"...I want to make a deal with you. You are now in mortal flesh. How about I take one of your souls after you die?"
...
After the Battle of Jiuli Mountain, Tianhu perished, and the War God Junfeng disappeared without a trace. This news spread throughout the Six Realms, and henceforth, there were no more chaotic beasts, nor was there the War God Junfeng...
However, in a corner unnoticed by anyone, a crimson flower blossomed in a corner of the underworld. The flower emitted a faint glow, seeming to possess some kind of magic, attracting clusters of black mist floating in the air, gradually engulfing them...
One thousand years later...
The eighteen layers of hell in the underworld, a land of extreme cold, seemed like dark whirlpools. Malevolent spirits wailed, cried, and screamed around...
Above the icy pool, a person with snowy hair and frosty temples stood lightly on the surface with a cane.
The old man, stooped over, walked slowly towards the center of the icy pool.
Before he could get close, clusters of black mist shrouded the front tightly. The malicious spirits sneered, wept, and shouted various voices.
"Hahaha, look at this poor soul, trapped in this icy pool for a thousand years, and doesn't even remember who they are!"
"Wuwuwu, can you help me? Help me leave this place. It's so cold and dark here, I'm so scared!"
"Do you want to leave? I can help you! Hahaha, just kill that old witch, and you'll be free forever..."
...
The person with snowy hair and frosty temples snorted coldly, waved the cane in his hand into the air, and the clusters of black mist dispersed into nothingness. In a hoarse voice, he scolded angrily, "If you dare to speak nonsense again, I'll send you to the eternal abyss, endure the forty-nine paths of purgatory, and never return!"
"Hahaha, old witch, don't scare me. Every place in the underworld is a purgatory. Not to mention forty-nine paths, even if it's eighty-one paths, you still can't deal with me!" The malicious spirits sneered.
Meng Po coldly snorted, "Ignorant fool!" With a light tap of her cane on the water's surface, ice blades shot out from the water, and soon cries of pain reached her ears.
Ignoring them, Meng Po walked straight towards the center of the icy pool.
On the surface of the ice, a woman's limbs were tightly bound by iron chains, her red dress fluttering in the wind.
The woman had never opened her eyes since the beginning. There was no trace of blood on her fair face, nor any emotional fluctuations. She seemed to be carved out of the ice on this frozen surface.
Meng Po sighed heavily and asked, "It's been a thousand years. Do you still remember how you ended up here?"
The dark lashes began to loosen, and the ink-black pupils remained motionless like dead water. There was no emotion in those eyes, no soul. The gaze was so indifferent, like that of an ice sculpture without emotions or a soul.
Seeing her like this, Meng Po couldn't help but remember the scene from a thousand years ago...
A thousand years ago, on the day Tianhu perished, the dead Ksitigarbha Mysterious Flower in the underworld revived and began absorbing the impurities of the underworld.
Day after day, year after year, the mysterious flower absorbed enough impurities and eventually took on human form.
She witnessed the incarnation of the mysterious flower, but panicked when she saw her face. She knew... she had returned!
Instead of making it public, she hid it secretly, hoping to make her forget the past and start anew.
However, fate had other plans. Those people and things she wanted her to forget often appeared in her dreams, disrupting her original plans.
She escaped from the underworld, wanting to find the person in her dreams.
She chased after her, and it wasn't until she reached the demon realm that she found her. She forced her to drink the Meng Po Soup, forgetting all the things from her past life, and brought her back to the underworld.
Seeing Meng Po lost in thought, the woman's face revealed a faint smile, so faint that it seemed to blend with the air. She said calmly, "I have forgotten, but you... haven't you always remembered for me?"
Meng Po shook her head helplessly and sighed, "You still blame me after all these years. Well, you'd better stay here quietly. At least, this is the only way to keep you safe."
She didn't understand the meaning behind Meng Po's words, but for a thousand years, she had been enveloped in endless darkness and coldness. The iron chains on her were more like her determination to break through the darkness.
Everything she had forgotten long ago, her heart at this moment was like a piece of pure white snow.