Cheng Zhen Zhen
There was a Cheng Zhen Zhen, no one knew his real name or where he came from. At the end of the Kaiyuan year of the Tang dynasty, a Chinese envoy returned from outside of the Ling Dynasty and paid a visit to the Golden Heaven Temple. The temple priest said, “No.” Surprised by his answer, the ambassador asked, “If you say the king is not here, where has he gone?” The temple priest said, “He has gone to a place thirty miles beyond the pass to fetch Cheng Zhen Zhen.” The Chinese ambassador then immediately sent someone to wait in front of the pass. He saw a Taoist priest, dressed in shabby clothes and carrying a cloth bag, coming from outside the pass. When he was asked, his surname was indeed Cheng, and the ambassador took him into the inn. He asked him about his practice, but he did not answer. Then the ambassador rented a horse from the post and took him to the capital, where he was allowed to stay in his own mansion. At the same Time, the Chinese envoy secretly reported the Taoist priest’s story to The Emperor.
Emperor Xuanzong of Tang was so amazed that he summoned the Taoist priest into his inner sanctum and let him stay in the Penglai courtyard. When Tang Xuanzong asked him what he did about Taoism and his practice, he only arched his hand but did not answer. He was just hiding the truth, being simple and unobtrusive. After half a year or so, he begged to be allowed to return to the mountain. Since nothing could be asked from him, he was left to go wherever he wished. When he came out of the inner sanctum and left slowly with his sack on his back, all those who saw him laughed at him. When the cleaners were cleaning up his house and re-decorating the curtain, they found an inscription on the wall: “The road to Shu is southward, and the division of Yan is northward. I wanted to see the sun rise in the sky, but I wanted to see the black dragon drink from the weir.” The more the words were scrubbed, the clearer they became. The emperor was silent for a long time, not understanding the meaning. Later, An Lushan rose from the Yan, the holy emperor took refuge in Shu, all by the Taoist priest one by one.
Fang Jian
Fang Jian, the Duke of Qinghe, lived in Hanyama County, where he admired the strange and liked Taoism. He often interacted with Taoist priests, who gave him the Six Armor Talisman and the Nine Chapters of the True Talisman, which he practiced for twenty years.
Later he traveled south to Mount Heng, where he met a Daoist priest with bright and beautiful bones. He talked to Fang Jian and told him about the spiritual and strange events of the Shangqing immortal and the abbot of Penglai, as if he had experienced them himself. Fang Jian was very amazed. After half a month or so, Fang Jian went to the South China Sea from Hengshan Mountain. The Taoist priest said to Fang Jian, “I once lived in the South Sea, and it has been ten years now. At that time, there was a temple official named Li Hou who was the protector of the South Sea, and he gave me a jade hairpin. Now I am rewarding this jade hairpin to you, and you should regard it as a treasure.” When Fang Jian got the jade hairpin, he was very happy. So he said goodbye to the Taoist priest and went away.
In the autumn of that year, Fang Jian went to the South Sea. One day, Fang Jian visited the Kaiyuan Temple alone. On the north side of the promenade, there were two brick sculptures painted in the shape of a real person, and the one on the east side was the real person Zuo Xuan. When Fang Jian saw the shape of Zuo Xuan, it was the same Taoist priest he had met in Hengshan. Fang Jian was amazed and praised for a long time. Look at Zuo Xuan’s hat again, but there is no more jade hairpin. There were several Daoist priests living in the temple, and Fang Jian told them all about Hengshan Mountain and showed them the jade hairpin. The Taoist priests were surprised and said, “In the past, Li Hou, a temple official, used two jade pins to decorate the left and right real people in the South China Sea to protect the soldiers, and it has been almost ten years now. The jade hairpin of Zuo Xuan has been lost for almost ten years. What you have got today is really the lost jade hairpin.” Fang Jian was so amazed that he returned the jade hairpin to the Taoist priest.
(Source: Taiping Guangji)
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