Walk softly lest you wake the dragon.

My father was a Chinese court scribe and my mother an elegant court poet. The Black Dragon Emperor and Empress and their entourage of nine dragon courtiers came to visit one day and took great delight in me. I was a gifted child. I could sing and dance and perform amazing acrobatic feats, which entertained the dragons to no end. I became fascinated with the Emperor's pearl, so he let me play with it a while. Like most toddlers, I was in the habit of putting things in my mouth. When my parents saw what I had done, they became agitated. My mother patted me on the back until I choked, while my father tried pry it out of my mouth, almost dislodging my tongue. In all the excitement, I swallowed the pearl. The Dragon Emperor became furious with my parents. Raising to his full height, he decreed that the punishment for their foolishness was that I would live with him and his wife in their crystal palace and be raised as their daughter.

Fortunately, the pearl did not dissolve in my system and I was eventually able to return it to my foster father. The effect of ingesting a dragon pearl, however, is that the person is magically able to transform into a dragon. From the time I swallowed the Black Dragon Emperor's pearl, I could shapeshift into a black dragon at will. For a thousand years, I lived happily at the Black Dragon Court at the foot of Longquan Hill, in a beautiful place called Hei Long Tan (Black Dragon Pool), which is now in the grounds of Longquanguan (Dragon Fountain Temple), a Ming dynasty Taoist temple. Overall, I was quite contented in my new home, but I pined for my parents so terribly, my dragons allowed to me to visit them every month.

Meanwhile, the nine dragon courtiers had been secretly devising a plot to overthrow the Emperor and Empress. They held my parents hostage in order to force me to help them. When the dragons took control of Black Dragon Pool, they were very wicked. They wreaked much destruction and did great harm to the locals. I dared not do anything to try to stop them lest they hurt or killed my family. One day, the famous dragon slayer Lu Dongbin, one of the Eight Immortals of Chinese legend, subdued the nine dragons and jailed them in a tower. Only I was spared and my parents freed. I was charged with protecting and benefiting the people as the price of my freedom.

Having lost my taste for court life, I made my home the Dragon Fountain Temple with the Taoist monks and learned great magics. Then I began travelling to different temples, until I found a Shaolin temple, where I studied under a great Wushu master.

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The tenth dragon is still believed to be living in Black Dragon Pool today. The pool is divided half by a bridge. The water is connected, but the two sides are different colors and the fish that live in either side always keep to their part of the pool. Another intriguing feature of this wondrous pool is that for hundreds of years it has never dried up, even during long droughts. Also, the Dragon Fountain Temple is the oldest Taoist temple in southern China.

Meet my hero, Chia Black Dragon, "the most dangerous woman in the history of man."

Hands off! That's Our Empress badge and Ours alone, made for Us by the esteemed Evil Emperor Sankira Qin.

The adorable Lunar Ratty 08 Scribe badge was a gift to the Orient Scribes from Topi of the long last name.

My exquisite avatar was created by Shibori Murasaka and Ji Nu Chi.

My exquisite masthead and background were created by Xu Xian.

You can email me at jialishenchi@gmail.com