Chapter Two: Whispers in the Bottle
After the rain stops in Taipei, the air still carries a hint of cool, moist osmanthus fragrance.
After Lin Jingyi leaves, the lingering sound of the bell at the Wangchuan Tea and Medicine Shop is like a thin thread that does not break for a long time.
A Meng sits on the rattan chair, still holding that empty black soup bowl in her hands, with a small white petal left at the bottom, like someone's accidentally dropped tear.
She lowers her head to look at her blurred reflection in the bowl. A face of twenty-five or six years old, yet hiding eyes that have seen life and death for thousands of years.
Those eyes are a bit tired at the moment, as if soaked in too much people's suffering, no matter how you wipe, you can't dry them.
"I've lost a bit more weight." She says softly, her voice only audible to herself.
The shop is very quiet, only the bottles occasionally emit a very fine, breath-like hum.
The glass bottles on the shelf glow slightly under the dim yellow light, some as blue as the deep sea, some as pink as a girl's unspoken crush.
A Meng's gaze stops at the highest shelf, where there is a particularly small bottle, its body a very pale gold, like a candle about to extinguish.
That is her own memory. She has never told anyone.
After that great epidemic two years ago, she stood by the Yellow Spring Road, watching thousands of souls lining up.
When they drank the Meng Po Soup, the look of relief on their faces made her suddenly feel disgusted.
Why do people only willing to let go after death? Why do they nurture those sad things in the mortal world until they become fat and big, only to swallow them all after death?
So she left the Naihe Bridge and came to the human world.
She opened the shop in the most inconspicuous alley in Taipei.
The shop only appears when people are most desperate, like a dream prepared only for the heartbroken.
The price paid by those who drink the soup is always the least important thing on their body—a strand of hair, a tuft of pubic hair, a drop of blood, or even a small piece of nail.
A Meng puts those things into the drawer; they will slowly turn to ash, becoming her collection that she will never tell anyone about.
And those extracted memories are sealed by her into bottles.
No one has come to redeem them.
A Meng puts the soup bowl back on the counter and stands up to walk to the shelf.
She reaches out her hand, her fingertip lightly brushing over a new blue bottle—Lin Jingyi's.
That mass of mist slowly rotates in the bottle, like an unfinished night rain. She closes her eyes and instantly feels the aftertaste of that memory: the indifference of her ex-boyfriend when he left, the emptiness of hugging her knees alone at night, the suppressed sigh in her mother's phone call...
"It's really heavy." She murmurs.
At that moment, the bell on the shop door rings again.
This time, a young man comes in, about thirty years old, wearing a wrinkled white shirt with obvious cigarette ash stains on the collar.
His hair is messy, and his eyes are thick with darkness that won't dissipate.
A Meng recognizes that look at a glance—like someone standing on the edge of a cliff, with one foot already extended.
"Sit." She doesn't ask more, just pushes another clean black soup bowl toward him.
The man lifts his head, his voice hoarse: "I... heard that you can forget things here?"
"You can. But it's not free."
A Meng sits on the rattan chair, her posture elegant like an ancient painting, "What do you want to forget?"
The man is silent for a long time before pulling a crumpled ultrasound photo from his pocket.
In the photo is a small embryo, already formed, but will never move again.
"My girlfriend... yesterday had the child removed."
His fingers gently rub the photo, as if touching a fragile piece of porcelain, "She said she's not ready yet... I understand, but... every night I dream of that child crying, asking me why I don't want him."
His voice gets lower and lower, almost inaudible at the end.
A Meng doesn't comfort him, just gently pushes the soup bowl forward a bit.
The black soup in the bowl emits fine white smoke, with three small white petals floating.
"After drinking it, it won't ask you anymore."
The man stares at the bowl of soup, tears suddenly falling into it, creating small ripples on the black soup surface. He picks up the bowl, his hand shaking badly, but still tilts his head back and drinks it in one gulp.
At that moment, the change comes extremely quietly.
