Of A Good Beginning; Cometh A Good End
- Chinese proverbs
Far out in the skies and seas, in between Heavens and the mortal realms, was a small, obscure island, that the all seeing Heavens even missed, lived many lowly sprites and demons. Most of these beings, some used to be humans and some were demons, all of them trying to cultivate and ascend immortality as a fairy. There were some that were the small demons, defenseless against the natural order of survival of the fittest, being the bottom of the food chain. In this island, life was slow and peaceful, with all beings live harmoniously together, in perfect conduct, trying to achieve immortality.
Amongst these hopeful cultivators, was a plump, sweet looking, peach and just like the rest of the island residents, she was also hopeful to ascend to a higher level immortal - a fairy. From a fairy, she can work hard so she could be a higher level fairy to one day step into Heavens. Such was the common goal as the rest of the hardworking cultivators, which was to work hard to strive for achieving a great cultivation level could be exemplar enough to gain entrance to the celestial paradise, Heavens.
Being allowed into Heavens was already considered a rare opportunity and privilege. It was a place rumored to be grandly beautiful with lots of Heaven tribe of fairies, immortals, gods, and goddesses, wondrous gardens, and many other fun things to do. All of these appeal to the little peach sprite and she was excited with the idea of a new place, motivating her to cultivate hard, alike the rest cultivators.
Even with all the effort and time, the little sprite spent on, taking time away from her play time, she felt she was nowhere close to breakthrough into a fairy level. She had watched how others, who came and cultivated, broke through higher levels of immortality and even had their trials of heavenly tribulations before ascending up to that famed place. She felt that as a native to the island, she was stuck to the ground, like her core was rooted to this island.
Not fair, she did not even know how to cultivate properly in the first place. She had watched others and she mimicked them. Some sat below shade, directly under the sun, by the lake, under the waterfall, but all of them closed their eyes to cultivate. So that was what she did too but unlike them, who stayed in same sitting position, she always find herself in a different corner and under the leaves after she cultivated.
The little sprite stayed positive, rejoice for those who broke through their cultivation levels, and welcomed newcomers. Some creatures were washed up or had accidentally chanced upon the island by flying in. There were no records of existing native islanders, the little sprite maybe an orphaned or abandoned child of the native islanders who had ascended and left the poor child behind. No one knew, even the little sprite had no recollection of how she turned up in the island.
The only one who knew where she came from was her first Island friend, DaShu (大树), a kindly old willow tree Sprite. He said she appeared sleeping under his feet when he hibernated during winter. First, she had 5-limb figure, like those he had seen before but just different coloring when he was a seedling and washed to this island, she looked so delicate with her red clothes around her torn and dirty from the wind and rain, sleeping carelessly, so he took pity and created a hut made of leaves and branches shielding her.
After many Seasons passed, there were many donations appearing in front of the hut for his house guest, such as new clothing and other supplies for the sleeping figure. Some kind islanders also came to clean her and his guest's skin no Longer dirty with red and crusts. One day, the 5 limp figure turned into yellow peach with specks of shininess, similar to his leaves when they turn color during autumn and shimmering under the sun.
When she woke up, her skin was still shallow yellow albeit glowing, but her pretty eyes were bright with intelligence and curiosity, looking around her surroundings and asking with her hoarse voice where she was. DaShu, gave her a leaf filled with morning dew to nourish her. He was initially surprised to know she could speak and assumed she must have already cultivated to high sprite level, hence able to switch to the supposed 5 limb figure. He remembered he had to cultivate for some time until he could convey his thoughts to speech form.
His new guest was full of surprises when she was able to move by rolling then later move easily like floating, he did not want to admit that his view of life is limited to his youthful seedling teaching by his mother tree and to this new island life that he came to when the sudden wind blew him and fellow seedlings here, separating his norm and rooting to the new life.
Acting like an old wise sage, he told his new guest that she was a different species of peach and came here as she came here- blown by the wind and landed on him. She just looked at him with her large expressive eyes and nodding her head of acknowledgment and making her mouth O with realization.
