Overview
Meng Po (孟婆, "Old Lady Meng") is the goddess of oblivion in Chinese mythology. She serves in the Tenth Court of the Chinese underworld under King Zhuanlun Wang, brewing and administering the Soup of Forgetfulness (迷魂汤, Mi Hun Tang) to souls before they are reincarnated. Her soup erases all memories of past lives and the afterlife, giving each reborn soul a clean slate.
Origin stories
Multiple traditions explain who Meng Po was. One connects her to Lady Meng Jiang (孟姜女), whose grief at discovering her husband had died building the Great Wall was so intense it caused a section of the wall to collapse. Another tradition says she was a devout Buddhist hermit who studied scriptures so diligently she became "unaware of what was past." The Jade Record (Yuli Baochao) describes her as 81 years old with "hair white" yet a complexion "clear as a child's."
The Five Flavored Soup
The soup (also called the Five Flavored Soup (五味汤) or Waters of Oblivion) contains five flavor components: sweet, bitter, acrid, sour, and salty. The ingredients include water from "a fountain of tears" or a nearby stream, combined with special herbs. The brew induces instant and permanent amnesia.
Meng Po sits on the Terrace of Drunken Oblivion (醉忘台), where demon escorts bring each soul to drink from her ladle. Souls who refuse have the soup forced down their throats via a copper tube operated by demon helpers. However, the Qing writer Shen Qifeng describes cases where lovers have their doses withheld so they can reunite in their next lives. Legends of babies who speak immediately after birth are attributed to incomplete memory erasure.
Connection to the game
The Chinese New Year 2026 video for Black Myth: Zhong Kui centered on an elaborate cooking and feast preparation sequence. The cooking imagery, the supernatural ingredients, and the mysterious stew served to a hooded prisoner all resonate with Meng Po's soup tradition. Feng Ji called the video "a Zhong Kui experiment on the tip of the tongue", wording that directly invokes the connection between food, memory, and the afterlife.
Meng Po could appear as an NPC, a quest-giver, or an obstacle in the game. Her position at the boundary between death and rebirth makes her a natural narrative checkpoint in any journey through the underworld.