Myth Retold

Hello, I am Chang'e, and this is my story. My myth is a rather short one with a bitter ending. First off, I would like to introduce you to my husband, Yi. I love him very much. He loves me to such an extent, that he never wants us to die, but always be together. There is only one thing that can do this for us, though. It is a special elixir of immortality that comes from Xi Wang Mu, the Queen of the West.

Yi sets out in search of the elixir. It takes him a long time, but he is determined and eventually comes home with it in his possession. He tells me that Xi Wang Mu told him to split the elixir equally between us, and we will both live happily for eternity. As I might have mentioned, I am not very comfortable with my physical shape. I had heard from a few people, that with enough of this elixir, your body slims down and you look amazing. So I thought why not? It can't hurt, right?

Wrong. I could not have been more wrong. Before I knew it, I started to get dizzy, and eventually fell asleep. When I woke up, I was quite confused, because my surroundings looked completely different. I was on the moon. And I looked completely different, too. I was a toad. And ugly, shedding, striped toad. So this was my punishment. Stuck on the moon in the form of the most ugly creature possible. And Yi wasn't with me, either. I was all alone.

But I wasn't really alone. In the distance, there was the shadows of two other creatures. Once I reached them, I saw that one was a white hare, and the other was a man, who I later learned was named Wu Kang. The hare was on the moon for no apparent reason. He spent his time annoying Wu Kang, and eventually me, and trying to make an elixir of immortality himself. Wu Kang was on the moon as punishment. He was condemned to chop down a great, red, cassia tree. This task, which might seem easy, is actually impossible, because the cassia tree is in fact, itself, immortal. Whenever its trunk gets cut from Wu Kang's axe, it only repairs itself.

Time goes by, and I am still stuck on the moon, alone, ugly, and bored. Wu Kang continues to tire himself trying to achieve something that simply cannot be done. The white hare, who may or may not be the Jade Rabbit just keeps on making concoctions that all fail to be an elixir of immortality. This is the end. Other than a jade palace, one that has no purpose, appearing, nothing changes. The three of us remain on the moon for eternity.