Chapter 67 Ah Xi

Chen Pi Ah Si didn’t answer. Jiwei followed him the whole way under the bridge at a sprint, which had Chen Pi Ah Si starting to think that she might be pretending to be blind. But he didn’t care; he was more curious about the bridge.

After running for the amount of time it would take to smoke a cigarette, Chen Pi Ah Si finally stopped. According to his estimation, the bridge definitely shouldn’t be too long and would soon come to an end.

But after running very fast during this short period of time, he found that there was no end in sight.

It was absolutely impossible for this kind of bridge to stick out from the cliff to this extent, and now they were all hanging below the bridge, adding nearly several tons of torque to it.

He didn’t dare run any further, so he simply turned around and retreated. Jiwei, fooled by his character into doing all that running around, immediately followed behind him.

At this time, Chen Pi Ah Si had a strong premonition in his heart.

He felt that it might be too late to go back now.

This was because Ah Xi was a very cautious person. If he had also made it onto this bridge and encountered something strange, then he would definitely turn back right away.

But he didn’t go back, which meant that he might not have been able to by that point.

Sure enough, Chen Pi Ah Si ran back for another cigarette’s time and found that the cliff didn’t appear in front of him even though he should have returned to it by now.

There was still nothing ahead.

As everyone looked at each other in dismay, Chen Pi Ah Si speculated that this might be a ghost-hitting-a-wall(1) type of situation. He flipped himself over until he was right side up again in order to relieve the pressure on his brain, feeling depressed in his heart.

The problem with this being a ghost-hitting-a-wall type of situation was that it was a challenge to everyone’s physical strength. He looked up and thought that if he really couldn’t overcome it, then his only course of action was to climb to the bridge deck. But if he did that, there might be a bigger problem waiting for him up there.

He knew all too well that there must be a big problem on the bridge deck, although he didn’t know what it might be.

Naturally, it was pitch black under the bridge, and there was no wind in this void. Everyone lowered the intensity of their lights in order to conserve them, and even Chen Pi Ah Si minimized the light of his fire stick. The sources of light remaining among them were now very dim.

His mind quickly began working, trying to think of a way out of this situation. His ability to act was much higher than his ability to think, so most of the time he’d win just by making a single move. This time, however, he had to think carefully.

What would be on the bridge?

Once he got on the bridge, would he be able to make it back to the cliff?

This bridge didn’t have an end whether they moved forward or backward, so what kind of bridge was it? The Naihe Bridge?(2)

As he was thinking this, he decided to go to the edge of the bridge and take a peek at the bridge deck to see if he could see any shadows that would help him deduce what was up there.

But just as he turned around and increased the flame of his fire stick again, he immediately saw a person hanging down from the top of the bridge in front of him.

The person was hanging upside down, with their head leaning over the side of the bridge. They were almost face to face with Chen Pi Ah Si, the distance separating them only about as wide as one punch. Chen Pi Ah Si was so startled that he almost lost his grip and fell into the abyss, but fortunately, he was very experienced and had amazing reflexes. He immediately moved three steps back and pushed the fire stick forward.

Only then did he discover that this person was Ah Xi.

Ah Xi’s eyes were wide open, and it looked like he was hanging upside down from the bridge deck.

When Chen Pi Ah Si moved, Ah Xi’s eyes followed him, but his expression appeared very strange because gravity was pulling his skin and facial muscles downward.

(People who have saggy facial skin can try hanging upside down to see how their expressions would look like.)

Chen Pi Ah Si immediately felt creeped out and swung to the other side of the bridge, poking his head out to see what was going on with Ah Xi.

Ah Xi turned his head, his eyes continuing to follow him. When Chen Pi Ah Si reached the other side of the bridge, he could finally see the rest of Ah Xi’s body.

Ah Xi’s waist had become very long to the point that he no longer looked human, and his upper body was hanging down directly from the top of the bridge. His whole body now looked like that of a snake.

<Chapter 66><Table of Contents><Chapter 68>

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TN Notes:

(1) Reminder: “Ghost hitting a wall” is a Chinese folk phrase that describes a situation where you get lost and end up going in circles. The idea is that when traveling in remote areas, a person is obstructed by walls that ghosts have placed in front of them, thus forcing that person to wander in endless circles.

(2) Per Seph: the Naihe Bridge is the “Bridge of Forgetfulness”, a bridge of the underworld where every soul has to cross before being reincarnated. Meng Po, the goddess of forgetfulness, serves Meng Po Soup on this bridge. The soup wipes the memory of the person so they can reincarnate into the next life without the burdens of the previous life. If you watched “Word of Honor”, they mentioned Meng Po Soup quite a bit.

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Mwahaha got ahead in my charging at work so I worked on this on the side. Keep it on the dl. It’ll be our lil secret. ☆⌒(≧▽​° )

7 thoughts on “Chapter 67 Ah Xi

  1. I feel such a “worker solidarity” sense of glee that you were able to do DMBJ stuff secretly at work 😂 Thanks for the chapter!

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