Xiwangmu, the Queen Mother of the West, is an ancient figure — she appears in the Shanhaijing with tiger's teeth and a leopard's tail, a fearsome mistress of plagues and punishments, and is progressively refined over centuries into a beautiful sovereign of the immortals dwelling in the Kunlun mountains. Her peach orchard produces fruit that ripens once in three thousand years and confers immortality on whoever eats it. The stories cluster around unauthorised access: King Mu of Zhou visits and feasts with her; the emperor Han Wudi receives peaches from her and is told there is no point planting the stones; and in the great popular version, Journey to the West, the Monkey King is put in charge of the orchard, eats his way through it, wrecks the Peach Banquet and cannot subsequently be killed, having become immortal several times over. The pattern is consistent and cheerful — the immortality, once acquired, is not revocable by the administration whose rules were broken.