Immortal Paladin 220 Bridge of Forgetting

220 Bridge of Forgetting

The bridge stretched nearly forever, suspended over a river no one could na. Mist clung to its planks, thick and slow, like breath held too long. People crossed in uneven trickles from soldiers with missing limbs, children with empty eyes, nobles who forgot their crowns, and beggars who still clutched their last coin. Each one paused in the middle, drawn not by chains or command, but by a quiet, irresistible presence.

She sat on a low, crooked stool, hunched like the weight of ages had folded her bones. Her silver hair flowed like cobwebs down her back, and her ragged robes, once divine vestnts, now barely passed for beggar's rags. Yet her eyes shimred like starlight trapped in puddles of ink. This was ng Po, ancient goddess of forgetfulness, tea server to the dead, and self-proclaid most beautiful woman in the universe. The last part, she believed so firmly that the universe itself had stopped arguing.

“Co now, darling,” she cooed to a weeping old man, pressing a wooden bowl into his shaking hands. “One sip and all the regrets, all the sha, and all the ss... poof.” She made a vague flicking gesture, like banishing a fly. “Gone.”

The old man drank. She nodded in satisfaction and waved a gnarled hand. Without ceremony, the old man vanished and was sent to the Wheel of Reincarnation. A short life as a mayfly, perhaps. A fitting pace to balance the sluggishness of his previous one.

Life for ng Po was beautifully simple. She brewed her soup, stirred her pot, existed in a dozen tilines simultaneously, and offered bowls of forgetfulness to the souls who ca. So called it tea, so soup, and so divine elixir. She honestly couldn’t rember what it was anymore. But it was warm, and it worked. And most importantly, it kept her out of the affairs of the “Supre Idiots” who governed the Greater Universe like squabbling siblings hoarding toy kingdoms.

Her day was progressing smoothly, the queue as slow and steady as a funeral march, until she saw him.

A boy approached, no older than eighteen in appearance, though the way he walked was heavy, tired, and stubborn. It belonged to soone who had aged far too many tis. Dark hair tousled by wind, eyes dimd like he had been staring at loss too long, and a long red scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. He stopped before her.

ng Po bead. “Oh, cutie, want so tea?” She offered the wooden bowl with both hands.

The boy didn’t even look at it. Instead, he handed it to the next person in line, who accepted it wordlessly, drank, and vanished a second later.

She frowned. “I told Oxy and Horsey that there’s no cutting the line! Are you so eager to be reincarnated, you’re skipping ahead now?”

The boy sighed. “It’s . Hei Mao.”

She blinked. A small twitch ran through her fingers, the kind of reflex that ca before a mory tried to resurface. She snapped her fingers. “Ah! Hei Mao! So, are you ready to be reincarnated?”

“No.”

“So stubborn,” she muttered, reaching for her pot again.

Most who refused her soup were cursed to wander the bridge for eternity, unable to cross, and unable to leave. But Hei Mao was different. He hadn’t even co through the bridge. His arrival had been... complicated.

She rembered… or rather, vaguely pieced together… a mory from her routine maintenance of the Wheel of Reincarnation. Souls went in, spun through the cycle, and were reborn. But Hei Mao had been running against the current. Not taphorically. The idiot was physically trying to sprint backward into the past. That wasn’t just irregular… it was impossible.

Naturally, she plucked him out.

“You’re lucky I found you before the system erased you,” she said, voice sharp as she ladled another bowl. “Do you even know where you were? The Void! The nothing-between-things! It’s the layer of inexistence where even thought forgets itself!”

Hei Mao rolled his eyes, clearly having heard the speech before. “You already said that... at least twelve tis.”

“Little guy, I’m the goddess of forgetfulness. Of course, I forgot I already said it. Sa goes for whatever promises I apparently made.”

“You promised,” Hei Mao said, gaze steady now, “that you’d help return to the Hollowed World.”

