The story of Yunxiao

Yunxiao lived on Three Immortals Isle with Qiongxiao and Bixiao, and the Hunyuan Golden Dipper and the Golden Serpent Scissors were kept there. When Zhao Gongming had lost the Sea-Stilling Pearls and the dragon-binding cord he came to the isle, told his three sisters how the war at Western Qi stood, and asked for the Golden Serpent Scissors.

Yunxiao heard him out and did not hand the treasure over at once. She urged him to go back to his mountain and stay out of the quarrel between the sects; seeing that she would not agree, Zhao Gongming took his leave of the cave.

Hanzhi Xian came to Three Immortals Isle afterwards, heard that Zhao Gongming had gone away empty-handed, and pressed Yunxiao to help. Only then did she bring out the Golden Serpent Scissors and send them to the Shang camp; Zhao Gongming fought Randeng again with them, and died soon after under the Seven-Arrow Book of Nails.

When the news reached the isle, Yunxiao and her two sisters left the cave with the Hunyuan Golden Dipper and the Golden Serpent Scissors. They came to the Shang camp, met Wen Zhong, and then went out to the lines to demand from Jiang Ziya and the Chan disciples an account of Zhao Gongming’s death.

The two sides fought before the lines. Jiang Ziya raised the God-Beating Whip and struck Yunxiao from her blue simurgh. Bixiao came up to help her and was bitten by Yang Jian’s howling celestial hound; Hanzhi Xian opened her wind bag and a black wind swept the field, and the Coloured Cloud Immortal wounded Jiang Ziya with an eye-piercing pearl.

After taking an elixir, Yunxiao chose six hundred soldiers from Wen Zhong’s camp and drilled a formation with Qiongxiao, Bixiao, Hanzhi Xian and the Coloured Cloud Immortal at the rear of the camp, following the nine palaces and eight trigrams. Half a month later the Nine-Bend Yellow River Formation was complete, its name hung above the gate and its banners of five colours unfurled in the black mist.

Yang Jian came first to try the formation. Yunxiao raised the Hunyuan Golden Dipper, and a stream of golden light drew him into it and threw him inside the Yellow River Formation. Jinzha raised the Dragon-Binding Stake to save him, and the stake too was taken by the dipper, and Jinzha fell in with it.

Muzha, Nezha and Huang Tianhua came one after another and were all taken as well. Randeng ordered the Twelve Golden Immortals of the Chan Sect into the formation in turn, and Yunxiao raised the dipper again, drawing Wenshu, Puxian, Cihang, Taiyi, Huanglong and the rest inside.

The Twelve Golden Immortals lay in the nine bends as though drunk, the three flowers of their crowns and the five breaths of their breasts stripped away, years of cultivation gone in a day. Outside, only Randeng and Jiang Ziya were left, and being unable to free them they could only wait for Yuanshi Tianzun to come in person.

Yuanshi reached Western Qi first, and Laozi came after him on the green buffalo. As the two sect-heads entered the Nine-Bend Yellow River Formation, Yunxiao saw five-coloured light rising from the pagoda above Laozi’s head and knew her elder had come; still she went out with her two sisters to meet them.

Qiongxiao’s Golden Serpent Scissors and Bixiao’s Hunyuan Golden Dipper were taken by Laozi one after another. The three sisters then left the eight-trigram terrace and came straight at the two sect-heads with drawn swords; Laozi shook out the Qiankun Diagram, wrapped Yunxiao inside it, and had the yellow-scarfed strongmen carry her to be pinned beneath Qilin Cliff.

Investiture of the Gods writes that the strongmen pinned Yunxiao under Qilin Cliff and then accounts for the end only with the words that the three ladies were no more, without describing her death. Jiang Ziya later opened the roll and installed Yunxiao with Qiongxiao and Bixiao as the Immortal Ladies Who Answer the Age, with charge of the Hunyuan Golden Dipper.