Chapter 1: Movie vs. Reality

“Nine-Tailed Wretch! Your reign of terror ends today!”

A voice like splitting thunder from a clear sky tore through the shattered Azure Mist Mountains. The sheer volume rattled stone and silence. Clad in simple grey robes, a man hung motionless in the air. A silver sword gleamed, aimed at the terrifying beauty below.

The demon fox woman threw back her head and laughed, the sound smooth and alluring, edged with something that promised ruin. Nine magnificent tails unfurled behind her, each one a swirling vortex of energy dark enough to eclipse the sun. Scarlet patterns pulsed on her flawless skin. The malice of a thousand years felt heavier than the mountain air.

“Ends?” she sneered, her voice a seductive poison. “You righteous hypocrites have sung that tune for centuries, little Daoist. Yet, I still stand. Your precious sects are nothing but bones and dust!”

Her lips curled. “You dare confront me alone? Your arrogance will write your epitaph! One year from today shall be the anniversary of your death!”

Space shrieked as her claws, sharp enough to tear divine iron, slashed toward the Daoist’s throat. Residual force vaporized a nearby mountain peak into mere gravel.

The Daoist left hand rose, fingers forming a tight seal. “Heavenly Law: Pacifying Mudra.”

A golden diagram, intricate and no bigger than a dinner plate, materialized before his palm. It was an immovable wall. The fox’s cataclysmic strike slammed into it.

There was a deafening, metallic clang. The diagram barely flickered, but the resulting shockwave flattened every remaining tree for a hundred li (50 km).

The demon fox’s eyes widened in shock. She recoiled, her arm numb. “Impossible!”

“Your demonic arts are powerful. But they are hollow,” the Daoist stated, his voice calm, almost gentle. “They are born of resentment and consumption. All you have taken, you have not earned.”

“Silence!” Her beautiful features twisted into a monstrous visage. Nine tails converged, forming a single, colossal sphere of pure destruction. Crimson lightning arced across the darkened sky. “Eat this and preach to me! Annihilation of the Nine Heavens!”

The sphere of apocalyptic energy shot forward, its passage tearing a canyon through the earth below.

Amid the devastation, the Daoist moved his sword. He held it upright before his face, his expression utterly serene. “The strong protect the weak. This is the true Dao. Heavenly Sword Art: Severing Karma.”

He pointed the silver tip at the incoming sphere.

A thin, imperceptible line of pure white light extended from the tip. It met the demonic sphere. The white line pierced the sphere and the terrifying energy dissolved in an instant, fading into harmless motes of light. It continued, unerringly, toward the stunned demon fox.

She froze mid-air, eyes wide with utter disbelief. One by one, her magnificent tails, the source of her immortality and power, began to disintegrate into ash. The eighth fell, then the fifth, then the second, until at last the ninth tail vanished.

Her demonic aura shattered. The crimson patterns on her skin faded as she plummeted from the sky, crashing onto the broken earth. She was no longer a world-shaking sovereign, but a broken woman in tattered silks.

Landing softly a few paces away, the Daoist descended. His grey robes were pristine. He looked down at her, his gaze holding no gloating, only an unshakeable peace.

The demon fox pushed up onto her elbows. Pain, a sensation she hadn’t felt in millennia, wracked her body. She looked up, confusion outweighing her hatred.

“Why?” she coughed, blood staining her lips. “I have consumed ten thousand souls and practiced for three thousand years. Forbidden arts lost to time are mine to command… How are you so strong?”

The Daoist sheathed his sword. He looked at the clear sky beginning to show through the dispersing demonic mist.

“All truly strong people are kind,” he said, his voice quiet, yet carrying the weight of the universe.

He turned and began walking away, leaving the fallen demon fox amidst the ruins of her own ambition. Those simple, impossible words hung in the air, more devastating than any heavenly sword art.

“Wait!”

The word was a ragged gasp, torn from her throat. He paused, his back still to her, remaining as he was.

“You would simply leave?” she demanded, her voice trembling with agony and disbelief. “After such a battle? You declare victory and then you don’t finish it?”

The Daoist half-turned, showing his calm profile. “To destroy one who is already defeated is cruelty. Strength is found in mercy.”

