Chapter 1

I was born into a hunter’s family. Because I was a girl, my father used me as bait for a tiger.

“A tiger pelt fetches thirty taels. Raise you to marriageable age, and your bride price won’t even bring ten. Your life’s worth nothing. Don’t blame me.”

After saying this without a flicker of feeling, he slit my palm with a knife and pushed me into a pit, using the smell of blood to lure a tiger.

I was only three that year. I did not understand his words. All I remembered was the pain in my hand, and that however much I called for my father, he would not answer.

I cried until nightfall. Darkness filled the forest, and a tiger’s roars drew steadily closer.

When I looked up, a pair of blue eyes, eerie as ghost-fire, was staring straight at me.

I curled in on myself in terror. Those eyes circled me. Then, with a blink, their owner landed and became an immortal in white robes.

A cool fragrance clung to him. With a faint smile, he took my hand and stroked my palm. The cut, deep enough to expose bone, healed at once.

“Little girl, are you lost? It’s so dark here. Shall I take you home?”

I shook my head, sobbing, and said in my childish voice,

“Father wants to feed me to the tiger.”

His expression changed. Before he could speak, a roar rang out. A tiger leaped into the pit and bared its gleaming fangs at me.

Shaking, I clung to the white-robed immortal’s leg and wailed.

He gathered me into his arms and soothed me.

“Don’t be afraid. Look, it’s just a big kitty.”

The tiger, which had eaten countless people, was wonderfully docile in his presence.

He guided my hand toward it. It actually lowered its head, reluctantly submitting to my touch with an aggrieved little growl.

As I stroked its ears, my fear slowly ebbed.

He watched me with a smile, then suddenly tilted his head to listen.

“Your father’s coming. I must go.”

I seized his sleeve and refused to let go.

“I don’t want to go home! Father wants to feed me to the tiger!”

He seemed not to understand until my father’s arrow flew down into the pit.

Not caring in the slightest that I was still inside, Father shouted with excitement,

“Girl, you’ve got some luck! Still alive, are you? This tiger’s a big one. It’ll fetch more than thirty taels. I won’t have to worry about wine money all year! Hahaha!”

I did not know what to do. Great tears rolled down my cheeks, soaking the immortal’s robe.

Understanding dawned on him. He patted my head and sighed.

“To think such a father exists. Don’t be afraid. I’ll take you away.”

He named me Bai Zhi, raised me, and taught me the immortal art of paper-cutting.

He was a snake who had attained immortality. Because of me, he lingered in the mortal world for another thirteen years.

I grew up beside him until I was sixteen, changing from a bewildered child into a slender young woman.

And when I reached the age of first love, I began to feel for him what I should not.

That spring, when the mountain flowers were in bloom, Master said I had grown up and ought to see the world below.

“There are young men down there, in the prime of their lives. If you meet someone you like, come back and tell me. I’ll arrange a match for you.”

I was puzzled.

“What does arranging a match mean? Aren’t you already the person closest to me?”

He smiled and packed my things, answering as cryptically as a monk.

“You’ll understand when you meet him.”

My bundle was stuffed full of all the gold and silver he had saved over the years.

He took me down the mountain in silence. At the end, he merely sighed.

“If—if you really do meet someone, you needn’t come back just to tell me. Sending word would be enough.”

And so I went down the mountain, still thoroughly confused.

The town below bustled with life. I met many young men in their prime.

Within two days, I understood what arranging a match meant.

It was as though flowers had opened across every mountain in my heart. Inside each blossom, hidden among its petals, was Master.

All the young men in the world put together could not compare with him.

If I had to spend a lifetime close to someone, I wanted no one else. Only Master.

Surrounded by the clamor of the mortal world, I missed him more keenly than ever.

I wanted to see him at once, to tell him everything I had seen, and most of all to feel his hand stroke my hair as he said,

“Ah Zhi, I like you too.”

I could not wait to go back and tell him what was in my heart. Even if he laughed at me or tried to send me away, I would cling to him shamelessly.

The young men below the mountain said that even a steadfast maiden could be won over by a persistent suitor.

Besides, I had already managed it once when I was three.

But when I reached the mountain, all I found was a bloodied corpse.

The white snake lay silent among the trees. He had been cruelly skinned, his bones torn out, his belly cut open and every organ ripped from him while he was still alive.

The crushed flowers and broken trees bore the marks of his agonized struggle.

It felt as if I had fallen into hell. I stood rooted to the spot, helpless.

He must have known I would return. Before dying, he had written a final message in blood: Our bond as master and disciple ends here. Do not avenge me.

I read those bloody words over and over. Only when rain began to pour did I realize that he would never hear what I had wanted to tell him.

I stood in the cold rain. My cries came before the thunder.

With utmost care, I gathered his broken remains, then wiped away his message with rainwater.

Stubbornly, I thought: if I had never seen it, it did not count.

I would avenge him. Our bond was not over.

If immortals could not live, then I would become a demon.