My skin crawled. How cold and ruthless he was, how terrifyingly patient. My wife. She was fond of music, he had said, speaking of her in the past. I had thought nothing of it then because of his unwavering calm—when in truth, he had murdered her with his own hands.

“He should have been sentenced according to mortal law,” General Jianyun continued. “Except the victim’s father, the Celestial courtier, beseeched the emperor for vengeance, citing the shame of an immortal killed by a weak mortal. Persuaded by his pleas, the emperor summoned Wugang to the Jade Palace and sentenced him to chop down the everlasting laurel, using the very axe he had taken.”

A lump formed in the pit of my stomach. “The laurel on the moon?”

“It was different then, its leaves as green as jade. There were no seeds, not as there are now. Yet it was no ordinary tree, possessing the power to heal itself. And Wugang soon discovered that this undertaking was a futile, never-ending torment.”

An impossible task. “How did Wugang earn the elixir?”

“He was given an Immortal Peach at first, not to prolong his life but to extend his suffering. The Elixir of Immortality was promised, if he succeeded. A disingenuous offer, for how could a mortal perform such a deed? For over a hundred years, Wugang toiled, without a moment’s respite. ‘Wugang the Woodcutter,’ the court mocked him, as they lauded the emperor’s cunning. Some arranged viewing parties where they would laugh as he strained over his labor. I attended one and wished I had not. There is no pleasure in taunting one brought low, who cannot fight back.”

Little wonder that the Celestials treated Wugang with a mixture of loathing and fear, and their malice must have been worse before he rose to power. “Did the emperor take pity on him and rescind the punishment?”

General Jianyun’s expression was grave. “Perhaps it was inevitable after the years of hacking at the laurel that a bond was formed between the tree and its tormentor. Wugang discovered that his blood could halt the laurel’s healing—at least temporarily. He requested the emperor’s presence to witness the fulfillment of his task, despite knowing failure would earn him a death sentence. The court followed eagerly, many certain it was an empty boast. How frail Wugang looked, worn to a shadow of the strapping mortal who had arrived, his hands ravaged by welts and wounds.”

“Is that why he wears those gloves? To hide the scars?” I asked.