"Waxberry in Wuyue crowns the world." As the saying goes, Moushan town in Wuyue Western hill is the origin for white waxberry. The white waxberry is large with rich juice and sweet flavour here, and is rarely precious. Speaking of white waxberry in the western hill, there goes a breath-taking folk legend among the local people.
Long ago, there were many wild waxberry trees in the mountain of the western lake. Each year in middle summer, there were waxberry fruits on top of the trees all over the mountain. The waxberry was reddish purple and looked pretty. But the juice was quite poisonous, and could kill any person or animal immediately. So people could only appreciate and couldn't eat it.
In a village near the mountain, there lived a pair of beautiful and smart twin sisters who liked martial art in a simple straw house with three rooms. The older sisters Baiyang and the younger sister Baimei were in their teens.
One day when Baiyang was washing clothes on the brook side, there came a young but sad shout. She looked along the voice, and saw a young man beating a thin shepherd kid hard with rattan whip. The kid was shouting while rolling on the ground with pain. Baiyang got outrageous seeing such sad situation, Putting down the clothes, she flew over the 18 stones in the brook, and jumped onto the cliff toward the evil man.
Seeing a woman galloping toward himself with frowned eyebrows and round eyes, the man sensed the unfriendliness. Throwing the whip and abandoning the kid, the man went toward Baiyang evilly. He liked weapons in the village and had done lots of bad things in the village. Meeting the peer, he stood like a crane and beat for several times with fists. Baiyang avoided his fists again and again, and then kicked on the man's chest. The man receded for steps backward and fell off the slope into the brook. He couldn't swim and had no breath any more after several struggle in the water. Baiyang immediately went for rescue, but it was too late and the man had died.
The news got to the man's father Li Baiwan soon, and the landlord swore to take revenge since his only son got killed. Then he gathered 18 strong men under the Jinji peak with weapons to march to Baiyang's village.
Entering the village, Li Baiwan forced the village head to put all the villagers to a lawn in the middle of the mountain and he wanted to kill the killer himself. Around one hour later, the villagers all arrived. It was almost mid-summer, and the wild waxberry was ripe with charming color. But people were not in the mood. The crowd got silent, with only Li Baiwan's shout echoing in the valley. Not finding the killer, he turned to his last resort, swearing to burn the mountain and to smash the village.
The kind villagers got worried, and Baiyang got anxious too. She didn't want the villagers to be involved because of her. Touching her hair, she stood out of the crowd. Seeing a young girl, Li Baiwan got merciful and put her sword back, telling her to die by herself.
Baiyang got so uneasy at that moment. She did it for justice to rescue the weak and didn't regret at all. Steering at the villagers and the mountains where she was brought up, she turned to the scarlet waxberry. She walked to the waxberry slowly and chose the largest and reddest one to swallow. She closed her eyes peacefully soon.
Seeing her sister got involved and died because of defending against injustice and got outrageous. She fell over on her sister's body and cried till even the mountain got moved. Then there came fierce gale and countless poisonous waxberry fell off the trees. The slopes got red too. Baimei followed her sister and put a waxberry in the mouth, then fell asleep, and never woke up again. It was such a pity that two beautiful girls went to heaven one after another.
Following the golden star Venus, the sisters came to the heaven and met with the jade emperor, who regarded them as women heroes with loyalty and skills. But they died because of the waxberry, the jade emperor entitled them as fairies of waxberry to guard the waxberry in the heaven and in the world.
Thousand years later, the waxberry in the western lake area was not poisonous any more, and people even fed on them in times of famine. Lots of people got saved. Then people found the red waxberry became white, tasted better, and became a precious fruit.
When the white waxberry ripe, people taste the delicious waxberry, and guess the reason why it's not poisonous any more. They think it must be the merit of the waxberry fairies. They have sucked the poisonous things inside so as to thank the villagers. As for the name of waxberry, it is said to come from the combination of the sisters' names. |
