The Gu Immortal Lady

They say that beneath the Goddess Temple in the Miao lands, three thousand miles away, lies a great blue serpent demon imprisoned for bringing calamity upon the world. But on the night my sister and I were born, nine bolts of heavenly lightning struck the temple. The statue wept tears of blood, and the shrine collapsed in an instant.

As my sister grew up, her appearance became more and more like the goddess statue in the temple. Everyone said she was the reincarnation of the goddess enshrined there. To seek the goddess's protection, our people regarded my sister as the holiest maiden in all the Miao lands. She also swore an oath in the Goddess Temple never to marry, and to devote herself in purity to the Spring of Longevity, bringing relief and protection to her people.

After drinking from the Spring of Longevity, our people grew stronger and more radiant by the day. Years later, my sister became obsessed with making longevity gu. To keep her beauty forever, she secretly slept with the wild immortals in the mountains night after night, but accidentally attracted a wild fox spirit. The fox spirit came to our home to ask for her hand, demanding that my sister bear his children. To protect my sister's life, Mother claimed to everyone that I was the promiscuous one, and planned to send me, though I looked like my sister, to be abused by the fox spirit.

On the night the blue serpent ascended to immortality, I had no choice but to light a ghost-wedding incense stick and go into the mountains to choose a ghost husband from among eighteen corpses. But a demon husband was surely better than a ghost one. At the last moment, I dropped the incense and rushed into the forbidden forest beneath the Goddess Temple. I broke into the great demon's cave and, while he slept, stripped off his robe. At the crucial moment, the stunningly beautiful demon suddenly woke up...

Later, he turned the tables, gently coaxing me: “You little thing, you've got quite the nerve...”