A silhouette suspended in the middle of a void, as if gravity didn’t exist.
“What is this place?”
The teenager wasn’t fully conscious yet. He opened his eyes and saw only whiteness all around him. A wave of nausea hit him just a few seconds later. It was the feeling you get when you’ve been staring at your phone screen for so long that your stomach is upset, and you want to throw up, but you just can’t. It was a horrible feeling.
The void was dead silent, so silent that the teenager started to wonder if he had lost his hearing. Or was this place really this quiet? At the very least, he should be able to hear his own heartbeat, but…
Wait! Heartbeat!
The teenager placed a hand over his chest. There was no heartbeat. He was dead. A question formed in the teenager’s mind. If he was dead, why did he still retain his consciousness? The only logical explanation was that his soul had arrived at the underworld.
“Am I heading for the Bridge of Forgetting1?” The teenager could feel himself being pulled forwards by an invisible force, but the path he was travelling on seemed to stretch on and on forever.
Humans have an innate sense of time that allows them to approximate how much time has passed. However, this innate ability seemed to be useless here in this strange realm.
Suddenly, the teenager felt the familiar pull of gravity as he quickly crashed downward. A large black hole had appeared in the void, dragging everything nearby into itself like a whirlpool. The teenager’s body started to experience spaghettification; it was slowly stretched lengthwise as he continued swirling around the black hole.
He could feel extreme forces tear, rip, and pull at his body. It was miserable. Every second of being stretched was excruciatingly painful, but a cool sensation would always flow through his body immediately after. It continued like this, again and again. The boy couldn’t explain why or how, but he could feel an unknown power growing within him. He grumbled in his own mind, Are there usually these many steps to being reincarnated?
Some invisible force suddenly intensified and dragged the teenager even faster downwards. The teenager only managed to see a flash of blue-white lightning before he was stuffed and kneaded into the lightning bolt itself. The lightning crashed violently toward the earth before he could react.
He screamed the whole way down, “Aaaaaaah… I have a fear of heights! I can’t do this!”
The black hole gradually shrank after the lightning strike. The infinite void returned to its original state, silent and peaceful. All signs of the teenager and the commotion earlier vanished without a trace.
It was dark now. The moon was already hanging high in the night sky, looking down on the mortals on the ground.
It is common wisdom to work while the sun is up and to rest when the sun is down. The townspeople’s work schedule abided by this and was routine as clockwork. No one roamed the streets after dusk; the lights were blown out and everyone was already sleeping.
Swoosh.
A dark shadow flitted down the main street. Every step taken was light but firm and deliberate.
There were only old but grand buildings along the main street. The roofs were layered with aged tiles that seemed likely to fall off with just a slightly stronger gust of wind.
Yet, when the shadow landed on these roofs, not a sound was made. Like a dragonfly tapping the water's surface, the person seemed almost weightless, light as a feather drifting in the breeze.
The silhouette vanished into the distance in a matter of seconds. Only a few drops of scarlet red were left in its path.
Huff. Huff.
The man stopped at a dark corner. His laborious breathing and the violent undulations of his chest were unlike his weightless steps. They were indications of his current condition. The man in black could not stop the blood seeping through his fingers, even with all the pressure he was applying to his stomach.
He gritted his teeth and continued leaping forward with all his strength, bearing the agony with sheer will. Soon, he saw a mansion come into view. A pair of stone lions flanked the gates, above which hung in bold letters a plaque that read: The Wan Mansion.
“Finally.”
The man in black wiped the sweat away from his forehead and closed his eyes. His forehead trembled all the while, pain carved into his face. Just a minute later, the light had faded even more visibly from his eyes. His face, hidden under the black cloth, had turned white as a sheet. His already stumbling feet were now like saplings in a storm, threatening to fall at any time.
He willed himself to keep standing as he slowly inched towards his destination. However, every step seemed to take every ounce of strength left in the man’s body. It was his stubborn will that kept him conscious. He had already bit his lips bloody and tattered; his black mask was stained with blood.
The guards of the Wan Mansion had lanterns with them. They immediately went on alert when they saw a mysterious man in black approach. They shouted angrily at him, “Who is it? Name yourself or we will attack.”
The two guards’ hands immediately went to their scabbards. They were prepared to draw swords at any moment. Dressing in black in the middle of the night was the behaviour of an assassin. They didn’t need any more justification to strike.
