Legend of Kwan Yin
Soon the fame of the princess who lived in the monastery reached the ears of the king. Thinking that the monks were helping Miao Shan, he ordered fire to set to the monastery.
When Miao Shan (Kwan Yin) saw the fire spreading, she took one of her hair clips and pierced her tongue. It shed a lot of blood with which she obliterated all the fire of the monastery.
The King, upon learning what had happened, became terrified and ordered the killing of Miao Shan. When the executioner came, she smiled at him and said beforehand that she would forgive him for what he would do. More than that, Miao Shan vowed to take all his karma for the life of the hangman that he had acquired, so that when he died, he could go directly to Tian[1].
Still, at the moment the executioner brought the ax down on Miao Shan, it broke itself into hundreds of pieces. The same happened with the sword and the sickle. Even the arrows diverted their course; and no matter the distance, they did not touch her body. Desperate, the executioner was forced to take the life of Miao Shan with own hands. And yet, she forgave him.
It just happened that, with all the karma that she took from the executioner, she ended up going down to the last plane of Diyu[2]. As the story goes, on her arrival in Hell, the flames were quenched, and flowers burst into bloom. She then began to take the karma of all murderers who were there, freeing of all the negative energy, so they could leave that plane and return to the cycle of reincarnation. Yanluo, the presiding officer, looked on in dismay at what seemed to be the summary abolition of his post, and visibly afraid to see his kingdom destroyed and fearing that she would free all the Diyu, he sent her back to the plane of the living.
Back on the earth, she began traveled as a hermit, finally stopping at a little cave on Mount Fragrance, where Kwan Yin dedicated herself to meditation and helping those in need.
[1] Tian is the Chinese heaven, equivalent to paradise.
[2] Similar to the Dantean Inferno of the Divine Comedy, the Chinese Hell is divided into ten levels, where the latter is reserved only for the worst murderers.
