Strict ½ demigod — the cleanest East Asian match for the registry's strict criterion (deity mother Sanshengmu + mortal father Liu Yanchang, divine status of the mother holding under both traditions of her parentage). Canonical filial-piety hero of late-imperial Chinese popular culture; the Bao Lian Deng cycle is the most reproduced mother-rescue narrative in the corpus. Mountain-cleaving rescue inherits the narrative template directly from Erlang Shen — both demigods use the same Heaven-Splitting Axe to free an imprisoned divine mother, marking Chen Xiang's cycle as Erlang's structural sequel. In the Erlang's-sister tradition stratum the inversion is sharper: Erlang freed his mother from celestial imprisonment, Chen Xiang frees his mother from imprisonment imposed by Erlang himself, making nephew and uncle structural mirrors. Per Bao Lian Deng (Tang folk-cycle, Yuan-Ming drama); 1999 Shanghai Animation Film Studio adaptation.