Not long after Green Dragon, White Tiger and Elena had fallen from the abyss, a bright light suddenly appeared before their eyes!
Before they could react, they were standing firmly in a mysterious and secluded place. All that could be seen there was a stone manor house. The candlelight was brightly lit directly outside the door of the manor, standing on either side of a stone staircase. The white tiger asked curiously, "Where is this?" As he did so, he peered into the manor. Inside the manor house, there were exquisite and ornate furnishings, curtains made of beads and jade, and a large table carved in jade in the middle of the hall. A woman was sitting next to the table serving soup, and some ghosts waiting to be reincarnated were waiting there for their soup.
Qinglong said, "This is probably the place we must pass through to be reincarnated!"
Ziwei glanced at the place where she was standing and said with certainty, "Qinglong is right, this is the Mona's Village not far from the hell, and the first place a person passes through after death is the Mona's Village. Generally speaking, after a person dies, the servants of the Underworld will be ordered to escort the ghosts through the walls of the Meng Po Village and go to the Hall of the King of Hell for interrogation first. After the verdict is made, the merits and demerits of the person's life are entered into a book of reincarnation. They are then judged on the basis of the good and bad deeds they have done in life and decide where they should be reincarnated! For example, those who have done great good deeds and virtues in their lifetime and have practised them will be reborn in the Pure Land of Heaven, which is related to each religion, if their virtues are perfect. Those who have done good deeds and accumulated virtue but have not practised will be reborn as celestial beings to enjoy the blessings of heaven. Those who have not done good deeds or evil deeds in their previous lives but have not fulfilled their past karma are mostly reincarnated as human beings to fulfil their past karma! The degree of prosperity of the family after reincarnation is determined by the merits of the good deeds of the previous life! If you have done too much evil in your previous life, you will be sent to hell to be punished. Those who have done too much evil in their previous lives will be sent to hell to be punished. Those who have done good deeds and love giving will generally be reincarnated into wealthy families. Any ghost who is sentenced to reincarnation will have to pass through the Menma Village and drink Menma's soup. You see, the woman who greets those who come and serves the soup to those who are waiting to be reincarnated is Meng-na, the goddess of forgetfulness. She is the goddess of the winds, and she has made the soup to help those who are reincarnated to forget the painful memories of their past lives! Those who pass through this place for reincarnation will forget all memories of their past lives once they have drunk the bowl of soup. Meng's duty is to ensure that all the ghosts who go to reincarnation will not remember their past lives and everything in hell, in order to avoid love-hate entanglements in the human world, or leaks!
Meng Po is a herbalist who collects herbs from the banks of various streams and rivers and boils them down with the 'forgetful' river water, which has a mesmerising effect on the soul, to make an enchanting soup with eight flavours: sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, salty, astringent, fishy and punchy, commonly known as Meng Po Soup. After drinking it, one immediately loses all memory of one's past life. To cross the bridge and leave the hell to reincarnate one must drink a bowl of this soup of oblivion to be sure to wash away all past memories before arriving at the afterlife." Elena said to the Green Dragon and the White Tiger.
The White Tiger thought for a moment and said, "Can we not drink the Meng Bo soup? If we drink Meng Bo soup we will forget our mission to save the world!"
Bai Hu's words were overheard by Meng Wu who was serving the soup. Meng Wu looked at Bai Hu and pointed to a river under the bridge in front of the manor and said, "Those who do not drink the soup will have to jump into the River of Forgetfulness in front of my Meng Wu Village and suffer thousands of years of pain before they can be reincarnated! They would rather suffer in the river for a thousand years than forget their former lover! After they jump off the River of Forgetfulness, they have to wait a thousand years down there before they can be reincarnated again, and even if he sees his lover on the Bridge of Naina after a thousand years, his lover cannot see him and has no way to communicate because their languages are different. Love hurts people!" Meng looked meaningfully at Elena, Qinglong and Baihu.
White Tiger looked in the direction of Meng's finger, only to see the water flowing rapidly and mysteriously coloured under the bridge. Looking at the beings tossed about in the River of Forgetfulness, Elena, Qinglong and Baihu felt hard inside! Elena asked Meng, "Is there any way to keep them from suffering there great torment?"
"You see, those who can behave and drink the soup need not suffer torture! There are those who resist because they don't want to forget the memories engraved in their past lives and hope to find their former lovers again in the next life. These people either have to jump into the River of Forgetfulness and wait for thousands of years, or have to endure the pain caused by the knife and fire beneath their feet and the needles piercing their throats. I, Meng, am helpless with these people, and sometimes I feel sorry for them, but there is nothing else I can do! Sometimes I had to leave marks on their bodies or let them off with a few random sips. The three types of people with moles, birthmarks and dimples on their faces escaped Meng Po Soup, and these people were willing to endure a thousand years of waiting and suffering in order to see their former lovers again! But the best thing to do is to drink the soup of forgetfulness, because not drinking it requires too much painful waiting, and there are many other evil spirits in the waters of the River of Forgetfulness who cannot be reincarnated and who want you to become like them, to be devoured and tortured here and have nowhere to talk about it, so I advise you to think carefully, and after you have dutifully drunk the Meng Po Soup and forgotten the memories of your past lives, you will be able to be reincarnated immediately. "
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