This took place thousands of years ago.

　　The night sky stretched wide and crowded with stars — chaotic at first glance yet ordered underneath. The eastern constellations formed a great dragon; to the west, a fierce tiger; to the south, a majestic bird; to the north, a tortoise-snake. As the seasons turned, the stars shifted: at the turn of winter to spring the Azure Dragon rose; spring to summer the Vermilion Bird appeared; summer to autumn the White Tiger showed itself; autumn to winter the Black Tortoise ascended. Together they were called the Four Divine Beasts.

　　The world was divided into four regions, each naming itself for its guardian beast: the Eastern realm was Canglong, the Western realm Baihu, the Southern realm Zhuque, and the Northern realm Xuanwu.

　　In a remote little town of the Zhuque Kingdom, a plague suddenly swept through. Death piled up day after day. The townsfolk dug a mass grave outside the city and began hauling victims there by the cartload.

　　One evening Su Xiaolian, like every day, and a colleague pulled a cart of corpses to the burial pit. One body after another was thrown into the hole. Su Xiaolian looked at the pit with sorrow, then dropped to his knees and bowed three times. If this went on, he thought, soon he’d be joining them.

　　“Come on, come on, let’s go — it’s almost dark,” his colleague urged, tugging him away.

　　By daylight the horror hadn’t felt so real, but at night the dark closed in, a chill breeze whispered through, and the mottled shadows of trees turned into shuffling silhouettes that made the skin crawl.

　　As the two hurried away, suddenly a baby’s cry cut through the air — a sharp, pitiful wail.

　　They froze. “Run… run… hurry,” his colleague stammered, panic making his words trip; then he abandoned Su Xiaolian and fled.

　　Su Xiaolian hesitated, torn between fear and curiosity. The infant’s cries grew clearer. “Could that be a lost baby?” he wondered aloud, half to his colleague, half to himself.

　　“Where would a baby come from in a burial ground? Ghosts — it must be ghosts. If you don’t leave, I am,” the colleague said, and ran.

　　After a few anxious moments Su Xiaolian followed the sound, heart pounding. Under a solitary sodu tree he found the source: indeed a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.

　　He stared at the child in disbelief. How could a newborn appear out of a burial ground? He set aside his questions and cradled the infant, taking it home.

　　At home his kind wife, Su Liu-shi, had spent three years married to him without bearing a child; she often felt ashamed about it and ran the household carefully and neatly. That evening the sky was fully dark and Su Xiaolian had not returned. Su Liu-shi paced at the gate like a restless ant.

　　At last she saw a figure in the distance and let out a sigh of relief — until the figure drew closer and she saw Su Xiaolian holding a child.

　　“My husband, this child is…” she faltered, suspicious.

　　Foundlings from burial grounds were thought to be unlucky. Su Xiaolian feared her reaction and hesitated about telling the truth. His wife lowered her head and tears filled her eyes.

　　Seeing her like this, he panicked and put the baby on the bed, then came to comfort his wife. “Don’t cry. It’s nothing — why are you like this?”

　　“You and I have been married three years and haven’t had a child. If some other woman had borne a child for you, I’d treat him as my own,” Su Liu-shi said through her tears; her sorrow tugged at his heart.

　　“Wife, you’re imagining things,” he stammered, unsure how to explain.

　　“So this child—” she prompted.

　　He told her the whole story: how he’d found the infant in the burial pit under that tree.

　　Su Liu-shi listened, and her tears turned to laughter of relief — she had thought the baby was his child by another woman.

　　With the misunderstanding cleared, the couple studied the infant carefully. He had a delicate, clear face and a thin frame, like a child who had suffered a lack of nourishment. On his chest was a birthmark — a vivid red Manjusha flower, the so-called “flower of death.”

　　They looked at one another. A child taken from a necropolis bearing the death-flower on his chest was frightening. But with danger everywhere, they put aside fear.

　　“Let’s name him,” Su Liu-shi said.

　　“You said you found him under a sodu tree,” Su Xiaolian replied. “Ten years for a tree, a hundred years for a person — let’s call him Su Mu.”

　　“Su Mu — that’s perfect,” said Su Liu-shi, cradling the baby. “Little Su Mu — you’ll grow tall and strong like a great tree.”

　　So Su Mu became their adopted son. They raised him as their own.

　　The plague lasted a year. To stop its spread the court ordered cities sealed: anyone in infected areas was not to leave. People were left to their fate.

　　A year passed. Before deep winter came, a heavy snow began and lasted three months. The land turned a uniform white; nothing else could be seen, and then, quietly, the plague ceased.

　　After a year of sickness and three months of frozen silence, only a few survivors remained across the seven provinces of the Zhuque Kingdom. In Su Xiaolian’s town, only the three of them survived. The couple treated Su Mu as their lucky charm and loved him all the more.

　　They had escaped plague and cold. Su Mu grew up under their care. When he was four, Su Liu-shi unexpectedly became pregnant — a family rejoiced anew.

　　But happiness didn’t last. After ten months of pregnancy, the day of delivery arrived. There was no midwife within ten miles; the labor went wrong. Mother and child — both lost. The five-year-old Su Mu didn’t yet understand life and death. In mourning clothes he knelt before the bier and cried. Three days later Su Xiaolian buried his wife beside their house. Only then did little Su Mu seem to grasp that the mother who had cared for him was gone forever — and the child he had expected never came. Left were only him and Su Xiaolian.

　　Grief consumed Su Xiaolian; his health failed quickly. Within a year he was like a lamp near its end. Knowing his time was short, he called Su Mu close and wrote a letter.

　　“Mu’er,” he said, his voice weak, “Father knows his days are numbered. After I’m gone, take this letter and find Su Xiaoti — a distant cousin of mine in Liangzhou. He is family; I hope he will take you in and raise you.”

　　“Father — don’t go,” Su Mu cried, though he was barely six.

　　“Listen,” Su Xiaolian said. “You are not my biological child. During the plague six years ago I picked you up from the burial pit. I don’t know your true parents; they are likely gone. But you should know the truth.”

　　He struggled to his feet. Su Mu supported him as they walked to Su Liu-shi’s grave. Su Xiaolian sat trembling and leaned against the grave, murmuring, “When I die, don’t bury me — let me stay here with your mother. From now on you must look after your own path.”

　　“Wife, I will come join you and our child soon,” he rambled at the grave. “I don’t mind that we had no children before — I love you more than anything. I remember when we first met…” He talked on until sunset. Then Su Xiaolian passed away peacefully with a smile.

　　Su Mu could not help wailing. Even a child his age understood that from this night on he was alone.