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Updated Monday, February 23, 2009 9:46 am TWN, By Joe Hung, The China Post

Lady White IV

Lady White and Xu Xian, after their encounters with Fahai, are able to lead a happy life in Hangzhou. She gives birth to a baby boy. But Fahai doesn't let them go. He comes to their apothecary when they celebrate the full-moon anniversary of the birth of their son. (It is customary for parents to mark the passing of one full moon or 30 days after childbirth.) Fahai gets a Skanda, who is a Buddhist god whose job is to keep evils away and guard the temple, to catch Lady White weakened after childbirth. She is put into a gold alms bowl, brought to the temple and made prisoner at Lei-feng ta (雷峰塔) or Thunder Peak Pagoda. As a matter of fact, the bowl is buried under the pagoda. Xu Xian dies of grief.

Their son, Xu Shilin (許仕林), has brought up by a relative. He becomes a scholar and passes the highest-level civil service examination supra cum laude. In fact, he is zhuang yuan (狀元), who is the top successful candidate in the test the emperor gives in court after the highest-level civil service examination. On return to his native town, Xu Shilin is told his mother is still kept in the gold alms bowl buried under the Thunder Peak Pagoda. He goes to the pagoda to perform rites in memory of Lady White. Heaven takes pity on them and lets Lady White come out of her imprisonment. She meets her son and tells him of the whole story about her life. The meeting ends after the story is told. Lady White has to come back to her gold alms bowl buried under the pagoda.

Another version of the story of Lady White is titled Bai Niangzhi yong-zhen Lei-feng ta (白娘子永鎮雷峰塔) or Lady White Eternally Buried under Thunder Peak Pagoda in Jing Shi Tong Yan (警世通言) or Common Stories to Warn the World by Feng Menglan (馮世蘭).

Feng's story has the same prologue depicting the karma of Xu Xian, Lady White and Xiao Qing. Feng then describes Lady White and Xiao Qing, who are sworn sisters, as living in a limbo, where they try to do good things by bringing rain to places where there has been drought for three years. But Xiao Qing makes a mistake. She causes a rainstorm that floods a whole town. As a result, Lady White loses her chance to become a goddess. But Avalokitesvara or the Goddess of Mercy tells Lady White all is not lost. Lady White still has another opportunity.

By accident, however, Lady White and her bond sister bring Xu Xian and his friend to the demon world. Lady White has to protect them from the demons. It is then and there that Xu Xian confesses his feelings for Lady White, claiming he falls in love with her at first sight. Because Xu Xian is a human, he has to be knocked by ghosts who will make him forget everything so that he may leave the demon world. He knows it full well and tries what he can not to be so knocked so that he may stay together with Lady White. But Fahai succeeds in tricking Xu Xian into being knocked by a ghost. So Xu Xian is back to the human world, oblivious of what has happened to him. His friend is also back in the human world. But they leave the demon world through different portals and land in separate places. Xu Xian lands at Hangzhou, where he meets many new people.

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