She froze. Her hand hovered above the steaming pot. For a mont, even the bridge’s wind seed to hold its breath.

“I can send you anywhere,” she said at last, voice low, “but not there. The Supre Idiots will be furious. You know how many cycles I got scolded after they found out I slipped a piece of my soul into that world?”

“Then send the sa way you did back then,” he pressed, stubborn as granite.

ng Po shook her head slowly. “I barely retrieved that piece before it disintegrated. They've layered it with wards, filters, and cosmic nonsense. Even I can’t sneak past it anymore.”

She took a long sip from the bowl ant for soone else and winced. “Too salty.” Then, as if nothing had happened, she turned to the person next in line… a radiant young man with features carved from marble and a smile rehearsed for seduction.

“Oh, cutie, want so soup? Hhmmm… That’s a nice scarf you got there…”

“Oh, co on!”

The young man with a red scarf stalked off in a huff, muttering curses about goddesses and bridges and soup with identity issues.

ng Po sniffed. “What’s his problem? He should’ve had so of my soup... er... tea. Might’ve helped with his temper.”

The line never truly ended. It stretched into the mist like a thread of karma, always tugging more souls forward. ng Po stood at her place in the middle of the bridge, hunched over a pot that had simred since before mory itself. Steam curled around her weathered face as she stirred the broth with a bone ladle, its clinks marking the passage of forgetting. Her work had a certain rhythm: stir, ladle, offer, and release.

“Next,” she murmured, the word barely louder than the mist rolling over the river. "To the next life you go..."

One by one, the dead approached. Each took the bowl in silence, drank, and vanished, burdens lost at the lip of her soup. No fuss. No fanfare. This was her domain, and this was peace. Then ca hurried footsteps, too loud and alive. She glanced up.

A man was sprinting toward her, his erald silk robes billowing behind him. He had the posture of a young master, the face of soone used to privilege, and the panting breath of soone very much not in control. He skidded to a halt, bent over, hands on knees.

“Huff… huff… Ah, lady, do you know where this is? I think I’m a bit lost…”

ng Po blinked. Her cheeks ward. It was a ridiculous response, but she let it be. Who wouldn’t blush at being called a lady at her age?

“Oh, sweetheart, you flatter ,” she said with a flutter in her voice. “Looks like you’ve had quite the run. How about so soup?”

The man straightened with a sheepish grin. “Thanks. I’m really thirsty… mind if I take a bowl?”

Without waiting, she dipped the ladle and filled a wooden bowl. The scent wafted between them with lotus root, stardust, and just a trace of sorrow. He took it, drank in one long gulp, and sighed with satisfaction.

“Ahh… that hits the spot. Can I have another?”

ng Po stared.

“…What?”

That wasn’t supposed to happen. No one ever asked for seconds.

She tilted her head, studying him like a weird bug in the fabric of reincarnation. Her fingers hovered uncertainly over the ladle, unsure whether to pour again or swat him with it.

The soup erased mory. That was the point. Once consud, the soul forgot everything… nas, attachnts, even thirst.

“…Darling,” she said, voice low and suspicious, “are you feeling alright?”

“Better than ever!” he chirped, stretching as if shaking off centuries of exhaustion. “Soup... er... the tea really cleared my head. Got any more?”

She narrowed her eyes. Either the batch was faulty again, or this wasn’t an ordinary soul.

“You drank all of it?” she asked, voice sharpening.

“Yeah.” He grinned. “It was delicious.”

“And… your mories? Gone? Your na?”

He blinked, confused. “Of course not. I’m Da Wei, Defeater of Hell’s Gate, Slayer of the Abyss. Also crowned Most Handso Man in the Universe… Eh, was that too much? That sounded better in my head. Now I feel embarrassed.”

ng Po’s ladle clattered into the pot.

