Record of Jinling: Three Thousand Calamities and the Serpent's Shadow

Introduction to Three Thousand Calamities: The Serpent's Shadow Chronicles of Jinling

A demonic trace and a destiny spanning three thousand years, a cross-temporal mystery that begins with poetry and ends in fire.

The story begins three thousand years ago...

By the Zhe River, where misty rain veils Jinling, a thousand-year-old snake demon emerges from the depths of the mountains. Her name is Liu Ruyan, but entangled in an old affair with the human world, she is mistaken by the people for “Osama bin Laden Qiu Yingying” (Note: perhaps a corrupted imprint of fragments from memories of a past life). On this day, guided by the inscrutable workings of fate, she descends to the mortal world and unexpectedly encounters a boy in Jinling who was born with a jade in his mouth. The boy is named Jia Baoyu. Though he lives among mortals, he possesses a touch of spiritual insight, allowing Liu Ruyan to glimpse the secret of his “otherworldly nature.”

As they part, Liu Ruyan condenses a poem from her snake-demon spirit and presents it to him: “Who says Jinling's thirteen beauties speak not of how people and affairs change? Sages are hard to find amid Jiangnan's rain; pity the dragons and tigers blazing on South Mountain.” The poem conceals the secrets of fate: it tells of the capricious destiny of Jinling's women, alludes to the “power of dragons and tigers” lying dormant beneath Jiangnan's earth veins, and points toward a mysterious place hidden on South Mountain. Though Jia Baoyu does not fully understand its meaning, he keeps the poem with him for the rest of his life. It becomes his sole connection to this “demonic bond.”

Three thousand years pass, the seas change and the land shifts, and karma turns in its endless cycle.

Today, three thousand years later, deep in Changbai Mountain, a snake demon known as the Lady of Tai Sui appears once more. She is none other than Liu Ruyan reborn. Memories of her past life remain etched upon her scales, and the embers of unfinished karma churn in her eyes. On this day, she descends upon the human world in the exalted guise of Tai Sui, bringing with her a cataclysmic disaster: within Zhejiang, four ancient temples, Lingyin Temple, Chengshan Temple, Qingzhou Temple, and Tianlei Temple, are suddenly “