Chasing the Moon

Bai Shuo's lifelong ambition was to ascend and become an immortal. Her father, the marshal, asked her which nerve had twitched to make her act so foolishly. Bai Shuo replied with righteous clarity: "I was born to save all living beings and illuminate the world." Her father glared: "Speak plainly!" Bai Shuo, wagging her tail and clinging to her father's leg, beamed with a face as round as a dumpling: "Dad, my sweetheart is in the heavens—I'm going to claim him." Many years later, Bai Shuo returned to the mortal realm. Before her father's grave, she poured three cups of wine and kowtowed three times. Her father's spirit, who had waited for her in the mortal world for decades,...