Elixir of Immortality
The elixir of immortality is the drug of eternal life that the Queen Mother of the West, Xiwangmu, is said to have kept in her paradise of Kunlun, and it is the pivot of one of the most famous tales in Chinese mythology. The archer Hou Yi obtained the elixir as a reward for shooting down the nine suns, but his wife Chang'e swallowed it to keep it from a thief, and was lifted to the moon where she lives forever in the cold lunar palace. The tale, recorded in Han-era sources such as Huainanzi, gave the moon its goddess, and the jade rabbit that pounds herbs in a mortar is her companion on the lu