A broken, hysterical laugh escaped her. “Cruelty? You righteous fools and your precious principles! That is why you will always be weak! I have seen it a thousand times! Mercy is a chain that drags you down into the grave!”

With a final, desperate surge of dregs of power, she pushed upright. A shard of crystallized demonic energy, hidden in her palm, flared to life. “I don’t need your mercy! And I refuse to be your lesson!”

She darted towards the nearest shadow, aiming to dissolve into it.

But she never made it.

There was a silver flash, too quick for the eye to track.

The demon fox froze, eyes wide as the crystalline shard in her hand clattered to the ground, now dead rock. A thin red line appeared across her pale neck.

She slowly, disbelievingly, raised a hand to her throat. Her fingers came away wet and crimson.

“You… you said…” she choked out, blood trickling down her neck.

“I said I would not destroy one who is defeated,” the Daoist replied, his voice still gentle, but now holding iron finality.

He hadn’t fully turned around. His sword was already back in its scabbard. “You choose to pick up the fight once more, returning as an active threat. The strong protect. That includes protecting the world from you.”

Only then he faced her fully, his gaze clear and unwavering. “There is a difference between kindness and folly.”

The demon fox sank to her knees, strength utterly gone. The edges of her vision dimmed. Gone was the pain, replaced by a deep cold.

All her millennia of conquest and terror ended with a single precise stroke delivered by a man who seemed indifferent.

“To die… a dog’s death.” Her lips moved. The question formed one last time. “Who… are you… to judge me so…?” she whispered, her lifeblood pooling.

“My name is Li Xuan,” he said, as if it were any other name. “A traveler.”

A traveler. The simplicity of it was the final, crushing blow. She, who had made emperors kneel, was ended by a traveler.

Her body began to glow, breaking apart into motes of light, returning to the heaven and earth she had defiled. As her form dissolved, the last of her demonic illusion fell away, revealing the face of a woman who might have once been beautiful, before hatred and power had twisted her.

“Li Xuan…” she breathed, an arrow at the end of its flight. “Then… know that you have slain… Su Yao… the Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox… Remember my name…”

“I will remember,” Li Xuan said, watching her fade. “And I will pray you find a kinder path in your next life.”

She vanished like a clay ox at the sea. Only a scorch mark on the shattered earth and the faint scent of plum blossoms remained.

Li Xuan looked up at the now-clear sky.

“Kindness is the source of true strength,” he murmured to the empty air. “You simply never understood. The path to heaven is before you, but you chose the path to hell.”

The majestic figure of Daoist Li Xuan grew smaller on the silver screen, walking calmly into the distance. The epic orchestral score swelled, then began to fade.

A sudden crunch broke the spell.

“Meh. The CG was awesome, but that ending was so preachy,” a voice mumbled through a mouthful of popcorn. “‘All truly strong people are kind.’ Yeah, right. So cheesy.”

The lights of the multiplex flickered on, blindingly bright after the darkness.

Xiao Ling blinked, pulling her gaze away from the credits rolling over the final shot of the Azure Mist Mountains. She felt weirdly hollow, as if she’d just lost something she couldn’t name. The image of the demon fox, Su Yao, dissolving into nothingness, was burned onto her eyelids.

“Hello? Earth to Ling Ling!” Her best friend, Mei, waved a hand in front of her face. The other arm was buried in their shared popcorn bucket. “You’ve been zoned out since the big tail-disintegration scene. What’s up? Didn’t you like it?”

Trying to dispel the strange melancholy, Xiao Ling shook her head. “No, it was good. Really good. It was just… intense.”

“Intense? It was a total power fantasy! That Li Xuan guy was so OP,” Mei said, gathering her jacket. She then squinted at Xiao Ling, a mischievous grin spreading. “You know, you totally spaced out when the Nine-Tails was on screen. I get it, though.”

“Get what?” Xiao Ling asked, standing and slinging her backpack over her shoulder.

“You kinda look like her,” Mei said, her grin widening. “Seriously! Think about it. The long black hair, the way your eyes look kinda sly sometimes, especially when you’re trying to copy my homework. If you wore contacts and maybe some epic makeup, you’d be a dead ringer for Su Yao! Well, before she got her head cut off by Mr. Kindness-is-Strength, anyway.”

Xiao Ling froze mid-step. The noise of the exiting crowd seemed to fade to a dull roar.