The man's body stiffens slightly, then as if an invisible bone is removed, his whole person softly leans back on the chair.
His eyes are still open, but suddenly lose focus, like two dry wells drained of water.
The originally pained and twisted brows slowly relax, and the corners of his mouth even slightly rise—not a smile, but a kind of almost blank, mechanical relaxation.
"What... was I saying just now?" He asks blankly, his voice flat without any fluctuation, like a machine just formatted.
A Meng replies softly: "Nothing. You just came to buy a calming traditional Chinese medicine prescription."
The man lowers his head to look at the ultrasound photo in his hand, furrowing his brows as if trying to recognize a completely unfamiliar object.
He flips the photo back and forth several times, finally lightly "hmm"-ing, and casually stuffs it back into his pocket.
That action is clean and neat, without any attachment.
"Strange... why did I bring this?" He mutters to himself, his tone only faintly puzzled, without pain or nostalgia.
Like discovering an extra receipt in his pocket that belongs to someone else.
A Meng watches him.
That emptiness is more uncomfortable than crying—like a room originally full of furniture, emptied overnight, leaving only four bare walls.
The man is still alive, his heartbeat is there, his breathing is steady, but the part of him that could feel pain, love, and stay up all night for an unborn child has completely disappeared.
He stands up, his movements a bit stiff, like a puppet learning to walk for the first time.
"Thank you... boss lady." He pays—not cash, but a small piece of his left middle fingernail.
He cuts it off himself with a pocket knife, the action terrifyingly skillful. Fresh blood drips on the counter, but he doesn't even frown, just takes out a handkerchief and presses it casually, as if handling a trivial matter.
A Meng places that new bottle—inside floats a small mass of mist like a fetal heartbeat—on the shelf.
It emits a very pale pink-blue glow and gently resonates with the bottles beside it.
When the man leaves, his back is straight, his steps steady.
He pushes open the shop door and steps into the post-rain alley without looking back. As if that heart-wrenching pain had never happened to him.
The shop returns to quiet.
A Meng leans on the rattan chair, closes her eyes, and listens to the low, dream-like sounds from the bottles.
Some are singing old love songs, some are crying about the warmth of their mother's last hug, and one is repeatedly saying an unspoken "I'm sorry."
She suddenly feels tired.
After hundreds of years in the Yellow Spring, she thought she had seen through everything.
But after coming to the human world, she realizes that the suffering of the living is stickier, heavier, and more reluctant to let go than that of the dead.
They would rather be bitten to death bit by bit by memories than completely forget.
And when they really forget, that emptiness is more like death than any pain.
"Why... doesn't anyone come to redeem them?" She asks softly to the full room of bottles.
No one answers.
Only the pink bottle closest to her suddenly lights up, as if comforting her.
A Meng reaches out, her fingertip touching the bottle.
That is a first love forgotten by a girl many years ago.
She feels that the mist inside still retains a bit of warmth, like the body temperature when the boy kissed her.
She suddenly laughs, her laughter carrying a touch of self-mockery.
"So... I'm the same, huh."
She recalls the reason she decided to descend to the mortal world.
It was not just for the people, but also for herself.
That Meng Po who stood by the Yellow Spring for thousands of years also wanted to try if killing the pain while people are still alive would make herself lighter.
In the end?
She still guards this shop alone, guarding hundreds of unwanted memories, and more and more empty souls.
The alley outside the shop starts raining again.
The rain sounds fine, like countless lonely souls knocking on the door.
A Meng stands up, walks to the door, and gently pushes open the half-closed wooden door a bit.
The dim yellow light of the lantern spills on the wet stone path, like a road leading to the unknown.
"Who... will be the next one?"
She finishes speaking softly and turns back to behind the counter.
The rattan chair emits a slight creak, especially clear in the silent shop.
And the bottles on the shelf continue to glow, like a group of forgotten yet still striving to breathe small stars.
(End of Chapter Two)