Fragrant Dragon Bones

[Original title: The Dragon-Tailed Immortal Maiden]

I was born with a dragon's tail. The spirit medium said I was the Dragon Princess of the Yellow River, reborn into the world.

But ever since I was born, one strange and eerie event after another had taken place along the banks of the Yellow River:

My mother disappeared, and the villagers would sometimes fish gold nuggets and gold dust out of the river.

The village elders said the Yellow River was thanking them for taking care of me, and had sent them a reward.

When the villagers grew rich, my aunt and uncle, who had raised me, became consumed by greed and stripped nine of my dragon scales to sell at a high price.

After that, the villagers never again found gold dust or nuggets in the Yellow River...

Then, when I turned eighteen, my mother, missing for years, suddenly returned with nine memorial tablets strapped to her back.

She ordered me to feed the tablets with my blood every day.

She said that after losing my dragon scales, I had to choose an immortal spouse from among the nine tablets on the second day of the second lunar month, when I turned twenty-two, or I would die.

And whichever immortal I chose would be the one to break the seal and regain their freedom.

But I never expected that four years later, the Yellow River would claim its Jade Maidens.

Every unmarried girl in the village was doomed to die.

The Flood Dragon Immortal I had painstakingly fed for years cruelly betrayed me and married my cousin instead.

I thought my life was over, but on the night of the second day of the second lunar month, a jade coffin covered in red and etched with dragon patterns washed up on the riverbank...

To save my life, my mother pushed me into the jade coffin and sealed the lid shut.

As I beat on the lid, trembling with fear, a warm embrace suddenly came from behind...

A man's burning breath brushed my ear seductively, and his magnetic voice whispered into it: “Feng Ying, I've found you...”