Wang Xing, a native of Yangcheng, lived in the Pot Valley and was an extremely ordinary person. He had never read a book, nor could he read or write, and had no intention of seeking immortality.
When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was bent on monasticism, he went to Song Mountain in Henan Province to study Taoism. He built a Taoist palace in the Great Yug Grotto and asked Dong Zhongshu, a great Confucianist, and Dongfang Shuo, a famous scholar, to fast and meditate in the hope that he would be able to touch the heavens and the earth and hope that the immortals would come down to earth. One night, when all was silent, a two-foot-long immortal came down, with two ears so large that the tips of his ears were higher than the top of his head and the lobes of his ears fell to his shoulders.
Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty saluted him and asked him which immortal he was, and the immortal said, “I am the god of the nine peaks, and I heard that there is a kind of immortal herb called calamus growing on the rocks of the mountain, one inch and nine sections, which can be taken to live forever, so I want to pick some.” After saying that, the immortal disappeared. Emperor Wu said to the attendant by his side, “That immortal is never a person who wants to learn the way to pick Medicine; it must be the gods and goddesses of Mt. Song who are implying something about me.”
So Emperor Wu sent someone to pick calamus to take. In the second year of taking it, Emperor Wu felt stuffy and uncomfortable, so he stopped.
At that Time, the people who followed Emperor Wu also took calamus, but none of them persisted. Only Wang Xing after hearing that the gods taught Emperor Wu to take calamus, has been insisting on taking calamus, never stop, and finally he can really immortality. Neighborhoods of young and old for generations have seen him alive. Later also do not know where he went.
In fact, it was Wang Xing’s “obedience” that made him become immortal in the end, a man who seemed to have no desire to seek immortality.
(Source: Taiping Guangji)
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