Bai Chilian

The real culture behind it

Two snakes share one name. 白, white, recalls Bai Suzhen of the Legend of the White Snake, the snake spirit who takes a woman’s form and ends up imprisoned beneath Leifeng Pagoda. 赤练 is the red-banded snake (赤链蛇, also written 赤练蛇), a real snake widespread in China — and wuxia readers know it from Li Mochou, the “Red Snake Fairy” (赤练仙子) of Jin Yong’s The Return of the Condor Heroes, a jilted woman turned killer.

The same pair names the twin blades 白蟒赤练, White Serpent & Crimson Viper. Art director Michael names “the snake boss”, presumably her, among the characters literally bound by the game’s red threads, which stand for the jianghu’s entanglements of love, hate and fate.