Home Guilin travel story: the legend of the Green Lotus Peak (Bilian Feng)
Guilin travel story: the legend of the Green Lotus Peak (Bilian Feng)
The Green Lotus Peak is the top landscape in Yangshuo, Guilin. Most people would like to visit this mountain during their Guilin travel.
But how can it be possible that lotus is green? Of course it is, in legend.
In the Jasper Lake of the Queen Mother of the West, there was actually a green lotus. Queen Mother liked it very much, and she only permitted the Jade Emperor, the Tathagata and the very high lord to see it. So the Lotus fairy---- the spirit of the green lotus was very lonely. She begged the four fairies---- the Moon Fairy Chang E, the Weaver Fairy, the Yuan Fairy and the Longevous Fairy to help her escape from this place. The other three fairies had no idea how to realize it, but Chang E came out an idea. She turned the Lotus fairy into a lotus wearing apparel and carried her out of the South Sky Gate (Nantianmen) by wearing it on her clothes.
Since the Lotus Fairy could not stand on the ground directly or she had to stay where she put her feet on forever, Chang E borrowed a celestial crane from the South Pole Immortal to be her ride. And then the Lotus Fairy started her trip in the temporal world with the celestial crane.
But soon the Queen Mother found that her favorite lotus was gone, so she sent four celestial warriors to bring her back. Those four warriors chased the Lotus Fairy from the four directions, and had hit the crane which made it fall on the ground in Guilin and turned into a Rock Hill---- the White Crane Hill (Baihe Hill). And the Lotus Fairy fell into the Li River, just as we mentioned before, she had to stay in the river as a lotus forever. The four warriors saw her fall into the river and thought that she must have died, so they returned to the sky palace without any more chasing.
The place the Lotus Fairy fell into became a lake---- the Green Lotus Lake. Although moving was unavailable, she still felt satisfied with the fishes aside.
When the South Pole Immortal knew his crane died, he was very sad and came to see the White Crane Hill with his Yellow deer. After he came to Guilin, he found the water in the Green Lotus Lake was extremely green and even jade could not compare with it. And he watched the lake carefully; finally saw the green lotus in the bottom of the lake.
He knew that the green lotus only lived in the Queen Mother’s Jasper Lake, so he was very excited to see it. Then He decided to move it to his Heaven Pool on the Zhongnan Mountain, so he asked the Yellow deer to stay here and watch it while he went back to get the tools.
After he was gone, the Lotus Fairy recognized the Yellow Deer and asked him that where the Immortal was, because she wanted to apologize to him for the crane’s death. The Yellow Deer told her the immortal’s idea, and the fairy was surprised and quite worried.
It turned out that she already fell in love with a carp in the Li River, and if she left the river she would never see her lover again. So she asked the carp to sip up the water in the river, even though thus she would become a stone, she would not like to separate with the carp. Then the carp complied, which made the green lotus become the Green Lotus Peak we see now.
The Yellow Deer saw this but it was too late to prevent the carp, so he blew three celestial air to the carp which turned him into a sandbank---- the Carp Sandbank (Liyu Zhou).
Until now, there’s still a folk song going around Li River:” Lotus and carp, never be apart. ”
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