The Origin of the Immortal

Chapter 16

With the help of Li Qingqing and Sha Niu, Ming Wen’s land reclamation project was completed very quickly.

After the land was cleared, the Zhang family went to fertilize and plant vegetables themselves, leaving the task of gathering firewood to Ming Wen.

Compared to being locked within dark, windowless earthen walls, Ming Wen much preferred these tasks in the mountains.

She showed no inclination to escape, so much so that some ill-intentioned people in the village deliberately questioned the Zhang family.

“You’re being far too careless. She hasn’t even borne a child yet, and you’re letting her run around everywhere.”

“It’s fine. Where could a cripple like her run to?”

“Besides, her leg is broken now. Even if she ran away, she’d only be able to marry another cripple in the future. She’s better off living a good life with my son.”

Ming Wen knew nothing of these comments. She was currently standing in the mountains with a basket on her back, breathing in the fresh air.

Li Qingqing and Sha Niu also carried baskets, and the three of them went to gather firewood together.

Ming Wen had a limp and walked slowly, but the other two didn’t mind. Instead, they would specifically wait for her.

Xinghua Village was surrounded by mountains, and today the three of them were on the back mountain.

Among the three, Sha Niu was simple-minded and had done little labor since childhood, while Ming Wen had absolutely no experience gathering firewood in the mountains.

Li Qingqing was the only skilled farmhand among them. During the land reclamation, they had basically followed Li Qingqing’s lead.

Now, entering the mountains for firewood, Li Qingqing naturally arranged the route and method.

“The three of us…” Li Qingqing could use some simple everyday phrases now, but for the complex parts, she still had to look at Sha Niu: [First we climb halfway up the mountain, then we pick up wood as we walk down from the front.]

[If we pick up wood while climbing up, it will be very tiring to hike with the wood on our backs.]

Sha Niu translated Li Qingqing’s meaning and looked at Ming Wen.

Ming Wen nodded and asked, “Is this the highest mountain?”

Sha Niu nodded.

Ming Wen said, “Then let’s climb to the very top first.”

Sha Niu nodded. Li Qingqing caught the word “summit” and nodded along.

Sha Niu was very happy and said, “Immortal Lady, are you going to your temple?”

Li Qingqing could already understand the four words for “Immortal Lady” in Mandarin, since Sha Niu babbled them every day.

She also wanted to go up to the temple and see.

On the edge of the cliff at the summit was an Immortal Lady Temple, the very one Sha Niu always talked about.

The villagers would go up to worship during festivals and holidays.

Ming Wen had originally just wanted to see the view from the top, but hearing about the temple, her curiosity was piqued.

So, the three of them carried their empty baskets and slowly climbed toward the summit.

This mountain was the highest one, and it was truly difficult to climb. Ming Wen was still limping, and by the latter half of the ascent, her movements had become entirely mechanical.

She felt as though she had lost half her life.

The final stretch of the path was conquered only because Sha Niu and Li Qingqing literally hauled her up.

The three of them lay on the cliffside, sweat pouring off them, steam rising from their bodies.

Even though they had stopped, their bodies were still overheating, constantly radiating heat and sweat like overloaded machines.

After resting for a long while, Ming Wen finally stood up and took the time to look at the cliff.

All paths ended abruptly at the Immortal Lady Temple on the cliffside. Beyond that was the precipice, and in the distance were the layered edges of the mountains, one stacked upon another, possessing the texture of a Monet oil painting.

Ming Wen walked to the edge of the cliff. Below the sheer drop was a forest, lush and green. Looking down from the height, it almost had a fuzzy, tactile quality.

This fuzzy texture gave an illusion that if one were to jump from here, that soft forest blanket would gently catch them.

Unfortunately, a yellow dirt road cut abruptly through the middle of this green blanket, ruining the aesthetic.

Ming Wen looked at that streak of earthy yellow and closed her eyes, letting the wind from the bottom of the cliff blow against her face.

Li Qingqing was startled by Ming Wen’s action of walking to the cliff’s edge. Unlike the cheerful Sha Niu, who was imitating Ming Wen by enjoying the breeze, Li Qingqing stared at Ming Wen, ready at any moment to pull her back. She was afraid the girl would jump.

Ming Wen had no intention of jumping. At this moment, she had even forgotten her pain.