The garden small sprites caught the wind that a new member of the island had awoken and came to the leafy hut next to DaShu. Their eagerness to make a new friend was spontaneous and the little peach sprite diminished her thoughts of wondering where she came, completely threw those questions out of her mind and embraced her new life, excited on the new prospects. She looked around and saw her so-called peach reflection and the flowers around her and called herself TaoHua (桃花), proud of her pretty name.
Since some of the garden sprites had seen her 5limbs figure when she was sleeping, they were quite perturbed how she looked with the foreign and strangeness being patchy red and blue-black and funny torn clothing. Thinking her new friends could not get used to her 5 limbs looks, she maintained her fruit shape and had been this way, forgotten how her 5 limbs even look like and switched to that shape. They all preferred her current shape and commented on her strong fruity peach fragrance and somewhat shiny appearance.
Life in the island was very peaceful, almost boring most of the times, keeping near to the clearing where DaShu had set roots, sleeping inside the leafy hut, next to DaShu, throughout winters and autumns, playing with other sprites during springs and summers, getting herself muddy and only clean when the rain came to shower all the beings in the garden.
TaoHua becoming shinier and shinier as times went by, especially when she was playing did not escape DaShu and he only told her to dim it down with dirt so her shininess is not too glaring and attract unintended attention, like predators. Hence, the clearing's little TaoHua was always dirty and muddy. TaoHua entire peach shape became shiny yellow albeit all the dirt, glowing around her when she had innovative ideas such as when she realized, she had skills to draw and write while playing with a small stick.
After that, she decidedly no longer rolled around with the small sprites and started to draw and taught the small sprites how to write on the ground. The small sprites loved to follow TaoHua around like ducklings following the mother duck.
DaShu, like the nagging uncle or brother to TaoHua, to be careful of this and that, cleaning after all the mess, she and her little islander friends did make TaoHua felt at home. Thus, wherever she ran off playing, she would return and be close to her family, making the clearing her new home.
TaoHua, the ringleader of the little ones had many antics that she never failed to amuse the Islanders. One day she scared the entire clearing residents when TaoHua made fire from striking two stones and stick a twig in between. Everyone shuffled around, scampering to escape the fire, trying their best to get out of the scene, fearing for their dear lives. DaShu was shocked but quickly got the situation under control by using his leaves to press the small fire and extinguished it before it spread. After a while, DaShu gave TaoShu a glare and even though he constantly nagged at her not to do certain things, that day he badly scolded TaoHua until she teared up and cried for a night, feeling bad scaring everyone.
The following day, before DaShu could clean up her mess, TaoHua with her head down, saw the burnt twig and bent down and pick the twig up and used the blackened tip and fiddled it on the ground. She saw the black traces left and started to use it to write. She excitedly turned and told DaShu she wanted to create more burnt sticks to his horror. She quickly calmed him down saying she would do it far away and with glowing shape and her large eyes, she managed to soften this big tree and convince DaShu to leave the space out of his protection to venture a little out of the boundaries to make her burnt sticks.
With her new collection of burnt sticks, she practiced drawing on leaves and barks but TaoHua soon got bored with drawing and wanted to do other recreational things such as hearing to music. Other than listening to the music created by the wind and the tunes she blew in between the leaves. Even the flute she made by making holes into hollowed narrow bamboo did not satisfy her. Her fingers itched and she made strumming finger movements in the air. She thought about it and quickly drew what she wanted to make next.
Silk strings were given by the moths, and a piece of hollowed log that she had carefully sanded with rough bark, she strung the strings and made her music instrument, she called Qin. She slowly tweaked around the 7 strings and put her ears close to hear the sounds and timbre, adjusting until she found it to her satisfaction.
With her new qin, she made several melodies than to longer pieces, it didn't produce a good quality but the beings were happy to hear the music. The music attracted more animals to come forth and plants to bow closer to listen in. TaoHua hummed along and she opened her mouth and loosened her vocal chords and sang to her peers, delighting them. Her voice to them was close to being near the clouds above leading to Heavens. She also danced to them but her round peach figure just seemed like rolling and floating on the ground, bewildering her audience. Her growing audience made DaShu proud of his little friend, whom he viewed as his little sister. Who knew the dirty little thing that he found near his roots could be so talented?
