“He tasted the porridge with a wooden spoon to make sure it was not too hot for her. In that silent room, neither monk nor king could take that spoonful away.”
The Mortal Morning
Having escaped Jinshan by clawing through detention doors with bloodied palms, Xu Xian finds Bai Suzhen and the injured Xiaoqing in the winter rains of Hangzhou. In a cold fugitive room where Leifeng Pagoda looms as a distant black sliver through window slits, their son Shilin is born—granting them one fragile, luminous morning together.
Delivers the emotional core of the novel: the beauty of ordinary domestic life that makes the coming sacrifice bearable.
- Soft morning winter light reflecting off West Lake snow and worn pine floorboards.
- Xu Xian cooling a blue porcelain bowl of yellow millet porridge while Xiaoqing sleeps against the mud-brick wall.
- The infant Xu Shilin wrapped in Bai Suzhen's crimson pregnancy wool band.
Experience this scene and the complete 48,000-word adult mythic fantasy in Book 02 on Amazon Kindle.
Order Novel on Amazon KindleRelated Visual Exhibits
The Thousand-Year Serpent
High above the bamboo sea of Mount Emei, Bai Suzhen rests in ancient sovereignty before descending to the human world.
The Borrowed Umbrella
The first physical token shared between mortal and spirit—an uncalculated courtesy passed across a rain-lashed counter.
A Mortal Life at Baohe Tang
In the working rhythm of Baohe Tang, Bai Suzhen and Xu Xian build an honest clinic through rent ledgers, dry roots, and late fevers.