The cliff was beneath her feet, the blue sky and white clouds were above her head, and her body was wrapped in the wind blowing up from the valley. The wind carried the fresh scent of plants embraced by the sun. Ming Wen took a deep breath, briefly feeling herself merge with the forest, the wind, and the sunlight.

In this moment, she was no longer Ming Wen. She became a pine tree, free of pain and anxiety, simply soaking up the sun on the cliff, facing the wind, every leaf unfurling.

In this moment, everything else vanished. There were no human traffickers, no Zhang family. The mountains were just mountains, the trees were just trees. They were no longer complicit with the people here, no longer forming a natural prison that trapped her gaze as she looked toward her home…

She even remembered when she was a child and her parents took her mountain climbing. In the end, they were on the summit, feeling the wind. It felt as if her parents were right beside her, and her grandmother was calling to them from below.

“If you two want to go up, then go up, but leave my darling down here with me!”

She opened her eyes and everything vanished. she was back here again. Sha Niu was foolishly holding a sycamore leaf over her to shield her from the sun, and Li Qingqing was looking at her with concern.

[Do you want to go look over there?] Li Qingqing spoke in the local dialect, but she pointed to the nearby Immortal Lady Temple. Her meaning was clear without a translator.

“Let’s go look,” Ming Wen said.

The three of them went to the nearby Immortal Lady Temple. It was just a small shrine made of mud, with a neat thatched roof.

Unfortunately, it was locked.

A large lock hung on the wooden door.

Ming Wen rattled the lock, thinking with a touch of irony that it seemed even the blessings of the gods were monopolized here.

“We can’t get in here, let’s go around the other side.” Sha Niu had always snuck in from the back.

It turned out that some parts of the back of the mud temple were patched with wooden boards. Ordinary people, fearing they might offend the deity, would never dream of prying them open.

Sha Niu was no ordinary person. How could this door stop her?

She nimbly pried open the wooden boards and crawled inside with her Immortal Lady. Li Qingqing was a bit worried about whether this was proper, but seeing that both Ming Wen and Sha Niu had gone in, she immediately crawled in after them.

Everything in sight was red. Layers upon layers of red cloth hung behind the Immortal Lady, and the three of them had entered from beneath these drapes.

Beyond the red cloth stood the Immortal Lady that Sha Niu mentioned every day.

It was a statue shaped like a Bodhisattva, fashioned out of mud. Ming Wen looked it over from left to right, but no matter how she looked, she could not see any resemblance between herself and this deity.

Sha Niu continued to point at the statue, saying to Ming Wen, “Now there are two Immortal Ladies…”

Upon hearing this, Li Qingqing hurriedly knelt down, silently pleading for Sha Niu in her heart.

[Immortal Lady, please forgive Sha Niu. Her brain was scrambled by a fever when she was a child, she doesn’t know any better. Please don’t lower yourself to her level.]

Li Qingqing glanced at Ming Wen, who remained standing, and added, “Ming Wen is from the outside world and doesn’t know our ways yet. Please, Immortal Lady, forgive her as well.”

Li Qingqing had been here before. Whenever people prayed for something, they always had to cast a divination.

After finishing her prayer, Li Qingqing cast the divination. She thought to herself that if the Immortal Lady was angry, she would definitely make Sha Niu and Ming Wen buy some incense oil as an apology.

She cast three times in a row. As luck would have it, every single one was a Shenggua¹. This was the first time in Li Qingqing’s life that she had received three consecutive Shengguas.

Beside her, Sha Niu was still talking to Ming Wen. As she spoke, she reached out to grab some peanuts offered to the Immortal Lady and gave them to Ming Wen to eat.

Li Qingqing had grown up hearing stories about the Immortal Lady. Naturally, she had heard since childhood that if one pointed a finger at the Immortal Lady, their ears would be cut off.

At this moment, her heart was nearly jumping out of her chest.

Li Qingqing hurriedly cast another divination. “Immortal Lady, do you mind if Sha Niu eats your peanuts?”

She tossed them out.

Quickly, they hit the ground.

One yin, one yang.

It was a Shenggua again.

Li Qingqing cast twice more.

Shengbei.

Shengbei.

Li Qingqing swallowed hard. Was that six Shengguas in a row?

She quickly kowtowed and scrambled to her feet.

Meanwhile, Ming Wen was inspecting the temple.

