Chapter 1

Every bone in my body shattered when I fell into the Well of Gods and Demons.

If I had not drunk so much of Cangxuan’s celestial nectar in heaven, I doubt I would have survived.

He was the one who had decided, without consulting me, to bring me from the mortal realm to heaven and proclaim me the Azure Empress reborn. And after welcoming the empress back, he was the one who threw me down here.

I lay at the bottom of the well for an unknown length of time before my injuries healed.

The Demon Emperor, sealed beneath the well, had hoped to use a banished immortal to free himself. He had not expected a mere mortal. The celestial elixirs and pills might have transformed my body, but I still possessed no cultivation.

So he mocked me. My life was worth no more than a blade of grass, he said. The immortals summoned and dismissed me at whim; my fate was never my own.

I was not angry. I simply asked him honestly, “No matter how you goad me into hating them, I still cannot free you. Does mocking me make you feel better?”

“Nothing delights me more than the misfortunes of the world,” he sneered.

I shook my head gently.

“And what happiness have you found?” Gazing into the dark demon realm, I asked, “Sealed down here, do you have any more control over your own life?”

His furious roar nearly deafened me. The demon realm itself shook three times.

Only when I was barely alive did he lower his voice. As though afraid that if he shouted me to death, he would have no one left to talk to, he said, “You do bear some resemblance to the Azure Empress.”

“I am myself. Whoever I might resemble, I am only myself.”

There was no daylight here. Celestial medicines had made me ageless and freed me from the need for food or drink. Like the Demon Emperor, I might spend countless tens of thousands of years imprisoned here.

And so, as we talked, I told him about my past.

I had been Wei Ge, a princess of Xi. During Cangxuan’s mortal trial, he was Xi’s great general, and the emperor decreed that I should marry him. Later, fighting invaders, Cangxuan died on the battlefield.

His trial complete and his merit fulfilled, he returned to his divine life. Before leaving the mortal realm, he recovered his memories and decided that I closely resembled the Azure Empress of old.

Then he brought me to heaven without allowing a word of protest.

At first, I had thought there was little difference between remaining a widow in the mortal realm and living in heaven.

Xi’s strict rites would have condemned me, after his death, to spend half my life before a Buddha, tending a dim lamp. He spoke with such certainty, and I was already accustomed to our decreed marriage. Staying in heaven seemed harmless enough.

Now he claimed I was not the Azure Empress. The moment she returned, he cast the impostor down here.

The Demon Emperor gave an odd laugh. “Did it never occur to him to ask the Old Man of the Moon or the Arbiter of Fate to make sure?”

“I think he simply did not want to,” I said evenly. “I heard the stories about the Azure Empress. To awaken the world’s living creatures and cleanse the demonic miasma left by the war between gods and demons, she sacrificed herself for the Dao. Her soul scattered. She could never have entered the Well of Reincarnation.”

“Then did you truly believe you were her reincarnation?” he asked.

“I did not know, and I had no way to find out.” I put a question to him in return. “If the sovereign said I was, could I be anything else—even if I was not?”

He answered with a derisive laugh.

“I used to think half a lifetime spent alone before a Buddha was the cruelest punishment imaginable,” I said, leaning against the stone tablet that sealed him.

“Exactly! The mortal world is misery, and the gods are hypocrites. Better to destroy the lot!” He cackled.

His mad reasoning did not convince me, and I was willing to argue. “Even after what has become of me, there is still some beauty in the world worth remembering.”

“Then suppose I offered to kill you now and put you out of your misery. Would you accept?”

I knew a demon would never act out of kindness. “Either you cannot do it, or my soul would remain trapped here after you killed me,” I said without emotion. “You would never be kind enough to set me free.”

He burst out laughing. “A perceptive mortal, aren’t you? I really cannot kill you.”

I hugged my knees and ignored him.

Then I closed my eyes.