“You’re not supposed to rember any of that!” she barked, pointing at him. “That’s what the soup does! Oblivion in a bowl! Amnesia tea, sweetheart! And what were those absurd titles? Defeater of what? You barely look stronger than a mosquito.”

Da Wei tilted his head. “Huh. That’s weird. Do I know you?”

She hissed, snatching back the bowl. She sniffed it, licked the rim, muttered a diagnostic incantation, and groaned.

“Oh no. Not again.”

“Again?”

“Not your concern,” she muttered. “Stupid Wheel must be misaligned. Or maybe I grabbed the wrong root. I knew I shouldn’t have let Hei Mao near the seasoning jars…”

She sprinkled a pinch of dust into the pot, stirred with a scowl, and taste-tested the brew.

“Wait,” Da Wei said, straightening. “You know Hei Mao?”

ng Po paused. “What? Who is Hei Mao?”

He stared at her.

“…Never mind.”

“Want so soup?” she asked without looking up.

“Oh, sure!” ca the cheerful reply.

She glanced up briefly… ah yes, the handso one with the smug smile and wind-swept hair. Not bad to look at, even if he reminded her vaguely of an annoying nephew she might’ve had across one of her many lifetis. She passed him a wooden bowl, watched him down it in one gulp, then shrugged and drank from her ladle.

He smacked his lips. “That’s good stuff.”

ng Po nodded absently, took the bowl back, filled it again, and handed it right back to him. “Here.”

Da Wei blinked, then looked from the bowl to her and back again. “Uh… didn’t I just—?”

“What are you waiting for? Drink!”

“…Right.” And so he drank.

ng Po furrowed her brow. Sothing about this was off, but the thought slipped away before she could pin it down. She drank from her ladle again. She blinked. A man stood in front of her, holding an empty bowl. She squinted at him, then brightened. “Oh! Want so soup?”

He smiled. “Sure!”

And so it continued.

She filled the bowl, and he drank. She sipped from her ladle, forgot. Offered another bowl. He accepted with growing delight, as if rediscovering a flavor with every gulp. Neither paused to question it. The rhythm lulled them both… pour, sip, forget, and repeat.

To a passing soul, the scene looked almost serene. Two odd individuals sharing warm tea in the mist, laughing softly and exchanging pleasantries between sips. An old crone and a strange young man were sitting in companionable silence as the line moved around them.

In truth, it was a disaster.

ng Po had slipped into a loop. Every ti she drank from her ladle, the sacred tea wiped a little more of her short-term mory. She kept forgetting the man in front of her was the sa one she’d just served. As for Da Wei, well… he’d developed a taste for the stuff. The warmth, the spice, the strangely comforting bitterness… it all spoke to him. It was nostalgic in a way he couldn’t na, like rembering a song without knowing the words.

Between gulps, he chatted. “So, is this really tea? Or soup? Because I swear, this has the mouthfeel of soup, but the aftertaste of roasted barley.”

ng Po drank again, straight from the ladle. She looked up and saw a man standing there.

“Want so soup?” she offered with a smile.

“Oh, thanks!” Da Wei bead.

She filled the bowl. He drank. She sipped again.

And on and on they went.

At one point, she gave him the ladle instead of the bowl.

He hesitated. “Uh… do I drink directly from this?”

“Of course,” she said, dead serious. “It’s ceremonial.”

“Nice.” He slurped.

Monts passed. She blinked, saw him again, and exclaid, “Oh, what a handso young soul! Want so soup?”

“Don’t mind if I do!”

By the ti a minor god from the Celestial Circle wandered by to check on the Reincarnation Flow, they found the bridge slightly backed up, the queue disoriented, and the goddess of forgetting in the middle of a very suspicious tea party. Bowls were stacked like tribute offerings beside her. Da Wei was halfway through explaining how soup like this could probably end most mortal wars if packaged correctly.

The god narrowed his eyes.

ng Po looked up at the stranger. “Oh, cutie, want so soup?”

