The Waiting Wife

The Waiting Wife

The Waiting Wife is located atop Lingyang Mountain at the western bank of the Xijiang River in Bashu Village, Yanjing Management Area, Jindu Town. Atop the mountain stands a huge rock that resembles a woman standing with a child on her back, gazing westward. From afar, the shape is strikingly lifelike.

Legend has it that in ancient Gaoyao, there was a young man named Huang Shiwu who, due to consecutive years of flooding in his hometown and a lack of livelihood, was forced to leave his wife and children and seek work in Baise, Guangxi. He was gone for five years with no word. His wife, Fifteenth Madam (Shiwuniang), urgently asked someone to look for him. Only then did Huang Shiwu send a letter back. This letter was written by a scholar he hired, and Fifteenth Madam, who could barely read, couldn’t understand it. She took the letter to an elderly scholar in the village for an explanation. As the old man read and interpreted, he said: “Your husband says that he has been away from you for five years, and every time he thinks of his family, his heart aches as if he’s taken bitter traditional Chinese medicine — the three yellows: Scutellaria baicalensis (huangqin), Phellodendron (huangbo), and Coptis chinensis (huanglian). He has been unable to find work and has had to beg from door to door. When he did find work, it was only as a laborer for wealthy families. He once sang dragon boat songs door-to-door to earn money. In Guiping, he stayed for four months under the corridor of the Happiness Temple at Dayugang. By then, his clothes were tattered like scattered clouds, his belt had broken and been tied back together strand by strand like bamboo sticks, his hat was worn through like the boundless sea. His shoes had holes in the soles as deep as the Yangtze River. After reaching Baise, he worked for the owner of Guangmao Store and slept on a ‘Western bed’ where firewood was stored. During the day, he had to carry water like an ox; at night, he kept watch by beating the night watchman’s clapper. On the ‘Western bed,’ he slept on straw. With no money in his pocket, he felt surrounded by troubles: opening his eyes brought frustration, dropping something made him jump, tying things around his body made him roll them up, throwing things in the water made them float. If boat travel became possible, he was willing to work as a laborer and return home overland via Xiashan.” After hearing the old man’s interpretation, Fifteenth Madam became utterly still — no sound, no tears. The suffering her husband endured away from home was more than she could bear. From then on, day and night, she longed for her husband’s return. She remembered the last words in his letter: “If there is a convenient boat, I will return home overland.” So she went to the Xiashan overland route every day, watching for any boat passing through the gorge. Whenever she saw one, she would call out loudly: “Has my husband returned?” Day after day, Fifteenth Madam’s voice grew hoarse. Her husband Huang Shiwu still hadn’t returned, and this heartbroken woman, yearning for her husband to the point of despair, eventually died of grief on this mountain by the river. At that moment, the earth and sky seemed to mourn, thunder roared, and rain poured down. In an instant, Fifteenth Madam turned to stone, standing eternally atop the riverside mountain. Her mournful cry of “Has my husband returned?” echoed through the valley with the wind, and the huge rock atop the mountain became known as the Waiting Wife Stone.

Yet through the centuries, the sound of the water remains, the mountain stones unchanged, with only the verse inscribed by Lun Wenxu in later years still faintly legible: “A fair maiden of white stone by the sea stands, The sky her canopy, the earth her bed. The sun, a precious mirror, shines bright each day, The moon, a silver lamp, glows nightly. For a thousand years she hasn't combed her dragon-phoenix hair...”

“Her husband never returned, alas, how pitiful, Heartbroken, she leans on the riverbank, pain piercing her heart.”