“I taught her how to cultivate, how to take human form, and how to live among people. She learned quickly and worked hard. Before long, she could take human form, speak like a human, and live like one.”
“What happened after that?”
“After that…” You Xi smiled bitterly. “After that, she fell in love with a scholar. He went to the capital to sit the imperial exams, promising to return and marry her once he passed. She believed him and waited a year, then two, then three… By the tenth year, the scholar finally returned, with a new wife and all the honors he had won. When he saw her, he looked as if he’d seen a ghost, turned and ran, shouting, ‘A monster!’”
She paused, her voice growing softer.
“She went to find him, wanting an explanation. But he hired a Daoist priest and set up a formation to capture her. She escaped and fled back to the mountains, only to find that the priest had destroyed her cave abode and scattered her cultivation. With nowhere else to turn, she came to me. But at the time, I…”
She fell silent and said no more.
