The spring sun was warm over the small town of Qinghe, but eight-year-old Zhu Pengchun lay shivering in his bed, his face pale as chalk. A fever had gripped him for three days, and the village doctor had already shaken his head. “There’s nothing more I can do,” he whispered to Pengchun’s weeping mother. “The boy’s soul is slipping away.”
High above, in the endless blue of the sky, the immortal Taibai Jinxing was returning from a mission. He had just cleansed the mortal realm of a vicious pig demon that had terrorized three provinces—a beast of immense strength and cunning, whose essence still lingered in a jade vial at his waist. As he drifted lazily on a cloud, he idly glanced down with his thousand-mile eyes. He saw a small cluster of mortals gathered around a dying child. His brow furrowed. Fate, he knew, was a river with many currents. He saw the thread of this boy’s life fraying, and he saw something else—a subtle resonance, a vague kinship between the fading human soul and the pig demon essence sealed in his vial.
“Hmm. That’s no coincidence,” Taibai muttered to himself. “This boy’s destiny has brushed against that demon’s. Perhaps it is a chance for redemption.”
He descended, invisible to mortal eyes, and stood beside Pengchun’s bed. The boy’s mother had dozed off in a chair, exhausted. Taibai placed a glowing hand over Pengchun’s chest. He whispered an ancient incantation, and the jade vial opened. A wisp of dark, swirling energy—the pig demon’s essence—flowed out and sank into the boy’s body. Pengchun’s back arched, his eyes flew open, and he let out a strange, guttural grunt. Then he fell back, his breathing steady, his cheeks flushing with color. The fever broke that very night. Everyone called it a miracle. No one knew that half the miracle was a curse and half was a gift.
Two years passed. Pengchun grew sturdy, though he always had a voracious appetite and a peculiar fondness for mud puddles. He was ten now, a cheerful, round-faced boy with a wide smile and quick laughter. One afternoon, he wandered down to the riverbank, skipping stones across the water. That was where he saw her—a girl about his age, maybe a little younger, with hair the color of dark seaweed and eyes that seemed to flicker with a gold light. She sat on a mossy rock, hugging her knees, her fine silk dress torn and dirty. She was crying.
“Hey,” Pengchun called out, approaching with friendly caution. “Are you lost?”
The girl looked up, and her eyes widened. She scrambled backward, slipping off the rock and landing in the shallow water with a splash. “Stay away from me!” she shrieked. Her voice had an odd echo, like it came from a deep cavern. “I can see it—you have a monster inside you! A pig!”
Pengchun froze. He had never seen himself that way, but sometimes, when he was angry or hungry, he felt a strange bristling along his spine. He forced a smile. “I’m not a monster. I’m Zhu Pengchun. I live in town. What’s a dragon girl like you doing so far from the sea?”
Her jaw dropped. “How do you—you can tell what I am?”
He shrugged. “I can smell the salt on you. And your eyes glow when you’re scared.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then slowly relaxed. She climbed out of the water, dripping, and sat back on the rock. “I’m Ao Ling’er,” she said. “I ran away. My father, the Dragon King of the East Sea, wants me to marry some old turtle general. I hate him.”
From that day, they met every afternoon. Pengchun brought her steamed buns; she showed him how to skip stones so they bounced twelve times. They built a small dam in the creek and caught tadpoles. He never once made her feel like a monster, and she never once made him feel like a beast. They were just two lonely children, and in each other they found a friend.
For a whole year, they were inseparable. But the sea always calls its own. One autumn day, as they were lying in the grass watching clouds, the sky darkened. A troop of shrimp soldiers and crab generals emerged from the river, their armor glistening with salt spray. Ling’er sighed. “They found me.”
She hugged Pengchun tightly. “I have to go. But I won’t forget you, pig boy.”
“I won’t forget you either, dragon girl,” he whispered.
Then the soldiers surrounded her, and she was gone, carried away in a bubble of seawater that rose into the sky. Pengchun stood alone on the riverbank, his heart aching. He went home and cried into his pillow for three nights.
