Strange Tales of Changbai Mountain: The Spirit of the Ancient Pool Mirror

The winds of Changbai Mountain hold words left unspoken for a thousand years.

Yun Zhou, a scholar from Jiangnan, braves the snow and enters the mountains to fulfill his father's dying wish: to compile a “living chronicle of the mountains.” He meets a gruff, straightforward hunter and hears his strange tale of “a deer leading travelers astray.” He meets a highly respected old woman and listens as she sings the creation myth of the seven daughters of the Sun God, who fell into a mirror and became a pool. And by the Ancient Mirror Pool, he encounters a silvery-white, gauzy apparition. She is a spirit formed from the pool's waters, and has guarded Changbai Mountain for a thousand years. She has seen the greed of countless people, yet is moved by the scholar's sincerity.

The patterns on the huge rocks are traces of a thousand-year-old volcano, while the mountain people's oral histories hold the wisdom of survival. Gradually, Yun Zhou understands: the “spirit” of Changbai Mountain has never been some ethereal miracle. It is the warmth of people and mountains depending on one another to survive. But love between an immortal and a mortal breaks Heaven's laws. The True Lord Who Guards the Mountain arrives with his heavenly soldiers, forcing the Mirror Spirit to remain sealed beneath the pool forever.

“Mountains and rivers have spirits. They must be recorded with a sincere heart.”

After three years of painstaking work, Yun Zhou completes the Chronicle of Changbai Mountain, ensuring the Mirror Spirit's name will live on in its pages forever. And beneath the Ancient Mirror Pool, those two pearls still glow with a faint silver light every full moon. They are the thousand-year-old spirit, waiting for someone sincere enough to write of the mountain.

This is a work that gives the mountains and forests their own story, and holds a mirror up to the human heart. There are no bloodthirsty evil ghosts, only spirits who watch over their corner of the land; no nonsensical scares, only the tenderness and reverence hidden in legend. When the wind rushes through the pines and ripples spread across the pool, you will hear the voice of Changbai Mountain: words left unspoken for a thousand years, and the true feelings hidden within its myths.