The god sighed. “Great. I am out of here.”

And in the background, Da Wei happily raised another bowl. “This one’s got extra lotus, I think. Solid improvent.”

The mist around the Bridge of Forgetting drifted lazily, unbothered by the passage of souls or the quiet absurdity taking root in its center. There, beside a gently bubbling cauldron that had simred since before history rembered to begin, sat two people who had completely derailed the sacred order of reincarnation.

One was ng Po, an old goddess with silver hair like cobwebs, draped in rags too ancient to be called clothes and too divine to ever wear out. The other was Da Wei, self-proclaid most handso man in the universe, slayer of various intimidating things, and currently a soup enthusiast.

“Want another soup?” ng Po asked, ladle in hand.

“Thank you!” Da Wei replied, beaming.

He sipped slowly this ti, savoring it as if it were a rare vintage. “So who was that guy earlier?”

ng Po snorted. “Just so fool from the Celestial Circle. A petty spy sent by the Supre Idiots to keep tabs on . Don’t mind him… he’s scared shitless of .”

With practiced grace, she reached into a pouch and tossed in a pinch of sothing that sparkled, hissed, and made the broth bubble with renewed vigor. The ladle dipped again, and a careful stream of soup was poured into Da Wei’s bowl.

He drank, pausing between sips to glance around. “So… what exactly is this place?”

ng Po took another long drink straight from the ladle.

“Huh? Who are you?”

Da Wei blinked. “This place, Granny. What is this place?”

She blinked slowly. “It’s .”

“…Huh?”

“It’s hard to explain.” She tapped her chest. “This place… It’s . Or at least, what’s left of . It used to be different. Bigger. Then smaller. Then sideways. But now, it’s just... this.”

She took another sip.

“Want so soup?”

Da Wei laughed. “Sure.”

So they sat, huddled near the pot as if around a campfire, passing bowls and ladle back and forth in an endless loop of polite offerings and cheerful acceptance.

Da Wei tilted his head after another sip. “This one tastes different. A bit smoky. Last one was… flowery? And before that… I think it reminded of my childhood, which is weird, because I sotis forget I even had one.”

ng Po shrugged, sipping. “Want so soup?”

“Thank you!”

She drank again. “Want soup?”

“Cheers!” He raised his wooden bowl and tapped it against her ladle.

ng Po’s eyes twinkled. “Want?”

“Of course, I do!”

At this point, it had beco an eternal tea party without a cause, reason, or end.

That is, until a large, looming figure approached through the mist.

He had the massive fra of a mountain, broad shoulders wrapped in ceremonial armor, and the unmistakable head of an ox. His horns were polished, his expression pained. The great spirit of the underworld, Ox-Head, shuffled forward like a man who regretted waking up this morning.

“M-my lady,” he began awkwardly, bowing slightly. “I don’t wish to interrupt you, but… You really shouldn’t be drinking while on duty.”

ng Po looked genuinely scandalized. “What? I didn’t drink!”

Ox-Head rubbed his temples with two enormous fingers. “I swear, I’m going to kill that minor god for dragging here…”

Da Wei, helpful as ever, extended the ladle toward him. “Want soup?”

The great ox recoiled like he'd been offered a bowl of poison. “I don’t want it! Ugh… Heaven help .”

ng Po huffed. “So dramatic. You know, back in the Celestial Spring Festival of Year One Hundred and Thirty-Two Thousand, you begged for a second bowl.”

“That was dicinal! I was cursed!”

“So ungrateful…”

Da Wei refilled his bowl. “Anyway,” he said conversationally, “you sure you don’t want to try it? It tastes like... liberation.”

Ox-Head gave them both a long, tired stare. Then he turned around, muttering, “I’m filing a formal complaint…”

As he vanished into the mist, ng Po leaned toward Da Wei.

“Want so soup?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

And thus, the cycle continued: the goddess who forgot, and the man who never got tired of her tea.