May-Ling Shen arrived in the Forbidden City as the newest concubine of petty official Yat Yang Ku of the Emperor Xianzong of Tang's court. He had a deep and very obvious fondness for his newest and youngest concubine. A few months after the May-Ling's arrival, Yat's senior wife had her poisoned.

After fleeing the Forbidden City, May-Ling was found by the Immortal Yau Chuan Chou but, after learning about what she was and The Game, she realized that he had neither the skills to protect her nor the ability to teach her the skills needed to survive. She sought out the greatest master of the martial arts in China, a mortal, and worked on him with dogged determination until he finally agreed to teach a woman. For the next thousand years, May-Ling had to constantly prove herself a warrior who happened to be a woman, not a "lady warrior" or a warrior who had subjugated her womanhood.