005 The Filthiest Holy Lady
-- and her daughter's struggle of self-identity
Huang Chun-Xiang is Mei-Xian's mother (and of course, Black Cat's maternal grandmother). Her given name Chun-Xiang (春香) means "the wonderful smell of spring", and her family name Huang(黃) means "yellow". As her name implies, Huang Chun-Xiang is a gentle, benevolent, magnanimous, and mild lady. Now I'm going to tell you her story---
In the early history of Toyundao, it was not a wonderland-- it was the land of misery, sorrow, and crime. Pirates and colonists came from different nations fought each other. Robbing, raping, and killing happened everyday. The situation caused unrest of the surreal world of Taoyundao, monsters and ghosts hurt and hunted people everywhere.
In that time, Chun-Xiang born in the Huang's, a famous Taoist family. The Huang's always devoted themselves to fighting surreal evils for protecting people. However, as Chun-Xiang grew up, they found something wrong.
Unlike other family members, though Chun-Xiang possessed awesome spiritual power and ability, she never fought. Her family members felt uncomfortable about this: how could Chun-Xiang give up her duty to protect people as one of the Huang's? Was she a coward? Or she loved herself too much to take the risk to save others? They started to blame Chun-Xiang, and her parents felt shameful of her.
Chun-Xiang was sad. She was not a coward; she just thought that destroying those "evil beings" is not the only way to deal with them. Chun-Xiang was by far more sensitive than other family members, she could feel the sorrowful emotions of those "evil beings". Most of them were miserable souls and spirits of dead people or innocent surreal beings, they suffered a lot when they were alive. Their cryings from souls wrung Chun-Xiang's heart, how could she fight them? She wanted to rescue them! Chun-Xiang didn't argue with her family members, she decided to try her best to find the way to save those poor souls.
One day when Chun-Xiang was 16 years old, she made a pair of embroidered shoes of her hairs. She wore them and went to the "evilest" place of the ruins. When she stepped onto the land, those raged ghosts and spirits were absorbed from the soil. They were attracted by Chun-Xiang's hair-shoes, caressed by Chun-Xiang's feet, and finally they lived in Chun-Xiang's legs. Their rages, pains and sadness were moderated by Chun-Xiang's love, and Chun-Xiang took use of her own heart to suffer for their crimes. She sacrificed herself for purifying those surreal beings without harming them.
Chun-Xiang's family members were shocked, they couldn't accept what she did. Those dirty evil beings were living in the body of their dearest girl, and her pure heart was tainted by their sins! To them, Chun-Xiang had become filthy. They asked Chun-Xiang to leave the Huang's family.
After the event, Chun-Xiang walked around the Taoyundao to save as more souls as she could, and she met her husband, Li Yong-Chun (李 詠春, "extolling the wonderful spring"). Li didn't think that Chun-Xiang was filth; instead, he regarded Chun-Xiang as the most holy and lovely lady. Chun-Xiang's broken heart was sewed together by him, she hugged Li and cried for all night.
Chun-Xiang married Li and gave birth to Mei-Ling (Mei-Xian's name in her childhood) later, they enjoyed a happy period together. However, Chun-Xiang suffered too much for her beloved homeland. She opened all she had to miserable beings, so that her body corrupted. A dark hole appeared on her chest, and her sanshi brought out her energy of life from it. Her sanshi didn't like her ruined heart. Finally, Chun-Xiang died in 24.
Although Chun-xiang was one of the Huang's, not of the Li's, the Li's family still viewed her as the greatest and holiest family member ever. They gave Chun-Xiang their surname and worshiped her in their temple, so sometimes she was known as "Li Chun-Xiang (李春香)".
Chun-Xiang also influenced Mei-Xian and Black Cat potentially. Both of them don't rely on their family too much,and they also don't like to wear sandals-- that's because legs mean a lot to them. Their respectful mother's (or grandmother's) legs were so sacred, so they can't use their own legs without dignity; they are so meaningful. However, Alisa and Siren forced Black Cat to break her principle at the end~
And, Huang Ya-Lian is the descendant of Chun-Xiang's younger brother, Huang Sha-Yi (黃 夏意, "feeling of the hot summer"), the most harsh Taoistic exorcist in the history. He eliminated more than two thousands monsters, ghosts, and demons in his life. It is said that he hated those evil beings so much because of the unfortunate experience of his sister.
