By I-Huan, translated and adapted by Lobelia Cheng & Sue Yang (DrMaster)
ISBN: 978-1-59796-173-8
Pity the Celestial Fox Demons: only females now exist and if they wish to advance their status let alone survive as a race they must propagate their kind…
To this end their leader has stolen the girl Cai-Sheng, who with the proper training and refinement will, when full grown, be able to transform into a male and thus father another, superior generation. But all this takes so long. On the haunted mountain they inhabit the fox-demon clan grows impatient. Some renounce their powers and marry mortal men, and bold Yu-Niang has even begun to take little boys as “offerings”…
But as the mystical politicking happens around her all little Cai-Sheng knows is that she is bored and very lonely. Sneaking away from her lessons one day she plays at a secluded well where she meets two village children. Together the girl Xiao-Que and boy Duo Xi romp innocently with her until a dog attacks the magical child (dogs are the mortal enemies of foxes). Brave Duo Xi fights the hound and little Xiao-Que also suffers a cruel bite protecting Cai-Sheng. Just in time her guardian Hui-Niang appears and kills the beast with a well-aimed arrow…
To thank the humans for spilling their blood in the chosen child’s defence, Hui-Niang marks the boy’s torn forehead and the girl’s bitten hand with mystic marks. No matter how long, nor how many incarnations pass, their sacrifice will be rewarded. Promising to meet again on the morrow, the children part, but time and duty is different for celestial being and the humans never see their new friend again.
Two hundred years pass. Cai-Sheng has grown into a beautiful young woman. Hui-Niang has forsworn her immortality and married a mortal. When Cai-Sheng visits to see her new baby she reveals that her training is over. At will she can transform into a beautiful man with incredible magic powers, but has grave doubts about her role and purpose. So far only Hui-Niang knows the secret and Cai-Sheng wants it kept that way.
She wants to see how mortals live and travels to the city to learn all about them. Whilst there, she meets a student priest and apprentice exorcist who is the reincarnation of Duo Xi, and strikes up a tempestuous friendship with him. Together (well, more her than him) they defeat a cat-demon tormenting young Su Ping, the beautiful daughter of Scholar Su, who is Xiao-Que reborn. Delighted to have found her lost friends the fox-redeemer decides to act as matchmaker for the pair but the impressionable Ping has seen Cai-Sheng’s male form and become enamoured…
To further complicate the matter Wei Zi-qui, an envoy from the goddess of dawn, childbirth and destiny has sought out Cai-Sheng, intending to purify her and return her to Heaven where she truly belongs, whilst in the wings corrupt Yu-Niang patiently waits, having grown strong on two centuries of bloody “offerings”…
This remarkable shÅjo tale (story for girls) of legendary China from Taiwanese creator I-Huan seamlessly blends mythology with soap-opera, using comedy and action to tell a charming tale of duty versus free-will, and familial expectation battling personal desire. The lovely, lyrical art perfectly captures the sense of a lost age and the enduring immediacy of three people falling in love. A lovely book for the fanciful and romantic, this is a series that looks to have great staying power.
This book is produced in the traditional Japanese format and should read from back to front and right to left.
© 2003 I-Huan/Tong Li Publishing Co. Ltd. English translation © 2009 DrMaster Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.