Jade Whisker, Celestial Palace

In the music houses of Yangzhou, a dancer’s rouge stained her silk skirts red. In a Luoyang Taoist temple, green lamps shone over yellow paper covered in talismans. Who could have imagined that this Taoist woman, holding a horsetail whisk, would one day become a blade that shook the Tang Empire? She was born into a military family and loved riding and archery, but fate forced her to become a music-house dancer. She married a salt merchant for the sake of her father’s purple official robes. From the clouds, she fell into the mortal world, her pure Taoist heart confined within a sprawling mansion. Again and again, she was framed. She fought back when driven to desperation, but in the end became a forsaken woman with nothing left. Longing for freedom, she became a plaything of the powerful. She wanted to leave the world behind, but then the An Lushan Rebellion erupted, and the shattered realm awakened her fiery courage. She cast off her Taoist robes and led her father’s and brothers’ former troops onto the battlefield. She used a Taoist temple as a secret base to relay military intelligence and her identity as a dancer to assassinate rebel generals. The once graceful Rainbow Skirt and Feathered Robe Dance became a deadly fighting style, while the talisman papers of Kaiyuan Temple recorded the rebels’ death dates. On the walls of Luoyang, her white robes stained with blood, she swung her horsetail whisk. Her final strike crashed down like thunder.