Full article coming soon - here is a preview
She is the oldest and most powerful goddess in the Shan Hai Jing. Her original description is nothing like the gentle matriarch of later Chinese folklore. Tiger teeth. Leopard tail. Wild, matted hair. A piercing sheng ornament on her head. She dwells on Mount Yu in the Western Mountains and holds dominion over the five calamities and the five punishments of heaven. She also possesses the elixir of immortality - the substance that Chang'e stole, that emperors sent fleets to find, that alchemists spent lifetimes trying to synthesize. This is her story as the Shan Hai Jing tells it, before two thousand years of retelling softened her into something safer.