Creak.
Just as they were about to draw their swords, the gates behind them abruptly opened. A voice spoke up, “Step down.”
A middle-aged man walked out from the gates. He had firm but sharp eyes and a face beaming with righteousness. He seemed like a reliable and capable person. The guards turned around and immediately knelt on one knee when they saw their clan master.
“Clan master.”
“Huff… huff…”
The man in black’s breathing was even more rapid now and his eyes looked vacant. It was the last fragment of his willpower that held him up. He took a step forward and placed something in the middle-aged man’s arms. He coughed violently; a lot of blood came up this time as well.
“Help me, Ching Yeung.”
“How did you make it into the Empire? These injuries…you?!” The middle-aged man named Ching Yeung didn’t finish his words. He looked down and saw what had been placed in his arms. It was a baby!
The baby was covered in wounds, wounds that anyone could recognize as severe burns with a glance. Yet, strangely enough, the baby’s eyes were shut tight. It was sleeping soundly, and its pulse was strong and firm, as if it hadn’t been injured at all. The baby had nothing on it but a jade pendant resting on its chest. The jade was green and white and of extremely intricate design. Someone had clearly placed it on the baby shortly after it was born.
The man in black looked at the baby, a rare glint of softness and gentleness betrayed in his eyes, as if remembering something sweet. For a moment, it even seemed as if his strength was returning to him. The corners of his lips drew up into a smile. He caressed the baby’s smooth forehead as he explained in a soft voice.
“His mother’s lightning tribulation2 struck right after he was born. He was unfortunate enough to have been struck. That lightning strike was not something a completely untrained baby should have survived, and yet, somehow, he was only injured. It’s a miracle.”
“So, what you want from me is to…” The middle-aged man smiled bitterly. He knew why the man in black had come calling so late in the night. These injuries he had, the baby—these were enough clues for him to piece the whole story together.
“Mm. I don’t have much time left. I must leave… leave this town right now. Or trouble will come.” The man in black was gasping for air. Every word said took all his effort. The cold sweat on his brow trailed down his face and soaked the collar of his shirt.
The middle-aged man seemed conflicted. He appeared to be thinking about something. At last, he grabbed his forehead and sighed.
“You would trust me? Given how weak I am? Moreover, if he is raised in the Wun Clan…”
“You owe me your life. Help me!” the man in black grabbed the other man by the collar and yelled.
He wasn’t the kind of person who demanded his good deeds be repaid, but this was for the baby’s sake. He didn’t mind being a villain just this once. He took something out of his clothes as he looked at the baby. He put it in his mouth and chewed. His breath started to stabilise, and his chest stopped rising and falling as violently as before.
He took one last look at the baby, as if hoping to carve its appearance into his heart. He was incredibly reluctant to leave, but he gritted his teeth and jumped into the air before the middle-aged man could even agree to his request.
He vanished from view in just a few leaps.
“Did I miss something interesting?”
Just then, an old man stepped out of the gates, stifling his smile as he asked. However, the middle-aged man still noticed the smile. The old man was most certainly enjoying watching him squirm and writhe.
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T/N Notes
1. The Bridge of Forgetting is more commonly known as The Bridge of Forgetfulness, or the Naihe Bridge.
It is where Meng Po, the goddess of forgetfulness in Chinese mythology, serves soup to the souls of the dead before they are allowed to reincarnate into their next life. The soup erases all memories, letting the souls be reborn on a clean slate, with no attachments or burdens from their past lives. Of course, it’s located in hell. A parallel from Greek mythology would be the River Lethe.
“Naihe” means something to the extent of “what can you do about it?”, expressing a sentiment of helplessness (kind of like the Japanese phrase ‘shikata ga nai’). In this case, the bridge is named as such, probably to convey the sense of helplessness in the face of death.
I chose to translate it as the Bridge of Forgetting over the Bridge of Forgetfulness because the latter is a mouthful and also less accurate, in my opinion.
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2. If you are not familiar with the wuxia or xianxia genre, lightning tribulations (or thunder tribulations, as they are more commonly translated) are trials that cultivators have to face when they ascend to certain stages of power. Typically, these tribulations are depicted as heaven’s will unleashed upon mortals who seek to defy their fate (by cultivating and gaining power, for instance). Only the worthy will survive, and often, surviving the tribulations will yield benefits to the individual (such as greater physical prowess).
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