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Again the watchman refused, whereupon T'ieh-kuai, remarking that the cares of this world were evidently too weighty for him to be able to ascend to immortality, stepped on to the leaf himself and vanished. Chung-li Ch'üan Regarding the origin and life of this Immortal several different accounts are given.
In his old age he became a hermit on Yang-chio Shan, thirty li north-east of I-ch'êng Hsien in the prefecture of P'ing-yang Fu in Shansi. He is referred to by the title of King-emperor of the True Active Principle. Another account describes Chung-li Ch'üan as merely a vice-marshal in the service of Duke Chou Hsiao.
He was canonized as Rector of the East. He is said to have been of commanding stature and dignified mien, devoting himself solely to the study of Taoist lore. Hsi Wang Mu made him a present of an iron crutch, and sent him to the capital to teach the doctrine of immortality to Han Chung-li.
His brother, ashamed at what had occurred, went and hid in the mountains, where he clothed his head and body with wild plants, resolved to lead the life of a hermit. One day Han Chung-li and Lü Tung-pin found him in his retreat, and asked him what he was doing. "I am engaged in studying the Way," he replied. "What way, and where is it?" they asked. He pointed to the sky.
At this time he made a journey to Lu Shan in Kiangsi, where he met the Fire-dragon, who presented him with a magic sword, which enabled him at will to hide himself in the heavens. During his visit to the capital, Ch'ang-an in Shensi, he met the Immortal Han Chung-li, who instructed him in the mysteries of alchemy and the elixir of life.
One states that his family name was Chung-li, and that he lived in the Han dynasty, being therefore called Han Chung-li. His cognomen was Ch'üan, his literary appellation Chi Tao, and his pseudonyms Ho-ho Tzu and Wang-yang Tzu; his style Yün-fang. He became Marshal of the Empire in the cyclic year 2496.
All had taken place in so short a space of time that Han Chung-li's wine was not yet hot. This is the incident referred to in Chinese literature in the phrase 'rice-wine dream. Convinced of the hollowness of worldly dignities, he followed Han Chung-li to the Ho Ling Mountains at Chung-nan in Shensi, where he was initiated into the divine mysteries, and became an Immortal.
These being successfully overcome, he was invested with supernatural power and magic weapons, with which he traversed the Empire, slaying dragons and ridding the earth of divers kinds of evils, during a period of upward of four hundred years. Another version says that Han Chung-li was in an inn, heating a jug of rice-wine.
One of these adds that in order to fulfil his promise made to Chung-li to do what he could to aid in the work of converting his fellow-creatures to the true doctrine, he went to Yüch Yang in the guise of an oil-seller, intending to immortalize all those who did not ask for additional weight to the quantity of oil purchased.
He was defeated in battle, and escaped to Chung-nan Shan, where he met the Five Heroes, the Flowers of the East, who instructed him in the doctrine of immortality. Other versions state that Han Chung-li is not the name of a person, but of a country; that he was a Taoist priest Chung Li-tzu; and that he was a beggar, Chung-li by name, who gave to one Lao Chih a pill of immortality.
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