow.
“I’m sorry, Ox-Head. But I can’t do it.”
The silence returned. A heavy wind might have broken it, but here, nothing stirred. Just the two of them beneath the stars… one seeking release, the other bound by something stronger than duty.
Ox-Head stared at him.
Then, slowly, he began to laugh.
A deep, hearty laugh that echoed into the void.
His eyes shimmered with something old. Not tears, but understanding.
“And that’s why you’re a ghost,” he said, still chuckling. “Your obsession… it impresses me.”
Hei Mao didn’t smile. But he didn’t look away, either.
In the distance, Meng Po could be heard saying, “Want soup?”
And Da Wei’s voice rang out, “Oh, definitely. I think I tasted cinnamon this time.”
Ox-Head looked at Hei Mao and nodded once, solemnly. “Go to him.”
Hei Mao stepped back into the mist, toward his master.
And behind him, Ox-Head turned once more to the stars.