I look like her?

She glanced at her reflection in the dark screen of her phone. Her ordinary, slightly tired high school student face stared back. She saw none of the world-ending majesty or ancient malice of the Heavenly Fox.

But the name echoed in her mind, feeling strangely heavy.

Su Yao.

“Shut up,” she said, shoving Mei playfully, trying to ignore the inexplicable chill down her spine. “She was a demon fox who ate people’s souls. I can’t even stomach spicy hot pot. The only thing we have in common is we both have terrible luck with men. Hers got her killed; mine just forgets to text back.”

Mei laughed, the comparison already forgotten as she started debating bubble tea options. But Xiao Ling couldn’t shake it. As they filed out of the theater, the demon queen’s final, confused words lingered in her ears. They felt less like a movie line and more like a whisper from a forgotten dream.

“Then… know that you have slain… Su Yao… Remember my name…”

The chilly evening air was a slap in the face. Xiao Ling couldn’t shake the weird, heavy feeling. Mei’s chatter about the movie and bubble tea faded into background noise as they parted ways at the intersection.

“See you tomorrow, Su Yao!” Mei called out with a final giggle, waving her hands.

Xiao Ling forced a smile and a wave. The name ‘Su Yao’ pricked at her again.

It’s just a movie, she told herself firmly, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. She started the familiar, boring walk home. The city was loud and bright, a stark contrast to the epic mountains and swirling demonic energy still fresh in her mind.

This was Duwang, a cramped port island wedged between Macau and Hong Kong. Cargo ships came and went, but no one ever stayed. While the rest of Guangdong raced ahead, Duwang remained marooned in an earlier decade.

The name itself seemed to shift with the tides. It was sometimes 独王, the ‘Lone King,’ and occasionally 都忘, ‘Completely Forgotten.’

Whatever, it’s all Duwang anyway.

English filled the docks and teahouses more easily than Mandarin or Cantonese, a leftover habit from when the island answered to a distant crown. People here joked that being born in Duwang was a cosmic mistake and wondered why fate had misplaced them here instead of all the way to England.

I hate this place.

Here, she was just the ordinary and forgettable Xiao Ling. A high school student with average grades and a stack of bills her aunt constantly worried over. Her life was the furthest thing from a xianxia epic.

Reality is often disappointing.

She waited at a crosswalk. The pedestrian signal remained stubbornly red. That was when she saw it.

A little boy, no older than six was chasing a bright red ball that had bounced into the street. His mother, a few feet away, was distracted by her phone.

Down the street, a massive electric delivery truck glided. From the driver’s seat of the nearly silent Tezca Semi, the child came out of nowhere. The timing was horrific. Xiao Ling realized the truck wasn’t stopping. His mother looked up, her face a mask of dawning, slow-motion horror.

Everything narrowed. There was no time to think.

Xiao Ling moved. She shoved the small boy with all her strength, sending him tumbling back onto the sidewalk, into his mother’s legs.

Then came the impact as a deafening metallic thud, followed by the sickening crunch of her body. She flew through the air and hit the cold asphalt hard.

The pain was immense and immediate, a white-hot fire that consumed everything. Just as quickly, it began to recede, replaced by a terrifying coldness seeping inward. Xiao Ling couldn’t feel her legs. She couldn’t draw a proper breath. The world’s sounds muffled, as if she were sinking underwater.

Her life flashed before her eyes.

It became a rapid and pitiful montage of a life unlived.

The memory showed a cramped, dusty apartment. Her aunt counted yuan, exhaustion and worry etched into her face.

One grainy photograph appeared. Her parents smiled, frozen in time before a car accident took them.

A school hallway followed. She ate lunch alone and pretended to read.

Endless study sessions passed as she tried to earn a scholarship.

Mei’s laughing face appeared. She was her only real friend.

The scene shifted to a movie screen. Su Yao, the Nine-Tailed Fox, shone with dazzling and terrifying beauty. Her presence carried immense power and purpose.

A life of quiet loneliness and unremarkable existence defined her. This was all she was. She had never done anything important until maybe this one stupid, final act.

So this is how it ends, she thought, her vision darkening at the edges. On dirty asphalt because of a red ball. So much for 2026 being my year.

This was the harshness of reality, and also the beauty of fate. In this world, everyone was a main character. But everyone was also a side character.

