Hello, and welcome to Chinese Folk Tales.
This is Bei Bei.
Today, I'm going to start the story with the five famous mountains in China.
One of them was called Hua Mountain.
It's known for its lofty and steep peaks, as if the mountainside had been sliced with a knife.
There's a saying that there is only one path onto the Hua Mountain, referring to how impossible it was to climb up the mountain.
Why is Hua Mountain so incredibly steep?
There is a reason indeed.
It was split apart by a little boy named Chen Xiang.
Yep, here he goes.
Once there was a little boy whose name was Chen Xiang.
His mother was a goddess named San Sheng Mu from the Hua Mountain.
She had a brother who was also a god with three eyes with the extra one on his forehead.
He could see everything under heaven and also in heaven too.
He was also a good fighter.
For some reason, the goddess married a mortal scholar and lived among the humans.
This was a serious breach.
The goddess faced the same punishment, not from the queen mother of the west, but from her three-eyed brother.
But she already had a son with her husband.
They named the boy Chen Xiang.
After their son was born, the husband had to go to the capital to take the imperial exam, which was super important.
Doing well on the exam could guarantee a nice job in the government.
The mother and the baby stayed at home.
Her brother, knowing all about this, came down from heaven then.
He used his third eye on the forehead to search for his sister and her son, and he found them in the little village at the foot of Hua Mountain.
When I first heard this story, I couldn't help but think, what kind of brother was this?
He was furious that his sister had chosen to live among the humans.
And this time while the husband was away, he even took his celestial hand with him, and his weapon too.
When Chen Xiang's mother, the goddess, saw a cloud descending from the sky, she knew right away what was coming.
Her brother was coming to get her.
What could she do?
Luckily, she wasn't as hopeless as the mortals.
At least she still had a treasure from her days in heaven.
It was the lotus lamp, which was given to her by the Queen Mother of the West.
She lit the lamp in a hurry and all of a sudden it burned like the sun, with lights so strong that no spirits or demons or deities could approach her.
As powerful as her three-eyed brother was.
He couldn't get close to this lamp and could only turn back.
But he was not someone who could let go of grudges.
The more he thought about it, the more furious he got.
This time, he was not going straight down.
He sent his hound down to the village first.
The dog was much less conspicuous.
But what could the dog do?
Well, he could steal the lamp, and it was exactly what he did.
Without the lamp, there was nothing and no one to protect the poor mother and her son.
Her three-eyed brother then captured her with no trouble at all and locked her up under the Hua Mountains.
But where was Chen Xiang amidst all this?
He was carried away by the mountain deity at a critical moment and was brought to his father who, by the way, did pretty well in the exam and was given a government post.
But he had no power when it came to rescuing his wife.
Poor Chen Xiang often saw his mother in his dreams, but over the years it got harder to remember what she looked like.
He knew that his mother was trapped under the Hua Mountain, and he was going to save her.
He searched for masters who could teach him martial arts, and he practiced day after day, year after year.
He worked so hard that even the deities were touched by his devotion and felt bad for the family.
They thought also that the three-eyed brother was too heartless, treating his own sister this way.
These deities wanted to help the poor kid, and they gave him an axe with magical powers, strong enough to split apart a mountain.
On the day of Chen Xiang's 16th birthday, the young man decided it was time to challenge his uncle and he was ready to rescue his mother.
The two fought, uncle and nephew, till the sky darkened and the world seemed upside down.
A few deities helped Chen Xiang in the dark until finally he got hold of the lotus lamp and lit it again and defeated his three-eyed uncle.
Then he rushed back to the Hua Mountain and lifted the magic axe.
With all the power that he had, he split the mountain with the axe.
The ground shook, and with loud rumbles, the Hua Mountain was split open, with mountainsides steep and flat.
Chen Xiang rescued his mother, and the family was finally reunited.
So that's an interesting story about the Hua Mountain, and normally we call it the Legend of the Lotus Lamp.
If you ever visit the Hua Mountain in China, you can visit a few scenic spots that are associated with the legend.
Alright, that's all for now and hope to see you in our next episode.
Please feel free to contact us via email at podcast at cricomcn or find us on Twitter.
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