Sangluo Wine

[I’m truly sorry. The setting for this story was too complicated, and when I returned to writing it, I couldn’t work out the logic in many places. My writing skills weren’t enough to support a story with such a vast setting, so I had no choice but to mark it as complete. I have one more chapter saved, and since I’ve already written it, I’ll post it too. Thank you to all the lovely readers who enjoyed this story. I’m sorry to have disappointed you. If you’re interested, you can read Chapter Three, where I mention some of my thoughts about the story when I was writing it.]

“Eight hundred miles of the Yellow Springs, dust and sand stretch everywhere. Only at the very end do flowers of the other shore bloom in lush profusion, with a spring at their heart. Its waters babble, yet smell of wine. This is the Wine Spring.”

The ghosts in the underworld love no place more than Li Sangluo’s Wine Spring. Not only is the wine free, they can also shirk work, as long as they chat with her and share a story.

Every day, Li Sangluo sips wine, cracks sunflower seeds, and listens to stories. Life couldn’t be more comfortable.

Until one day, a young man in white who never touched a drop of alcohol appeared beside her Wine Spring.

Li Sangluo asked him, “Come for a drink?”

“I do not drink.”

“Then you came to tell a story?” Li Sangluo set down her wine cup.

“I have no story to tell, either.”

Li Sangluo sat back down and greeted her regular customers, then tossed him a line: “Turn left up ahead and go have a bowl of soup with Meng Po by the Bridge of Helplessness.”

The young man looked at her face and felt that he had seen it somewhere before, but when he tried to remember, his mind was blank.

The King of Hell told him that his memories had been sealed as punishment for a mistake. If he could guide six ghosts burdened by lingering obsessions to the afterlife, his memories would be returned.

Where could he find ghosts with lingering obsessions to guide?

The Wine Spring.

The drinkers laughed and chatted, speaking of their past lives as though they were nothing. But if they truly had no lingering obsessions, why would they drink?

“Guide six drinkers, and you can enter the cycle of reincarnation again.”

Later, by the banks of the Yellow Springs and the Bridge of Helplessness, red flowers of the other shore bloomed across the land. At last, he remembered that he had once drunk wine.

That Sangluo wine, mixed with the blood from the very core of her heart, went down his throat like a knife carving into his heart.

[Content warnings]

1. Entirely fictional setting with original worldbuilding. Don’t overanalyze the details.

2. The leads’ past life has some angst, but the ending is happy.

3. Told as a series of linked stories. The leads’ past life is gradually revealed as he guides the ghosts, and there are stories about supporting characters. Please don’t read if that bothers you.

Theme: Supporting each other leads to a happy love