The entire temple was very crude, though it was stocked with a fair amount of incense oil. She only gave those a passing glance before finally stopping in front of two large pillars.

Both pillars were carved with characters, mostly in traditional script. They were likely records from before the founding of the country.

The first section was an introduction to the past of the Immortal Lady, Honggu. Having heard about the Immortal Lady for so long, Ming Wen finally learned the deity’s origins.

The Immortal Lady’s original name was Honggu.

She lived in Xinghua Village several hundred years ago, though the exact era could no longer be verified.

When Honggu was ten years old, a scholar in the city offended a high-ranking official and brought his family to Xinghua Village.

Ming Wen’s consciousness drifted as she looked at the characters on the wooden pillars. It was as if everything had returned to hundreds of years ago.

Honggu worked as a sweeping maid in that scholar’s household.

One day, during a heavy snowfall, the scholar came to check on his children’s schoolwork. At the time, Honggu was outside the room sweeping snow.

The children in the house were reciting their lessons haltingly.

“The way of great learning² lies in… in manifesting illustrious virtue…”

The more the scholar listened, the angrier he became. When he was young, his family had been poor, and he could only study by borrowing books. Back then, he would memorize those books while transcribing them, usually finishing a volume in seven or eight days. Now, the house was full of books, there was no need to beg others to borrow them, and there were servants and maids for their daily needs. His children only needed to study, yet to his frustration, every one of them was dull-witted. A month had passed, and they still couldn’t memorize the text. Irritated, the scholar simply left the study to get some peace.

Just as he stepped out, he heard a young girl’s voice murmuring something in the courtyard.

The scholar listened closely.

“The way of great learning lies in manifesting illustrious virtue, in loving the people, and in resting in the highest excellence. Knowing where to rest, the mind is steady; being steady, it can be calm; being calm, it can be at peace; being at peace, it can deliberate; and through deliberation, it can attain…”

It turned out that Honggu had finished sweeping the snow outside the study and had moved to the backyard. She was alone in the back, and as dusk approached, the silence of the bamboo grove made the young girl feel afraid. She began to recite the book, using the sound of her own voice to drive away her fear.

“Have you studied before?” the scholar asked, thinking she might be a child from some fallen noble family.

“My family is poor. I have never studied.”

“Then how can you recite this?”

Honggu found the question strange and replied, “Every day when I sweep the snow here, someone inside is reciting these things. I just remembered them.”

The scholar did not believe her. If the child had never studied, how could she remember it after only hearing it a few times outside the door? He took out two more books and read them aloud, one by one, then asked the girl to repeat them back to him.

Honggu did not find it difficult at all. She repeated every sentence he spoke in a clear voice.

The scholar was dumbfounded. Only then did he recall something else. When he first arrived and needed to hire help, the villagers couldn’t understand his speech, so he had to give up several times. Later, this young girl had come running over. She spoke perfect Mandarin and could help them communicate with the villagers.

He hadn’t thought much of it before, but thinking about it now, she had learned Mandarin on her own in private.

Marvelous! Truly marvelous! The scholar had heard of people born with great intelligence, but the limit of such talent was usually just a good memory. He had never heard of anyone who could memorize ancient texts after hearing them only once without any formal schooling. What level of brilliance was this?

The scholar slapped his thigh and exclaimed in wonder, “This is truly the Wenqu Star³ descended to earth! What a pity she was born into a female body.”

He walked around Honggu, looking her over again and again, his heart filled with regret. She had no family background or status, yet possessed such natural brilliance. If she were a boy, he would have done anything to adopt her as his son and find a way to send her to take the imperial examinations.

What a pity she was a girl. Afterward, he told everyone about this matter.

Soon, everyone in the village knew of Honggu’s intelligence and felt envious. Although she couldn’t earn official honors, with the scholar’s endorsement, Honggu would likely be able to marry into a decent family.

When Honggu turned eighteen, the scholar wanted her to marry his son. In those times, this was considered a top-tier stroke of good fortune. Many in the village said that Honggu was truly blessed.

Honggu, however, only shook her head. She did not accept such a wonderful offer. The villagers could not understand what it was she actually wanted to do.

That year, aside from that incident, another major event occurred. A locust plague struck at the end of the year, followed immediately by a famine.

