Nine Tails: Ashes of the Phoenix

To repay her life-saving kindness at the mountain temple, fox spirit Hu Zhaozhao takes human form and marries Xuan Ye. She sacrifices her lives one by one to help him rise from an obscure scholar to emperor, eventually becoming the Empress. When enemy troops siege the city and bind Hu Zhaozhao and Concubine Mei Niang atop the high walls, demanding Xuan Ye's choice, he believes she is an immortal and shoots her with an arrow. Unaware that each tail represents a life, this is her final sacrifice, and she will never wake again.