lazuli and langgan gem (fashioned in) a hair clasp and earring will be used as a thousand gold pieces, we can obtain [i.e., defeat] [the inhabitants] of the Kunlun deserts eight thousand li away and make them pay court. Therefore if resources are not commandeered, economies will not connect, those distant from each other will have nothing to use for their common interest and the four yi will not be obtained and come to court. Xun Kuang's 3rd century BCE Confucian classic Xunzi has a context criticizing elaborate burials that uses dan'gan 丹矸 (with dān 丹 "cinnabar" and gān 矸 "waste rock", with the "stone radical" and same gān 干 phonetic) and langgan 琅玕. In these ancient times, the body was covered with pearls and jades, the inner coffin was filled with beautifully ornamented embroideries, and he outer coffin was filled with yellow gold and decorated with cinnabar [丹矸] with added layers of laminar verdite. [In the outer tomb chamber were] rhinoceros and elephant ivory fashioned into trees, with precious rubies [琅玕], magnetite lodestones, and flowering aconite for their fruit." (18.7) John Knoblock translates langgan as "rubies", noting perhaps the genuine ruby or balas spinel, were connected with the cult of immortality, and cites the Shanhaijing saying they grow on Mount Kunlun's Fuchang trees, and the Zhen'gao saying that adepts swallow "ruby blossoms" to feign death and become transcendents. Early Chinese dictionaries define langgan. The c. 4th-3rd century BCE Erya geography section (9 Shidi 釋地) lists valuable products from the various regions of ancient China: "The beautiful things of the northwest are the qiulin [璆琳] and langgan gemstones from the wastelands [虛] of Kunlun Mountain". The 121 CE Shuowen jiezi (Jade Radical section 玉部) has two consecutive definitions for lang 琅 and gan 玕. Lang is [used in] langgan, which "resembles a pearl [似珠者]", Gan is [used in] langgan, paraphrasing the Yu Gong, "Yong Province [using the ancient yōng 雝 character for yōng 雍] [produces] qiulin and langgan [gems] [球琳琅玕]". Three sections about western Chinese mountains in the c. 4th-2nd centuries BCE Shanhaijing "Classic of Mountains and Seas" record early geographic legends associating langgan with Xi Wang Mu "Queen Mother of the West" who lives on Jade Mountain in the mythological axis mundi Kunlun Mountain paradise. Two mention langgan gems and one mentions langganshu 琅玕樹 trees. The Shanhaijing translator Anne Birrell exemplifies the difficulties of translating the word langgan in