Her fading gaze landed on the boy, safe and sobbing in his mother’s arms. The mother was looking at her, her face pale with a gratitude that was already mingling with grief.

A strange sense of peace, fragile and cold, settled over Xiao Ling.

‘ All truly strong people are kind.’

The Daoist’s cheesy movie line echoed in her dying mind. In that moment, it no longer felt cheesy.

Her last breath escaped in a faint, blood-flecked whisper. It was a final, ironic thought for an ordinary girl.

“I guess… I was… kind… strong… after all…”

Then, there was only darkness. And the faint, distant scent of plum blossoms.

Her awareness returned with the sterile, antiseptic sting of hospital air and the relentless, rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor.

Xiao Ling’s eyes fluttered open as she adjusted to the dim light above her, taking in the white ceiling tiles and the faint smell of disinfectant. A dull, pervasive ache throbbed through her entire body. She was alive.

A tidal wave of sensory overload crashed in right after the thought. The beeping was shrill and relentless. Light spilled through the door’s window, far too sharp against her eyes. The hospital sheets scraped her skin like sandpaper. Every fiber felt unbearable.

And the memories came.

They erupted as a volcano of another life, rupturing the fragile landscape of her ordinary existence.

She gasped, her back arching slightly off the bed as utterly alien visions and emotions flooded her mind.

A taste flooded her senses first, the sweetness of a thousand-year-old peach wine, potent enough to intoxicate an immortal.

Laughter came next, unending and bright, tangled with music that filled a palace carved from a single mountain of jade, glowing with lanterns of captured starlight.

Silk brushed against skin that had never known a blemish, soft and intimate in a way that felt achingly real.

Behind her, the familiar weight of nine powerful tails swayed lazily, carrying with it the sheer, unadulterated joy of a perfect party and a perfect vintage.

Su Yao.

The name was her truth, buried under seventeen years of mundane mortal reincarnation.

Xiao Ling was a shell, a cocoon that had cracked open.

The world was an inn for all living beings. Time was a guest of ages. The difference between life and death was like being awakened from a dream.

With the memories came a roaring, indignant fury.

That movie! That ridiculous, slanderous, hack-job of a movie!

She hadn’t been some brooding queen of demons plotting an age of darkness! That’s right, she’d been a hostess! The Eternal Banquet of the Jade Mountain was legendary! It was the one place in all the realms where the wine never ran dry!

I am NOT a Demon Queen!

So what if a few stuffy cultivators had wandered in to drunk themselves into a stupor on her divine brews and slept for a few centuries? That wasn’t her fault! They should have known their limits!

And that Daoist! That sanctimonious, silver-sworded liar!

A fresh, sharp memory surfaced, clearer than the others.

It was a quiet moment in her jade pavilion. The traveler, Li Xuan, had been an intriguing guest. Quiet, calm, his power a deep, still lake. He’d offered her a drink from his own gourd, a brew he called “Ming Wu,” Enlightenment. It had smelled of rain on stone, sharp and ancient.

She’d taken it, laughing, always eager to try a new vintage. The last thing she remembered was the bitter and sweet taste.

Then, nothing. Only a blank void until her birth as Xiao Ling.

Li Xuan hadn’t slain her in some glorious battle. He’d poisoned her? At her own party? The utter disrespect!

A nurse entered, her shoes squeaking on the polished floor. “Hey, you. You’re finally awake! This is a miracle. The doctors said… well, never mind. How are you feeling, dear?”

Xiao Ling, now Su Yao once more, turned her head. The movement was regal, instinctual, an ancient grace imposed on a broken mortal body. Her eyes, once ordinary, seemed to hold a flicker of ancient fire in the dim light.

The nurse stopped short. A strange chill went down her spine under the girl’s gaze.

Su Yao’s voice was hoarse from the ventilator tube, but it carried a weight that shouldn't have been there. It was the echo of a voice that had once commanded an entire mountain of revelers.

“I feel,” she rasped, the words laced with the indignity of a thousand years and a thoroughly botched cinematic portrayal, “like I have a splitting headache. And that someone owes me a colossal apology for a truly inaccurate biography.”

The nurse blinked, thoroughly disarmed. “I… I’ll get the doctor,” she stammered, retreating quickly.

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