Immortality in Qinghe is never a gift. It is a parasite, a failed surgery, or a dream puppet that outlives the person it was meant to save.
[spoiler]In the Witherwilds, poison-master Ba Wu raised the "immortal sage" myth; Chen Huaiqing left with an antidote formula sealed in a lamp and never returned. The earth tore open into the Gleaming Abyss; Ba Wu used the Toad King's parasite to grant quasi-immortality to swallowed villagers — the origin of Dream Puppets.
Sun Buqi, expelled from the Silver Needles, brought Liu Qingyi to the abyss after Kaifeng fungus research failed. He poisoned Wraith Village to host the organism; Liu Qingyi, as the Deer Goddess behind a deer mask, eased symptoms until her suicide in 936. Li Zuo named his ward Void (Wuxiang) and continued the line; the child later crosses Jiang Yan at Zhongdu Bridge in 946.
Tian Ying's 952 wedding-feast horror in Wraith Village births the Lunar Goddess legend. Chai Rong's 955 Buddhist suppression (Miaoshan = Tian Ying) closes the pre-962 tapestry that the Gleaming Abyss campaign revisits on the surface.[/spoiler]
*Based on analysis by [fwalicia](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYiieNxEKskaAzhrmA0p7iQ).*
