Shen Yuan, a palace maid sacrificed in a burial ritual, rises from the dead three days after she dies.
The moment her coffin cracks open, every guardian beast in the imperial mausoleum drops to its knees, all thirteen sacrificial ghosts in the underground palace awaken, and the Jinyiwei’s Demon Suppression Bureau mobilizes.
A white tail grows from her body.
A nine-tailed fox spirit lives in her mind.
The official who drafted the sacrificial burial register has ties to the Eastern Palace.
The nine-tailed fox says, “Help me survive eighteen heavenly tribulations. Each one you pass will grant you a new ability, from communicating with spirits to driving out evil and reading the memories of the dead. But every tail you grow will take you one step farther from being human.”
She says, “I don’t care.”
While she was alive, no one treated her like a person. When she was still human, they poured mercury down her throat and nailed her into a coffin.
So be it.
There are demon tombs buried beneath the Forbidden City. She’ll go seal them.
There are wicked women in the palace practicing forbidden arts. She’ll go kill them.
She’ll sever the hand that wrote her name in the sacrificial burial register.
The Jinyiwei ask, “Are you human or a demon?”
Shen Yuan walks past the kneeling stone beasts, her white tail trailing through the moonlight. She doesn’t even look back.
“Ask the people who wronged me.”
