Peach Blossom Jade

Peach Blossom Jade

　　Taoyuan is rich in peach blossom stones. As the name suggests, it is a type of stone with peach blossoms blooming inside. These stone peonies are radiant and magnificent, and though they endure wind, rain, frost, and snow, they never wither. Truly astonishing and marvelous！

How does a peach blossom end up embedded in a stone? Here is a very interesting legend—

Once upon a time, in a peach blossom village near Peach Blossom Spring, there lived a girl. Because she was sweet, beautiful, and kind-hearted, everyone in and out of the village called her “Guaimei” (the Good Girl). Guaimei was an exceptionally talented painter. Whatever she painted looked incredibly lifelike, and the things she painted would come to life right before your eyes.

News of Guaimei’s magical brushwork spread like a bird with wings and soon reached the office of the Taoyuan County Magistrate. The magistrate summoned Guaimei to the county yamen. The magistrate, who was both lecherous and greedy, was immediately captivated by her beauty. When Guaimei asked why she had been called, the magistrate hesitated for a long while before stammering that he wanted her to paint. Just then, a dry cough came from behind. He turned to see his wife standing at the doorway, glaring at him and then at Guaimei, before sweeping into the room behind a curtain.

With a flick of her eyes, Guaimei understood the situation—the magistrate was afraid of his wife. After the magistrate set out paints, paper, and brushes, Guaimei picked up her brush and began to paint. When she finished, it was a portrait of a woman. As soon as Guaimei set down her brush, the woman in the painting stepped off the scroll. The magistrate took one look and realized she looked exactly like his own wife. Immediately, he went weak at the knees, as if all his bones had been pulled out, and he reached out to drag her into the inner room.

Just then, the bamboo curtain was lifted, and his wife came out again. Seeing the magistrate dragging a woman into the room, she was furious and slapped the woman across the face. The woman retaliated with a slap of her own. The two women began cursing and fighting each other in the hall. They had identical hair, faces, clothes, and outfits, so for a moment, the magistrate couldn’t tell which was his wife and which was the woman from the painting. He groaned inwardly: Oh no！ One wife is already hard enough to deal with, and now there’s another. How am I supposed to live like this！ As he agonized over the situation, “Smack！” A slap hit him on the left cheek. He turned his head—and “Smack！” Another slap hit his right cheek. One wife yelled, “I’ll beat you to death, you unfaithful scoundrel！” The other wife yelled the same thing.

The two slaps left the magistrate bruised and swollen. With no choice, he begged Guaimei for mercy. Hearing his plea, Guaimei gestured, and the woman from the painting returned to the scroll.

The magistrate thought, “It was easy to summon Guaimei, but it’s unbearable not to get anything out of it.” So he asked her to paint something else. Guaimei had already guessed what scheme he was hatching. As he picked up his brush and swiftly painted a large official seal, the moment he stopped, the seal floated off the paper and landed right in front of the magistrate. The magistrate was overjoyed. His biggest frustration was his low rank. With a prefectural seal, he would become a prefect. Without even thinking about Guaimei still being in the hall, he scooped up the seal and ran into his room, shouting, “I’ve been promoted！ I’ve been promoted！ I’m a prefect now！”

That night, he couldn’t sleep a wink, grinning foolishly at the seal. But before he could fully enjoy his dream, he was suddenly jolted awake by loud banging on the gate. A servant rushed in to inform him: “Disaster！ The Wuling Prefecture seal has gone missing, and they’re investigating here！”

The magistrate turned pale with fright. Before he could even get up, a group of officers stormed into his bedroom. They yanked off the covers, tied him up tightly, and found the prefectural seal hidden under the blankets. They threaded a rope through the seal, hung it around the magistrate’s neck, and dragged him outside. When they reached the yamen gate, the magistrate saw Guaimei standing by the road, smiling at him. He dropped to his knees with a thud and begged for mercy. Hearing his plea, Guaimei gestured, and the seal around the magistrate’s neck vanished, along with the officers. Just as the magistrate was bewildered, he suddenly saw a painting hanging in front of him, depicting the officers holding the prefectural seal and staring at him.

This time, the magistrate truly realized how formidable Guaimei was. But still not willing to give up any advantage, he racked his brains day and night until he came up with a new idea: he would ask Guaimei to paint a peach blossom forest and transplant it in front of and behind his house. In this way, his home would become a Peach Blossom Spring. And once he retired, wouldn’t he have a perfect retreat？

The magistrate sent for Guaimei again. She immediately guessed his intentions and thought, “Alright, let me show you some more of my power.” Guaimei picked up her brush and began painting peach trees on the paper. Tree after tree, each covered in bright red blossoms. In the blink of an eye, they formed a red cloud of blooms. The magistrate urged her to quickly transfer the peach blossoms from the painting to his yard. Guaimei said the blossoms couldn’t be moved—only the house could be moved into the painting. The magistrate then ordered the house to be moved in immediately. By the time Guaimei finished moving the yamen into the painting, the magistrate was left alone on a bare plot of land. The magistrate was in a dilemma. If he tried to enter the painting, Guaimei said there was no space left. But if he stayed outside, he had neither yamen nor seal. How could he preside over court without a yamen？ What kind of official was he without a seal？ He urgently asked Guaimei to move the yamen and seal back out of the painting. Guaimei said it couldn’t be done that way—it required wind. The magistrate then urged her to paint wind immediately.

“Swish swish swish,” Guaimei painted wind with just a few strokes. The moment she finished, gusts of wind came roaring out of the painting. The wind blew and blew, eventually whipping off the magistrate’s official hat. The wind shook the peach tree branches, sending petals fluttering down and swirling into a red cloud that drifted north. Then another gust of wind came—“Crack！” “Boom！”—and the yamen collapsed entirely.

When the wind died down, peach blossom petals covered the ground for miles around. Coincidentally, this area was full of rocky mountains. As the petals landed on the rocks, they quickly melted and seeped into the stone. And so, to this very day, these rocks still bloom with peach blossoms deep inside.