He was fourteen when the first disaster struck. The town held a grand feast for the harvest moon, and Pengchun, now a lanky teenager with an endless appetite, was seated at a long table. Someone dared him to drink a cup of wine. He had never tasted alcohol before. The first sip was bitter, but the second was warm, and the third made the world spin in a pleasant haze. His eyes wandered across the table to a beautiful young woman—the magistrate’s daughter, with cherry-red lips and long black hair. She smiled at him, and something inside Pengchun snapped. A wild, primal heat surged through his body. He felt his skin prickle, his nose flatten, his ears stretch and become pointed. A snout pushed out from his face. Coarse black hair burst from his arms.
He tried to speak, but only a loud oink came out.
The woman screamed. The table overturned. Guests grabbed their children and fled. Someone shouted, “Pig demon! Kill it!”
Pengchun ran. He crashed through the back gate, knocking over a cart of melons, and fled into the fields. He didn’t know where he was going—he just ran until his legs gave out. Hours later, when the moon was high, his body slowly shifted back to human form. Sick and terrified, he crept home.
The villagers had already gathered outside his house. They carried torches and pitchforks. His uncle, a fat, greedy man who had always coveted Pengchun’s family land, stood at the front, waving a wooden stake. “That’s not my nephew!” his uncle shouted. “My nephew Zhu Pengchun died years ago! This creature killed him and took his face! Get out, demon, or we’ll burn this house down with you in it!”
Pengchun’s grandparents had died three years ago. His parents had passed from illness just last spring. He had no one left. He looked at the faces he had known his whole life—the baker, the schoolteacher, the girl he had a crush on—and saw only fear and hatred. He turned and walked into the darkness, not looking back.
He wandered for days, eating wild berries and sleeping in ditches. Finally, he came to an abandoned temple on a hillside, its roof half-collapsed, a statue of a stern-faced deity covered in cobwebs. He collapsed in a corner, too tired to cry.
A soft glow filled the temple. Taibai Jinxing stepped out from behind the statue, stroking his white beard. “Well, well, young one. You’ve had a rough time.”
Pengchun looked up, too weary for surprise. “You’re the one who did this to me.”
“I saved your life,” Taibai said gently. “And you are not a monster. You have human parts too—a human heart, a human soul. The demon essence merged with you. You can control it.”
He told Pengchun about the two-hour rule: after the pig transformation, he would revert to human form in two hours. The triggers were alcohol and lust. “Stay away from wine, and keep your mind pure, and you’ll stay human. But if you do slip up, just wait. You’ll change back.”
He also gave Pengchun a simple iron bracelet. “Wear this always. It will suppress the transformation, even if you drink or gaze upon beauty. Only take it off if you want to become the pig demon—which has its uses. You’ll be incredibly strong, and with proper training, you could learn magic. But I don’t recommend it unless you’re in danger.”
Taibai sighed, looking guilty. “I owe you more. Here.” He waved his hand, and a small pouch materialized, clinking with gold. “Twenty taels. Enough for a new start.”
Before Pengchun could thank him, the immortal vanished in a shimmer of light.
Pengchun slept in the temple that night, the bracelet cool against his wrist. The next morning, he made a decision. He would go south, to the great city of Haizhou, where no one knew him. He would start a new life.
He walked the dusty road for three days, through forests and across rocky hills. On the evening of the third day, he heard a weak mewing from a bush. He parted the leaves and found a small calico cat, its leg bleeding from a deep gash. It looked up at him with intelligent, knowing eyes.
“Oh, poor thing,” Pengchun murmured. He tore a strip from his shirt, cleaned the wound with water from his gourd, and bound it carefully. The cat purred weakly. “There you go. Stay out of trouble.” He left some of his dried fish beside it and continued on his way.
As he walked away, the cat watched him, its eyes narrowing. A soft light flickered around its body. The cat was no ordinary cat. Her name was Miaomiao, and she was a cat demon who had been wounded in a skirmish with a rival clan. Forced to assume her animal form to hide, she had been starving until this kind boy found her.
She tried to shift back to human form, but the wound was too deep. “Wait for me,” she whispered in a voice like wind chimes. “I will find you again, little benefactor. You will not be forgotten.”
And she limped into the shadows, determined to one day repay the kindness of the boy who had saved her without expecting anything in return.