Jiaying

"Your mother was special because she had a gift. She comes from a line of people who have gifts. You have a gift. It’s why I brought you here, so you can receive it. It’s your birthright. There’s a transformation… a change that has to happen."

- Calvin Zabo to Skye

Jiaying is an Inhuman gifted with longevity after experiencing Terrigenesis. Thanks to her ability, she was able to guide a number of Inhumans throughout dozens of generations, helping them to cope with their powers, and in time, harness them. She worked in a clinic in China alongside her husband, Calvin Zabo, and had a daughter whom they named Daisy. Jiaying was captured and vivisected by Werner Reinhardt, who believed he had killed her. In truth, her body was found by her husband, who stitched her back together, allowing her healing powers to work.

World War II
"No. Please, don't. Don't do this."

- Jiaying

Near the end of World War II, Jiaying was captured by Werner Reinhardt and used as an unwilling test subject to discover the abilities of the Diviner. When she survived her contact with the Diviner, Reinhardt sought to have her experimented on to discover why she could safely touch the artifact. However, with the Allies rapidly approaching, Reinhardt was forced to flee, but not before ordering Jiaying to be locked in a cage. She would later be found and freed by a Strategic Scientific Reserve team led by Peggy Carter.

Mother Figure
"It's going to be okay, beautiful; I'll show you the way."

- Jiaying to Gordon

By 1983, Jiaying was the mother figure of those Inhumans who emerged confused after Terrigenesis. Her power of longevity allowed her to help many generations of young Inhumans adapt to their metamorphosis. One such person was Gordon, who lost his eyes upon emergence from the mist. She calmed him and got him to control his power of teleportation.

Family
Jiaying fell in love with Calvin Zabo, a medic who opened a clinic in the village. Since his Chinese was poor, she helped with translations. In April of 1989, the couple had a baby girl they named Daisy, to whom she often sang the song . The pair lived together in her village in the Hunan Province of China, where she was considered a village elder, since the locals were aware of her unusual nature and true age.

Found by HYDRA
"What did you take from her, sir?" "Everything that I possibly could. Dispose of the rest."

- Hauer and Werner Reinhardt

In 1989, Jiaying was one of the elders of the Chinese village where the Diviner was found, and was among those who were brought to Austria by HYDRA operatives operating within S.H.I.E.L.D. After Reinhardt learned that she was alive and physically unaged, he was finally able to experiment on her. She died as a result of the subsequent surgery, which involved the removal of her organs and bodily fluids. Although Reinhardt was unable to find out why she survived touching the Diviner, the experimentation was still beneficial to him, as he was able to use her DNA to regress his body back to a younger age. Unbeknownst to Reinhardt, the body of Jiaying was discovered by her husband, who swore vengeance on the people who he thought had killed her.

In desperation, Zabo stitched her corpse back up, leaving scars on her face and body, and let her healing powers bring her back to life. After all their failed efforts to find their missing daughter, and knowing that Zabo was the one who lost her, Jiaying decided to leave him and return to her people.

Ever-changing Story
S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Phil Coulson and Melinda May went to Mexico City to obtain information about Skye's parents from Richard Lumley, the only living agent with first hand knowledge of Skye's origins. According to Lumley, in 1991, a team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents was assigned to extract an 0-8-4 from a village in the Hunan Province. The team was massacred along with the entire village except for a baby. A second team that included Lumley and Linda Avery was sent to investigate. They learned that the villagers were killed by monsters seeking their child.

Coulson and May did not tell Skye that her mother might be a monster.

Upon learning that Grant Ward might know her origin, Skye talked to him while he was imprisoned in Vault D. According to Ward, when Skye was a baby, a group of HYDRA agents came to the small Chinese village, attempting to abduct her. Her mother attempted to protect her and was killed in the struggle. When Skye's father discovered what had happened, he went into a murderous rage and slaughtered everyone in the village.

Family Reunion
Calvin Zabo told Skye her origins and that he knew Daniel Whitehall killed his wife in 1989, when they were reunited by Grant Ward in the Ponce de León Theater‏‎ in San Juan. He explained that he was working for Whitehall to see Skye and to exact his revenge for her mother.

Whitehall forced Skye, at gunpoint, to touch the Diviner; when he saw that she was not petrified by the artifact, he told her that her mother could touch it as well. He revealed to her that her mother did not age physically over time and wondered if Skye had this power as well. He contemplated experimenting on her to learn the answer.

After Skye's arrival at the Inhuman settlement known as Afterlife, Jiaying confronted her but without revealing that she was her mother. Jiaying stopped Skye from hurting Raina, who was also in Afterlife, and offered to be Skye's trainer and to help her with the transition to her new life after Terrigenesis. Jiaying was then teleported by Gordon to the sealed room of Calvin Zabo, where she thanked and hugged him for keeping his promise to reunite her with their daughter and helping her fulfil her potential in becoming an Inhuman. However, when Zabo asked her if he could leave his prison to see her, Jiaying refused him.

Powers
Jiaying is an Inhuman who achieved her genetic potential after undergoing Terrigenesis, gaining superhuman abilities. "I won't live forever, Yat-Sen."

- Jiaying


 * Longevity: Jiaying retained her youthful appearance for over 70 years.
 * Regenerative Healing Factor: She was able to come back to life with just some scars, when most of her internal organs were removed due to surgery, after her husband stitched her body back together.

Abilities

 * Bilingualism: Jiaying was fluent in both Chinese and English.

Family

 * Calvin Zabo - Husband
 * Daisy - Daughter

Allies

 * Inhumans
 * Yat-Sen
 * Gordon
 * Lincoln Campbell
 * Raina

Enemies

 * HYDRA
 * Daniel Whitehall † - Killer
 * Hauer - Disposer

Trivia

 * In the comics, Daisy Johnson's mother was named Jennifer Kim Johnson. Unlike Jiaying, Kim was not an Inhuman, Chinese or Calvin Zabo's wife but a Caucasian prostitute, with whom Zabo had regular "business".