The Green Snake's Calamity: The Embers of Penglai

Introduction to Green Snake’s Tribulation: The Ashes of Penglai

During the reign of King Zhao of Zhou, crimson clouds stain the summit of Mount Penglai as the green snake Liu Ruyan prepares to brave the lightning and fire tribulation, transform into a dragon, and ascend to immortality. Once the guardian green snake of Kunlun’s Nine Nether Pool, she took human form after five hundred years and traveled the mortal world. At a wine shop in Haojing, she met Su Li, the eldest disciple of Guiguzi. He wore a moon-white brocade robe, his brows sharp as swords, his fingertips like jade as he held his wine cup. When he said, “We meet and part at the mercy of fate,” she wound her serpent tail around his ankle. When he said, “If there’s another life, I’ll have osmanthus wine waiting for you,” she secretly pressed a snake scale into his chest, believing it would bring them a lifetime together.

But fate was determined to tear that longing apart. Su Li was expelled from Guiguzi’s school for consorting with demons, then cursed by the Queen Mother of the West: if the green snake fell in love, a thunder tribulation would strike the mortal world and Penglai would be destroyed. On the day Liu Ruyan glimpsed the heavenly secrets in Mirror Lake, Su Li was kneeling at the foot of the mountain, a bundle of dried wild chrysanthemums in his arms, her favorite flowers from years ago. His temples had turned gray, and people called him a “demon,” yet he still held the flowers close. “If Ayan is willing, I’d be happy to be a stray dog in the mountains, as long as I can keep half a piece of osmanthus cake for you.”

Liu Ruyan gave up her immortal bones, shed her scales, and rushed down from Penglai with five hundred years of cultivation. When she found Su Li in a ruined temple, he was still clutching half a piece of candied osmanthus cake, a token of the love that had kept him searching for her for three years. As the lightning and fire approached, she wrapped her serpent tail around his waist and took the full force of the heavenly thunder for him. He laughed and called her “foolish,” saying, “All I want is to be with you, even if it’s only for a day, for an hour.” She wept and called him “fool,” unaware that her scales were falling away one by one, exposing her mangled flesh. That was the price of the Queen Mother of the West’s curse, the cost of shattering her immortal bones for him.

In the end, the lightning and fire consumed the ruined temple, and Su Li’s body was buried beneath the scorched