The Rainbound City

The story so far

The Pain She Takes (chapters 1-10)

In rain-soaked Seattle, Su Bai runs White Pine Apothecary off King Street, and she is not entirely human. When she eases a patient's pain, she takes it into her own body, and each time the cost shows: scales at her wrist, a shed in the basement, a memory that never comes back. Qing, her companion for seven centuries, keeps count. Then Harborview nurse Evan Xu follows a patient to her counter and asks how her remedies work. When Su's relief hides a patient's failing circulation, Evan offers her a deal instead of a report: a weekly evening clinic in White Pine's back rooms, run together. But a man in a plain dark coat keeps watching from the bus shelter across the street, and after a rescue at Lake Union, Qing wants them gone after dark.

Until the Festival (chapters 11-20)

The Tuesday clinic fills: Leon Jackson, the retired longshoreman who started it all, tailor Lan Pham from next door, a restaurant cook, a feverish schoolgirl. Su learns to say when she cannot lift a pain, and Evan learns to let her explain. Then the watcher gets a name. Nathan Zhao, a hospice chaplain whose family keeps watch over dangers ordinary law cannot hold, tells Su to close the clinic and leave the watershed by June fifth, the eve of the Duanwu festival, or he will stop her from treating anyone. Every shed takes more of her, and Evan has started noticing what nobody else does: a scale on the basement stair, timings that do not add up. Then he asks her to dinner again.

Clinic Hours (chapters 21-35)

The clinic is open, the patients keep coming, and June fifth draws closer. Su has hidden her nature from Evan as long as she can. Nathan Zhao is still watching, and the Duanwu festival brings the one remedy Su has never trusted: the holiday wine.

What Seven Centuries Cost (chapters 36-48)

Seven centuries of healing have cost Su names, faces and whole stretches of her own life. Evan wants the truth before he chooses. Qing wants to run. And a family that has watched for creatures like Su for generations is not finished with White Pine.

The Rain Before Duanwu (chapters 49 onward)

Dragon boats, drums and five-color threads are coming to Seattle on June sixth. Before the festival, Su must decide what she owes her patients, what she owes the man asking her to stay, and how much more of herself she can afford to give away.

Chapters 21+ unlock with coins or Unlimited.

The legend behind it: The Legend of the White Snake