Time passed astonishingly quickly. Nearly half a year had already gone by since So Ok was brought to the Dragon Palace.

During that time, she lived in Guang’s bedchamber and was treated with the utmost care. That was only natural, for she was now believed to be the only person capable of helping Guang safely complete his final shedding.

Yet the stone of guilt weighing on So Ok’s heart had not grown any lighter or smaller.

Of course it had not. She saw Guang, the very person at the heart of it all, every day. She spoke with him and shared her body with him. How could it have?

The more time passed, the more anxious So Ok became. Perhaps because she lived beneath the crushing weight of that unease, her chest felt unbearably tight. Hoping that moving around might ease it even slightly, she began wandering without any destination in mind.

The ladies attending her offered to guide her, but So Ok refused. After that, no one followed or watched her, allowing her to roam freely.

No matter where So Ok went or what she did within the Dragon Palace, no one interfered.

Yet that consideration and privilege only made her more uncomfortable.

As she wandered aimlessly, So Ok came upon a sight she could never have imagined.

Not far from Guang’s bedchamber, in the most secluded corner of the Dragon Palace, stood a strange forest.

“This place…”

It was a scene deeply familiar to So Ok.

At the far end of the Dragon Palace gardens, on the very bottom of the sea, stood a forest of white cassia trees that looked as though they had been carved from jade.

“It’s exactly like the one in the Moon Palace.”

It was a truly bizarre sight.

No matter how carefully she examined the trees or touched them with her hands, there was no mistaking them. These were cassia trees that grew only in the Moon Palace.

It was as though they had been uprooted and replanted here exactly as they were.

They might resemble cassia trees from the mortal world in shape, but no earthly tree possessed this color or texture.

“Why are there cassia trees from the Moon Palace in the Dragon Palace?”

Come to think of it, she remembered that the hairpin Guang had given her was made of the same material as these trees.

She pulled it from her hair and examined it. There could be no doubt.

The hairpin must have been fashioned from a branch grown in this forest.

Bewildered and fascinated by the unbelievable discovery, So Ok wandered deeper into the woods. Strangely, the forest looked like a smaller replica of the cassia grove in the Moon Palace.

Hardly daring to believe it, she made her way to the exact center. There, just like in the Moon Palace, she found a circular clearing.

Only short grass and a few wildflowers swayed within it.

A similar clearing existed in the Moon Palace.

The Moon Spirit Herb had grown there.

It was gone now, of course. Several hundred years would have to pass before another Moon Spirit Herb sprouted and matured.

“What in the world is going on?”

A forest she knew intimately, standing in the most unfamiliar place imaginable.

Amid her confusion, So Ok grew dizzy.

Fragments of memory that had faded into a haze like a daydream suddenly revived and began forcing their way into her mind.

?

It was when she had been much younger.

She had already learned to assume human form, but her transformation art remained imperfect, leaving her unable to conceal her ears and tail.

That would have been… roughly five hundred years ago.

The memory had long since faded.

Although So Ok had lived for nearly a thousand years, everything before the past five hundred years was extremely indistinct.

Until now, she had never found that strange.

Lady Chang’e had told her only that it was because of an accident. But what kind of accident could have caused her to lose all her spiritual power and every one of her memories?

The answer lay within the memory that had returned.

About five hundred years ago, So Ok was passing through the white cassia forest surrounding the Moon Palace when her long white ears twitched and caught a peculiar sound.

Hiss. Hiss.

A tiny, pitiful sound.

Someone without So Ok’s long, keen ears would probably never have noticed it.

Her ruby eyes found a small white snake hanging limply from the branch of a white cassia tree.

“Was that you?”

The little snake lay on a branch slightly too high for So Ok to reach.

She pulled the cassia hairpin from her hair and raised it, using it to bridge the remaining distance. The snake slowly coiled around the branch, then slithered down the hairpin and onto So Ok’s hand.

The little snake gave a few faint hisses before feebly rubbing its tiny head against So Ok’s finger.

Its bright yellow eyes, enormous in proportion to its body, looked unbearably forlorn.

So Ok hurriedly carried the snake to the Moon Palace and showed it to Lady Chang’e.

Lady Chang’e smiled serenely, her eyes curving into crescents.

“I was wondering where it had wandered off to when I could not find it. So you were the one who discovered it.”

Lady Chang’e herself had taken in the little snake and brought it to the Moon Palace.

“It is a child of noble blood. It was merely born frail because it carries human blood.”

“If it is of noble blood, why is it here?”

“As you can see, its entire body is white. Its bloodline is not ordinarily born with such coloring. They considered it an ill omen and all but abandoned it, so I brought it here.”

So Ok was furious.

“What?! They abandoned their own child merely because they considered it ominous? And why should being white from head to tail make it an ill omen? My entire body is white too! Does that make So Ok an ominous moon rabbit?”

