Long Nü, Guan Yin's Other Assistant

Long Nü, Guan Yin's Other Assistant

Right, so we talked about Guan Yin and her assistant, Shancai/Sudhana, but we haven’t talked about her other assistant, Longnü. I had to take some time finding out who she was and what she did, and tada! We have a story about how she came to be with Guan Yin! It goes like this:

Longnü was the youngest daughter of the Dragon King of the EastSea– um, yeah I know, way to state the obvious – and basically, she was really pretty, and her father loved her very much. Anyway, Longnü was real interested in the world of Man, and when she heard that there was a Fish Lantern Festival she was like, “Dad, can I please go?”

And since the Dragon King really loved his daughter and shiz, he was all, “No. The human world is too chaotic for you, fo’ realz.”

Longnü was real upset about this so she stamped her foot and cried, and told herself that even if her daddy didn’t let her go, she would find a way anyway.

So, like a total teenager, she snuck out of the palace and changed into a human, a fisherwoman of some sort. After that, she walked into the city, and boy was she amazed! There were so many kinds of fish there, so much light and firecrackers, and she really loved bein’ in all the hustle of the celebrations.

Then, it began to rain, which really sucked. Longnü got really scared, ‘cause if it rained, she would change back into a dragon. And she totally couldn’t do that, ‘cause she would ruin the celebration. She ran to the sea as quickly as she could so she could change there, and when she nearly reached the beach, a blast of thunder hit her and she like, totally changed into a fish, which sucked even more.

Anyway, at this point in time, two fishermen walked past, and they were all like, “WTF? Why is there a fish here?”

The first one was all, “Eh, there’s somethin’ fishy ‘bout this fish, it must totally be inauspicious and shiz,” but the other dude was all, “Nowai, bro. It’s bigger than whatever we’ve caught and we’re like, so gonna make a lotta money wit’ this, so let’s sell it!”

Which is so what they did.

While the two fishermen were like, carrying Longnü to the market, Guan Yin was in the heavens, watchin’ everythin’ and she told Shancai/Sudhana, “Hey, go to the market and buy the fish.”

Shancai was all, “But we ain’t got no money!”

“Chill. Take the silver coins from the incense burner, k?”

Shancai saw that Guan Yin’s incense burner had some coins, and so that’s what he did.

Meanwhile, at the marketplace, errybody was lookin’ at the fish, and they were like, pretty impressed wit’ it. They also didn’t know what to do wit’ it, though, and they were sittin’ there, talkin’. Finally, one dude had an idea and told the fishermen, “This fish is too big to sell, yo! You should totally cut it up into parts!”

The fishermen thought this was like, the best idea ever, and so, someone got a knife and started to cut the fish. Just when they were about to slice it into many pieces, they saw that the fish was crying!

And that was when Shancai came in and was all, “Stop! I’ll buy the fish!”

Errybody was all, “WUUUT? I thought monks don’t eat fish! Does he like, not want to be a monk anymore?”

But Shancai was all, “No, dudes. I’m like, totally gonna release it.” So he made the fishermen carry it to the sea. Once they released the fish, she swam into the depths.

Shancai paid the fishermen, but once the coins touched the fishermens’ fingers, they changed back into incense! Shancai totally disappeared, too.

When Longnü got back, she saw that her father was waaaay pissed off. He was so pissed off that all his attendants, the turtles and the prawns and the crabs were like, shivering! But she had to go to him and fess up, so she told him errything that happened.

The Dragon King felt real sorry for his daughter, but he didn’t want Guan Yin to rat on the Jade Emperor that this happened ‘cause it would make him look bad (way to care about ‘saving face’ ). So even though he felt sorry fo’ his daughter, he was all, “You have to be punished for disobeying me! I hereby banish you!”

And you thought being grounded was bad.

So Longnü had like, nowhere to go, and she was really sad. She started crying, and since Guan Yin was the ‘Hearer of Cries,’ she totally heard Longnü. So she sent Shancai down to get her.

Shancai finally met up with Longnü and was all, “Hey, wassup?”

“Oh my god, you’re the dude who saved me! Thanks, by the way.”

“No prob. Anyway, Guan Yin totally invited us to chill wit’ her, so let’s go.”

Which is what they did.

Longnü bowed to Guan Yin and stuff, and Guan Yin totally let Shancai and Longnü live in a cave, which later came to be called as Shancai-Longnü cave. And that’s pretty much how Longnü came to serve Guan Yin.