She was the daughter of the Heavenly Emperor, reincarnated in the Kingdom of Tushan under the name Jiao, solely to fulfill the mission entrusted to her by the Heavenly Emperor: “To transform ‘the world belongs to all’ into ‘the world belongs to one family.’”
Jiao’s beauty was renowned throughout the four seas and eight wildernesses, and suitors crowded one another at her door. By the will of Heaven, she married Yu. On the fourth day after their wedding, Yu left to control the floods. Two months into their marriage, she discovered she was pregnant.
Before she was born, she had eaten the lovesickness berries bestowed by the Queen Mother of the West. After Yu left, her whole life revolved around longing for him. She wrote, “I wait for you, ah!”, the first love poem in history, also regarded as the beginning of Southern music. Yet Yu passed his own home three times without entering. When Jiao was close to giving birth, her servants went to ask Yu to return, but all they received was his message: “I know my wife is about to give birth, and I wish I could go home to be with her. But the floods are not yet under control. My father’s spirit could not rest in peace, and the people are suffering. How could I put my private affairs first?”
From their wedding until the child was nearly born, she never got to see Yu even once. Her longing came to nothing, and her heartache was unbearable. In a daze, she followed a white-robed immortal away. When she looked back, all she saw was a stone statue of herself.
