"Our land rests on the body of a dragon, and its borders extended to the tip of the dragon's head during a time of great change. The great barrier was established soon after." It seems Hong Meiling continues to hide her true self. I miss the old days. You are an enigma. However, there are only so many beings whose fate I cannot read in the stars.

The vampire Remilia Scarlet, also known as the Scarlet Devil, employs many servants. Her mansion is a terrifying den of youkai and monsters, though a human or two lives there as well. A craze swept through this mansion for a time. Everyone was entranced by the action-packed manga published by the tengu. Remilia and Meiling, in particular, couldn't get enough of it. The magician, who hardly ever leaves her library, looked down on manga, saying it was for children, but it's rumored that she eventually began reading it in secret. The tengu must have quite a sophisticated culture to not only publish their own newspapers but draw their own manga as well. Perhaps this started because cartoons published in newspapers are an effective means of conveying ideas and opinions to the masses. Whatever the case, they probably read manga from the outside world that wound up in Gensokyo and used it as inspiration to create their own.

There are conflicting theories about where the Scarlet Devil Mansion resided before it came to Gensokyo. Meiling is undeniably Chinese, so it's quite strange that she works at an obviously European mansion. Then again, Western culture spread to the East over the ages, and Chinese youkai migrated to the West. This, of course, begs the question as to where and when Remilia and Meiling met. I would really like to know. Similar to Japan, there was a time in China's history when youkai prospered. Ancient gods and powerful elemental spirits walked the land as new philosophies took root, producing all kinds of powerful magics. Humans waged war upon one another as transcendental beings dueled behind the scenes. It was only later, in an age of peace, that humans discovered hints of these beings and recorded them. That is how most legends and stories about youkai are created.

As the gatekeeper of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, it is Meiling's job to guard the gate. However, since so many people in Gensokyo can fly, this "gate" isn't limited to the physical structure on the ground. She has to defend against intruders from all sides... Well, she has to try, at least. Gates, by nature, are a type of boundary. Thus, those who defend boundaries are gatekeepers. There are quite a few beings who fit this definition of gatekeeper within Gensokyo, and one always seems to appear and participate in battles of bullets whenever an incident occurs.

Qi is what those in the outside world refer to as "energy," and the flow of qi is the law of conservation of energy in motion. In the outside world, it was long thought that things were defined by the mass of their components and that energy was merely a quantifiable variable of its state. However, humans later realized that mass is essentially just energy in another form. It is natural to only believe in things that you can see with your eyes and touch with your hands, but then you would be fooling yourself. All things on this Earth and all the stars in the heavens are qi. They are merely in different states of flux. I'm sure you'll remember that one day, Meiling.