Note 3 — ‘Brother and Sister’
Reading edition
After King Miao Chuang had burned the Nunnery of the White Bird and killed his daughter, Ch’ieh Lan Buddha presented a petition to Yü Huang praying that the crime be not allowed to go unpunished. Yü Huang, justly irritated, ordered P’an Kuan to consult the Register of the Living and the Dead to see how long this homicidal King had yet to live. P’an Kuan turned over the pages of his register, and saw that according to the divine ordinances the King’s reign on the throne of Hsing Lin should last for twenty years, but that this period had not yet expired.3 “That which has been decreed is immutable,” said Yü Huang, “but I will punish him by sending him illness.” He called the God of Epidemics, and ordered him to afflict the King’s body with ulcers, of a kind which could not be healed except by remedies to be given him by his daughter Miao Shan.