Chapter Fifteen Before the Curse
The pain finally subsided a little. Ameng leaned back in the rattan chair, her breathing still carrying a sticky tremble.
She closed her eyes and felt that empty city deep in her lower abdomen throbbing faintly again, like a festering abscess that had been repeatedly squeezed yet could never burst.
At that moment, an extremely faint golden thread of light emerged from her wrist—that was the mark left by Yama’s touch a thousand years ago.
Now, it was like a key, silently opening the most secret door in her memories.
She saw the time when Yama was not yet Yama.
Back then, his name was Xuanming.
He was not the Lord of the Underworld who governed life and death, but merely a low-ranking river god, guarding a dark river forgotten by the world.
The river water was clear yet cold, the banks overgrown with pale reeds, and countless souls swallowed by war slept at the riverbed.
He patrolled the river every day, his robes soaked heavy and sticky by the mist, like a layer of ice-cold skin that could never be dried.
He should have been heartless.
But he met her—the woman who was not yet Meng Po, Ashu.
It was the end of the Song Dynasty. War had just passed, and famine was rampant.
She was searching for her missing family by the river, her clothes stained with mud, her long hair disheveled, yet her eyes held an almost obsessive determination.
She knelt by the river, scooping up the water with both hands to drink, as if praying to the river god.
The first time Xuanming appeared, she looked up at him. There was no fear in her eyes, only hope.
“Divine Lord… please tell me, are my family still alive?”
He should have told her the truth—her family had long since died in the chaos of war, their souls swallowed by the flames.
But looking into her eyes, he suddenly could not speak.
So he concealed everything.
He accompanied her along the river in search, walking for months.
The two walked side by side through the reeds. His tall figure always leaned slightly, as if wanting to warm her gradually chilling body with his own warmth.
When she was tired, he let her lean on his shoulder; when she cried, he gently wiped away her tears.
That touch was light, as if afraid to wake her, yet heavy, as if pouring all his thousand years of longing into it.
The ambiguity between them was like an extremely thin, sticky fog, enveloping the blood-red flower sea and the black waters.
He had never said he liked her. She had never asked.
But every night, when she rested in his arms, he could feel the warmth of her heartbeat, like a small, fragile flame slowly melting inside his cold chest.
He loved her.
A love that was humble, sticky, and heavy.
He was a river god; his duty was only to guard the river.
But for her, he began to defy the heavenly laws.
He secretly rescued her family’s souls from the battlefield and hid them in the deepest whirlpool at the riverbed;
He used his divine power to extend her lifespan so she would not age so quickly;
He even secretly dripped his own divine blood into her tea on full-moon nights, just so she would look at him a few more times.
But the curse among the gods never spares any transgressor.
The Heavenly Court noticed his actions.
An ancient deity issued a decree: if Xuanming continued to entangle with a mortal woman, he would be cast into the cycle of reincarnation, never to be a god again.
That decree turned into a blood-red thread of fate, tightly wrapping around his divine soul, like countless barbs ready to tear everything apart.
That night, Xuanming stood by the river, watching the sleeping Ashu. His chest felt as if torn open by a massive wound.
If I let go, she will age, die, and forget me.
If I do not let go, I will drag her into endless reincarnation as well.
In the end, he made his choice.
He personally sacrificed the most important strand of his divine soul to the Heavenly Dao, in exchange for the authority to “govern life and death.”
He knelt in the sea of blood-red Manjusaka flowers, letting his divine blood dye the entire Wangchuan River red. From then on, he became the new King of Hell, ruling over reincarnation, iron laws, and life and death.
He thought this way, he could keep her by his side forever.
But when he returned to her with his new identity, Ashu had already died in the war, her soul drifting at the source of the Wangchuan.
She did not yet know she was dead and was still obsessively searching for her family.
He concealed everything.
He accompanied her across the River of the Dead, fed her the Wangchuan water, turning her into Meng Po, forever remaining at the Bridge of Helplessness.
He thought this was salvation.
But a thousand years later, he finally understood—this was another, longer and crueler curse.
He trapped her by the River of the Dead, lifetime after lifetime, just to satisfy his own humble, unspeakable love.
And she, over these thousand years, slowly turned into an empty city.
—-----------------
Ameng suddenly opened her eyes.
The pain in her lower abdomen reached its peak at that moment.
She bent over, cold sweat sliding down the side of her neck like an ice-cold snake.
She saw Yama standing at the shop entrance, his tall figure casting a heavy shadow.
He looked at her, his eyes filled with a thousand years of suppressed pain and guilt.
“Ameng…” His voice was hoarse. “Do you… still hate me now?”
Ameng raised her head and looked at him.
In that moment, an extremely faint, almost despairing softness appeared in her eyes.
“Hate?” she said softly. “I just… finally understand. The reason you became Yama back then was for me.”
The bottles in the shop suddenly emitted an extremely low, collective cry-like cracking sound at the same time.
This time, it was not just cracking.
They began to make fine, newborn-like crying sounds.
And at this moment, Ameng’s lower abdomen finally transmitted a deeper, stickier, heavier spasm.
As if something… was about to break out of its shell.
(End of Chapter Fifteen)
#NovelCreation#OriginalNovel#Romance
Postscript: I really want to eat meat zongzi, but it’s too late to order. What a pity😮💨
The recent thunderstorms make everyone feel depressed. The lab troubles make me want to curse loudly, but in the end, staying quiet and avoiding trouble is better… Sigh…
Truly, the longer you live, what you gain isn’t worldly wisdom, but seeing many “accidents.”