Yiyeon is an abandoned child found at the mouth of the village river by a childless couple.

Possessing a beautiful appearance as white as a lily of the valley, he lives a dangerous life as a mountain hunter catching tigers to pay off his aging and ailing parents' debts and to support them.

One day, while setting out on a tiger hunt just like any other, he succeeds in catching a big tiger, but instead discovers a black tiger cub beneath the carcass.

Yiyeon is instantly overwhelmed by guilt for having killed another mother to save his own. Ultimately, he lets the cub, who had survived alone in the cold mountains, go.

Since then, the black tiger has helped him whenever he faced a crisis, as if to repay him.

Their relationship continued, though both harbored a slight sense of unease, until one day.

A man dressed in attire completely out of place in the deep mountains appears before Yiyeon.

“Who-who are you! Are you human?”

A scholar, disheveled and slightly stained with blood, yet as beautiful as gold and jade.

He silently gazed up at Yiyeon and thrust forward a mud-stained identification plaque.

[Kim Hyunhak]

Thus, Yiyeon formed a strange bond with the scholar he met for the first time.