My name is Lin Xiaoman. I was born around the time of Xiaoman, or Grain Buds, and my father named me in a hurry during the busy farming season. My grandfather’s words, “A life that is just full is better than one that is perfect,” became a prophecy for my whole life.
In the bitter winter of the 1950s, my grandfather borrowed grain and encountered a red fox seeking a title. A single respectful form of address planted the seeds of a century-old karmic bond. But the fox immortal failed to survive its tribulation and took its anger out on the Lin family. Livestock died in droves, and peace vanished from our home. With disaster threatening human lives, an old spirit medium offered guidance. The family set up an altar and made a pact, using a protective lock worn close to the body by the eldest son for three generations to finally calm the turmoil.
This red lock passed down through the generations, and by the time it was hung around my neck, it was the 1990s. I was frail from childhood and moved from place to place, with the red lock as my only talisman. When I was a child, I was in danger in a sunflower field, but a mysterious man came to my rescue. That was when I learned the immortals had been protecting me in secret.
During my three years of high school, I became absorbed in Taoist scriptures and traveled in strange dreams night after night, glimpsing the mysteries of how the world works. On one side were the heavy demands of school and the spirited recklessness of youth; on the other were family secrets and my ties to the immortals.
From the terrifying night my grandfather encountered an immortal to the innocent years of my own first meeting with one, an extraordinary story rooted in the folk traditions of northern China, protected by both Taoist arts and the immortals, slowly unfolds.
