Bone Wine

Legend has it that bone wine has a spirit. Drink a single pot, cross the cycle of reincarnation, and never forget your past.

The divine beast Bai Ze lived atop Mount Huan all year round. One day, she came across a wounded fire-breathing Bi Fang bird at the foot of the mountain. Bai Ze thought, Why not take it home to warm my hands?

A century later, the Bi Fang bird broke one of Bai Ze’s horns. As Bai Ze’s soul departed, she gathered the bird into her lap. “Be good. I don’t blame you, but in this life, you’re the one who wronged me.”

I wronged you in this life. Will there be another life for us?

The Bi Fang bird stole one of Bai Ze’s ribs and brewed it into a pot of bone wine, then spent a century drinking beneath a pagoda tree. At last, it crossed the cycle of reincarnation, only to meet Bai Ze again.

In their next life, he was called He Xiao, and she was called Ziqin. They had loved each other, but he betrayed her, and Ziqin received a letter of divorce. They parted ways, each free to seek their own happiness.

As she was about to drink the bone wine, Bai Ze held the dying Ziqin in her arms. “Be good. I wronged you in this life, so now we’re even.”

One pot of bone wine, two lonely lifetimes. Can they stay together for three?

How could you bear to wrong me again in another life?

At dusk, I stole your rib to brew wine. A century later, I was drunk, flesh and blood restored.

(A new novel, The Yan Nan Inn, is coming soon! I hope you’ll show it lots of support! Thank you!)