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Deep in the wood—back during the days before its blackening and disfigurement—and east of the first Shennong temple lay the site. Without any markers remaining to denote its exact location, the place could not be found any longer. Not that someone was there searching still. 

As to how the story about the musk deer and the elm spread out of that forest to become a common children’s tale, nobody alive knew. Maybe it was just one of those fables with a moral that mothers loved to cook up: like the naughty boy who cursed his ancestors before being discovered gray and bloated in a river or the adolescent who flouted his father, bit his tongue ferociously mid-argument, and had a physician lop the infected entirety off within the month. Or, considering its ambiguous lesson, maybe not.

It was rumored that the musk deer and elm had been lovers in a past life before being reincarnated into non-human forms. As the legend goes, all the animals in the forest had fled in fear of the ravaging fire; the four-legged ran, the winged flew, and those unable to leave were to be devoured in flames with the trees. 

Only a foolish deer had lingered behind, curled peacefully around the base of the elm as if awaiting sleep amidst the smoke and sparks. Around them, no matter how the world burned, it could not separate them again until the end of that lifetime.

Table of Musk Deer Under Elm (BL)

Table of contents

Volume 1