Atonement With Dearest Mother
When Mei-Xian was Mei-Ling, she hated the fact of being Huang Chun-Xiang's daughter. She was a perfect genius, but Chun-Xiang's image was so sick and disgusting. Mei-Ling viewed her mother as an awful monster subconsciously, and she couldn't admit Chun-Xiang's motherhood sincerely. In fact when Chun-Xiang died, Mei-Ling breathed a sigh of relief beside feeling sad. Mei-Ling also hated her blood from the Huang's family. She wanted herself to totally belong to the glorious Li's family. The Huangs were much inferior, they were stubborn and have no wisdom. Unlike the Li's family, they didn't learn Taoistic philosophy and just practiced skills. Mei-Ling couldn't accept even a bit of her blood from the rude Huang's family. She pretended that her mother never existed.
As time went by, the little girl finally found the way to grow up. Mei-Ling became Mei-Xian and truly reached the Way. She also had her daughter Black Cat and understood the feeling of being a mother. However, Mei-Xian had not completed the reconstruction of herself yet. The hole caused by her immoral resentment at her mother still existed.
One day, Black Cat asked Mei-Xian to give her a true name to replace her formal true name, Agatha van Geel, which was given by Black Cat's father. Black Cat wanted to sever the tie with her father, and the true name made influence on her attributes. She didn't like to be Agatha van Geel anymore.
Mei-Xian had an idea, but she had to face her internal hole of herself first. She asked Black Cat to leave for a while, then she began to deal with the problem. Mei-Xian closed her eyes and yelled: " I am Huang Mei-Xian!"
By yelling out that, Mei-Xian added the property of being a Huang on herself. The unwanted fact as forced to emerge out of her self-deception and start to act on her ego. Mei-Xian's existence broke to pieces, and those pieces repulsed each other. They hated to be Huang.
Mei-Xian suffered a lot of pain. Humble Huang Mei-Xian was almost unacceptable for the honorable Li Mei-Xian, but her portion of Li finally found that, the portion of Huang existed in every smallest parts of Mei-Xian. They are one, un-dividable one.
Mei-Xian returned to be Li Mei-Xian again, but she had totally made up with her protion of Huang. She embraced it and cried out. The portion of Huang given by her mother is so treasurable!
After Mei-Xian completed her whole self, she rename Black Cat as Huang Ru-Jun (黃 如君, 如君 means "be yourself as you wish"). Black Cat was surprised of not being named as Li, but after Mei-Xian's explaining, Black Cat accepted her new true name. Black Cat would succeed the property from her grandmother, but she would do it in her own way.
In Memory Of The Tender Spring
After Mei-Xian repented for her sin, she reunited herself. She assured that she actually respected and loved her mother Chun Xiang, and the love softened the conflict between components of her ego, finally made them to make up with each other
She turned herself into Mei-Ling, the presentation of her childhood as the age that she didn't admit Chun-Xiang as her mother. Mei-Ling looked at the headless body, she found that she didn't hate the blood from the Huang's anymore. She treasured it now. her father Li Yong-Chun was the wisest Taoist she ever saw, and he fully loved her mother, which was the kindest lady in the history of Taoyundao. Mei-Ling acknowledged that herself was in fact the combination of the two who had the most honorable souls, how fortunate she was! Mei-Ling softly touched her own body, and felt her dearest mother and father inside her.
"Father, mother, I am so lucky to own myself as Li Mei-Ling. I love the part of me from the Li's, I also love the part of me from the Huang's! Thank you so much!"
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Mei-Ling had prepared herself enough, she was going to visit Chun-Xiang's "tomb".
After Chun-Xiang's death, her body rotted as others'. However, many years later, the Li's family found that her legs didn't rot because they bore too much karma. The spirits and souls rescued by Chun-Xian didn't allow shelters they had ever lived-in to be terminated. The Li's family made a magical floating pedestal for them from precious jade, and placed them in a secret holy cave. They put ashes of Cuun-Xiang's rotten body parts on those cross-sections of her legs, and amazingly those ashes formed a lovely bush on her legs. The bush bloomed red and white flowers. It said that red flowers represent the hot blood of kindless of Chun-Xian, and white flowers represent Chun-Xiang's purest heart. Chun-Xiang's hair shoes also rotted, so the later generations of Li's family exchanged them for a pair of normal shoes for her feet.
Mei-Ling finally met her mother hundreds of years later. She didn't cry out loudly, nor fly into raptures. She just talked to her mother gently with a smile; she wanted tell her mother what she had experienced in those years since she parted her mother. They would have a long night, very very long...
