THE STORY & ITS AFTERLIVES
Mount Guang carries green jasper above and abundant waters below. The god Jimeng dwells there: a human body crowned with a dragon's head. He spends his days swimming the deep pools of the Zhang River, and every entry and exit is attended by whirlwinds and violent rain.
In Warring States and Han thought the dragon is the rain-bringer, and the dragon-headed Jimeng has accordingly been read as an early god of wind and rain. His range, the Jing mountains threaded by the Zhang and Ju rivers, lies in the heartland of ancient Chu.
Gods whose passage shows a sign cluster throughout the central mountains: Taifeng and Yu'er come and go in light, Gengfu rises glowing from the Qingling pool, and the two daughters of the supreme god on Mount Dongting move, like Jimeng, in gale and storm. A god's crossing never goes unmarked; light and tempest are the two liveries these gods travel under.
