The intrinsic ambivalence of the venomous snake conferring the elixir of life has necessitated its split into the fair (white) human double standing in contrast to its dark (black) demonic original. Because the narrative structure revolves around the risky elevation of the serpent power to (sexually) unite with the individualized consciousness, Xiaoqing has been rendered as rebellious handmaiden to the lead female LWS protagonist, Bai Suzhen. This accounts for the former's prolonged but (barely) suppressed hostility towards Xu Xian, even while inevitably deferring to and even furthering her alter ego's consuming desire. From the (not too well) hidden esoteric perspective, however, the male aspirant owes his full enlightenment to the conversion of her demonic vitality into ultimate liberating principle.

Whereas the temple-deity partakes only symbolically in the food offerings, the four immortals are shown dutifully gorging their ravenous "Chief" Xiaoqing in front of serpent-goddess Nüwa's divine image. When a woman devotee unexpectedly arrives to pray for the weal of her family, the impudent demon interposes herself, lantern-in-hand, as if they are being addressed to herself. Stealing the food offerings for her deprived family, the poor woman eats Xiaoqing's hastily 'leftover' (ucchiṣṭa) apple only to end up mortally poisoned upon reaching home. Bai subsequently shows up to demand the same as antidote that the unwitting green snake concedes, but only after being defeated in a vicious show of force. White snake is however obliged to alter the composition of her slippery sister's venom to effect the cure. When Xiaoqing is initially shown ensconced amidst the branches of a tree munching the apple, her servants are ridiculing her for consuming it grilled. This poisoned fruit, upon transmutation, is the elixir of life.

Whereas Bai strives to remain respectful of Fahai, her contemptuous sister is cheekily abusive of his character and motivations, even accusing the puritanical monk of intent to molest. Though his most violent confrontations throughout are with Xiaoqing, he intuits her to be a "demi-god" and attempts to reform the infuriated demon by imprisoning her in his shrine to learn the joy of copying the Buddhist sūtras. She is the orphaned daughter, unbeknownst to her bitter self, of the illicit secret union of the Dragon King of the East, divine guardian of the world's waters, with her serpent-mother, unjustly punished for transgressing the barrier that separates gods from demons. At the climax of this saga, it is loyal if unfilial Xiaoqing who steals her father's water-diversion token for Suzhen to flood the temple-city. That her white 'sister' has no known, let alone exalted, parentage would confirm there is only a single snake.

Long-lived Buddhist aspirant Bai Suzhen entered the entangling human world not to fall in love with a mortal but, at Guanyin's behest, to attain ultimate liberation. Yet, when all is said and done, the other now remorseful protagonists are mildly rebuked, forgiven, and restored their privileges. Despite the palpable justness of her cause, White Snake, on the contrary, is banished into the crypt beneath Leifeng Pagoda, humbly resigned to separation from not only beloved husband but also newborn son. The supreme Goddess of Mercy, who had repeatedly intervened to protect her favorite snake, even against the rulers of heaven indignant at her demonic violations of the divine order, seems inexplicably harsh and partial in her sentence. Instead of at least sharing Bai's guilt and punishment, unrepentant accomplice Xiaoqing, now reconciled with her father, is allowed to roam freely, cultivate her own spiritual powers and return, not as snake-demon but as fire-breathing green-dragon, to dry up West Lake and reduce pagoda to ashes, thus liberating her alter ego to reunite, if only briefly, with son and husband.

This poignant ending to a beautiful love-story—which accounts for its ancient and continuing hold on the collective imagination—is trying to tell us that the secret of enlightenment, of death-transcending freedom, the bedrock of all human virtue and the ultimate source of artistic creativity, is to be sought in the demonic instinctual energies that have been locked away with and in the serpent power.

[Above review is a single post in an ongoing blog (re-) interpreting the entire White Snake story narrative cycle by drawing on a variety of productions in different genres, ancient and modern.]