The Legend of the White Snake

Beside the misty waters of West Lake in Hangzhou unfolds one of China's four great folk romances. A white snake spirit named Bai Suzhen cultivates centuries of virtue until she takes human form as an elegant lady, joined by her loyal companion Xiaoqing, a green snake. On the Broken Bridge she meets a kind young scholar, Xu Xian, and the two fall in love and marry, opening an apothecary that heals the poor. Their happiness draws the suspicion of the monk Fahai, who insists the marriage between human and spirit defies the order of heaven. During the Dragon Boat Festival he tricks Bai Suzhen into drinking wine that forces her true serpent shape, frightening her husband to death; she braves celestial guardians to steal a magic herb and revive him. Enraged, Fahai imprisons her beneath the Leifeng Pagoda. In tender retellings her son later earns her release, and the tale endures as a hymn to devotion against rigid authority. Lovers still visit the lake, seeking the bridge where the story began.