“Of course not. That is precisely what I mean.”

So Ok asked Lady Chang’e for permission to care for the small, fragile white snake herself.

“From today onward, your name will be Little White. I’m your big sister, and I’ll make you healthy again.”

The white snake blinked its yellow eyes and flicked its tiny tongue.

It seemed almost as though it were thanking her.

Hiss. Hiss.

So Ok beamed and planted kiss after kiss on the little snake’s forehead.

She kept Little White in her own quarters and tended to him devotedly, determined to make him healthy somehow.

She had even caught fireflies with trembling hands and fed them to him.

But no matter how desperately So Ok tried, the little snake was slowly dying.

She could not simply stand by and watch a tiny creature, abandoned as an ill omen merely because he was white, wither away.

Perhaps she pitied him all the more because her own body was completely white. Or perhaps she had simply grown attached to the little life she had fed and cared for with her own hands.

Whatever the reason, Little White had already become infinitely precious to So Ok.

At last, when the snake went completely limp and ceased moving, So Ok gathered him into her arms and ran to Lady Chang’e.

“Lady Chang’e! Lady Chang’e! Please save our Little White! Please! I beg you!”

Looking at the little snake, whose scales had grown coarse and whose eyelids had turned pale and swollen, Chang’e spoke sadly.

“His first shedding has begun. But… I do not believe he has the strength to endure it. He will likely die inside his old skin, unable to shed it.”

So Ok burst into tears.

Chang’e comforted her in a low voice.

“Shedding is difficult for snakes, even when they are spirit beasts. Among the Dragon King’s bloodline, some occasionally die after failing to shed. This child carries human blood and is so weak that he has not even learned to speak yet. It will be harder still for him. You did everything you could. Nothing more can be done.”

But even Chang’e’s gentle consolation could not make So Ok understand or accept it.

Beadlike tears falling from her eyes, she continued pleading with Chang’e.

“Please save Little White. Whether it takes a thousand years or ten thousand, I will repay that grace in his place.”

At So Ok’s desperate entreaty, Chang’e hesitated briefly before finally revealing the only possible way.

“Do you know of the Moon Spirit Herb at the center of the cassia forest, the one that has not bloomed for five hundred years?”

“Yes.”

“If you can offer the spiritual power you have accumulated over five hundred years and make the Moon Spirit Herb flower, I will feed it to this child. Then he may survive.”

“All my spiritual power?”

“Yes. If you give enough spiritual power to make the Moon Spirit Herb bloom, you will lose everything you have accumulated. You may lose your reason as well and return to what you were before coming to the Moon Palace—a lowly creature crawling upon the earth.”

Giving up the spiritual power she had accumulated carried a terrible cost.

She might lose her human form and every ability to think and speak.

She would return to being the ordinary rabbit she had been before Chang’e first led her to the moon—a creature that dug in the earth, grazed on grass, and fled from predators.

“Will you still do it?”

So Ok agonized over the choice for an entire night.

Meanwhile, Little White’s condition grew steadily worse in her arms.

In the end, So Ok made her decision.

“I will! I shall make the Moon Spirit Herb bloom!”

So Ok kept her word.

She continued pouring her spiritual power into the herb until not a trace remained within her. At last, she watched the tightly closed white bud unfurl into bloom.

Then she lost consciousness.

That was So Ok’s final memory from five hundred years ago.

?

How could this be?

What was that memory?

Had So Ok truly sacrificed everything she had accumulated for the sake of that little snake?

It seemed impossible, yet if the memory was real, everything fit together.

Even so, So Ok could not be certain.

No matter how long she pondered it, she could find no answer.

After sitting dazed in the middle of the forest clearing, So Ok eventually returned to Guang’s bedchamber.

As soon as she arrived, she stopped one of the ladies and asked,

“There is a cassia forest north of this bedchamber. Who created it?”

The ladies merely tilted their heads in confusion.

[A cassia forest? Is there such a place in the Dragon Palace?]

“It looked like the cassia trees that grow in the Moon Palace.”

[We know nothing about it either. Surely trees from the Moon Palace could not grow in the depths of the sea…]

[And His Highness has strictly forbidden anyone from entering the grounds north of his bedchamber, so none of us dares go there.]

So Ok swallowed nervously.

That night, when Guang returned to the bedchamber, So Ok could not bring herself to ask the question hanging at the back of her throat.

Why are cassia trees from the Moon Palace growing here?

Apparently in a good mood, Guang was rubbing his cheek against So Ok’s shoulder.

The yellow eyes half concealed beneath his narrowed lids drew her gaze more powerfully than ever.

Yes.

Little White had possessed eyes exactly like those in her memory.

Volume 1 Chapter 9

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