People in the village were constantly starving to death. Honggu went into the mountains to dig for wild yams. It wasn’t just humans who were crazed with hunger; the wild boars in the mountains were the same. Everything edible in the mountains had been dug up. Honggu walked for over ten hours and finally managed to dig up a yam weighing over a hundred pounds on a cliffside.

She carried the massive yam on her back as she headed home. She didn’t know how long she had been walking when a fog began to rise in the mountains.

An old woman suddenly appeared in the thick mist. Her back was hunched, and upon seeing Honggu, she asked in a raspy voice, “Young lady, do you think I can cultivate and become an immortal?”

Honggu was kind-hearted. Seeing that the old woman seemed senile or mad, she did not mock her. Instead, she offered comfort, saying, “I have read many ancient books that speak of people cultivating to become immortals. Since others can do it, you naturally can as well.”

The moment those words left her mouth, the fog surrounding Honggu vanished. The old woman before her transformed into a plump, fair-skinned girl with two red ribbons tied in her hair.

As it turned out, the old woman was actually the spirit of the yam Honggu was carrying. It had cultivated for a hundred years and was only missing a single stroke of luck to become an immortal.

The deities in heaven had told the spirit to ask the first person who dug it up whether it could become an immortal. If that person said yes, it would achieve immortality. If they said no, the power it had gained from centuries of cultivation would vanish.

It was fortunate to have met Honggu. Even though she had never seen such a thing before, Honggu still gave an affirmative answer.

Grateful for Honggu’s kindness, the yam spirit not only left its physical body to her but also passed on the instinct to heal and save people. It told Honggu to accumulate merit in the mortal world. One day, upon the Consummation of Merits⁴, a phoenix would come to take Honggu back to heaven. There was only one condition: she must never marry or have children. If she did, her fate would dictate the death of her husband and child.

Honggu carried the large yam back to the village and told the villagers what had happened. When everyone looked at it, the yam truly resembled a small child. No one dared to step forward, let alone eat it.

Honggu divided the yam among the people and told them she had received a blessing from heaven. She now possessed medical skills to save lives and would cultivate toward immortality in Xinghua Village. Once she returned to heaven, she promised to protect the people of the village.

At first, the villagers were skeptical, but later, Honggu truly displayed the ability to heal the sick. Occasionally, she could even communicate with gods and ghosts, so everyone came to believe her words.

From delivering babies to treating the elderly, she saved countless lives and took on many disciples. Throughout the surrounding villages and shops, there was no one who spoke of her without praising her boundless merit.

Honggu lived to be a hundred years old, her body remaining hardy. In her old age, she would often gaze at the sky for long periods. She said nothing, but everyone knew in their hearts that she was about to return to heaven.

Sure enough, one winter, the villagers went to find Honggu but could not see the old woman.

By the time they found her, she was dressed in red, sitting on the cliffside. Beneath her were layers of red cloth, all of which had been given to her by those she had healed in the past.

She had already stopped breathing. She had become an immortal and returned to heaven.

The next day, Honggu’s eldest disciple said she had a dream. She dreamed of a great fog, and within the mist, Honggu had returned to her youthful appearance. She was riding a fiery red phoenix, flanked by a plump Child Attendant on her left and a plump boy on her right.

The Child Attendant said, “The immortal was originally a star in the heavens who descended to the mortal world for Undergoing Tribulation. Now that she has reached the Consummation of Merits, she has attained the Dao and become an immortal.”

In the dream, Honggu instructed her eldest disciple, “Xinghua Village is the place where an immortal ascended. Do many good deeds and do not commit evil, or there will surely be retribution.”

Only then did the villagers realize that she was originally the Immortal Lady from heaven Undergoing Tribulation. No wonder a single word from her could allow the yam spirit to become an immortal, and no wonder she was unwilling to marry and have children despite the excellent prospects from scholarly families.

One must realize that if a mortal wished to marry the Immortal Lady, they would be struck by divine lightning.

From then on, Honggu’s story was passed down through the generations. Xinghua Village continued to worship this Immortal Lady, treating her birthday as the day she returned to the mortal world for inspection.

The stars shifted and time passed. Now, Ming Wen stood before the temple of the Immortal Lady, reading the records inscribed there. Her gaze upon the text seemed to travel back through hundreds of years.

She began to laugh.

She and this Immortal Lady were truly in the same line of work.

The author has something to say: Honggu’s story incorporates some elements of folk legends.

Translator’s Notes