《历世真仙体道通鉴后集》Vol. 3

On a night of driving rain and wind, a house collapsed. The people nearby were terrified, thinking she had been crushed to death. When they went to look, they saw only a wooden chair leaning to one side; the bed had not been crushed, and the Immortal Maiden had not yet awakened.

Su Zhe, whose courtesy name was Ziyou, met her while serving as magistrate of Xuxi. She was already eighty years old, yet still a virgin. Ziyou asked, “Marriage is common in the human world. Why did you never marry?” She replied, “Because I recite the Scripture on Deliverance (Duren Jing).” Ziyou asked her to explain why. She said, “This scripture was spoken by the Primordial Beginning (Yuanshi), a revered Daoist deity. The Primordial Beginning existed before Heaven and Earth and transcends them; reciting this scripture naturally has such an effect.” Ziyou said, “How can anyone go beyond Heaven and Earth?” She answered, “That is what the Dao is.” Ziyou then asked, “What does the Dao have to do with you?” She replied, “Which part of my body is not the Dao?”

Ziyou found her words and conduct extraordinary. The next day, he held a banquet for the Immortal Maiden. She came, drank a little, and ate meat. When Ziyou gently asked about the methods of nourishing life, she said, “Your innate capacity has already deteriorated; it will be difficult for you to attain the Dao.” Ziyou then asked her to teach him methods of practice, such as Daoyin exercises, but she said none of these were right. She only said, “You need only bring the infant to maturity.” Here, “infant” is a term in Daoist cultivation that refers to an inner state of life brought forth through practice. Ziyou said, “Someone once saw you a hundred li away. Could it have been the infant who went there?” The Immortal Maiden smiled and did not answer. After that, no one knew where she went.

The Immortal Maiden Liu Yan was a singing girl from Daizhou. During the Shaosheng era of Emperor Zhezong of the Song dynasty, an old woman came to her door begging for money. The household invited the woman inside and prepared a meal for her. After eating, the old woman said to Liu Yan, “Are you willing to stay here forever? Why not come with me? I will teach you the Dao.” Liu Yan agreed. She said to her mother, “Mother, the valuables in the chests and cupboards at home are worth ten thousand gold pieces, and you have other daughters to care for you. Please let me leave home to study the Dao.” Her mother refused, so Liu Yan cut off her hair, put on plain clothes, and went alone into the Taihang Mountains. She lived in a humble thatched hut and went out each day to beg for food.

After several years, one day she suddenly bade farewell to the people from whom she regularly begged, saying, “I have troubled you for a long time. Tomorrow I will be leaving.” The next day, those people came to check on her as agreed. They saw her hut engulfed in flames, with the Immortal Maiden sitting cross-legged in the fire. She perished there, transformed away. People believed this was “fire liberation,” in which a person is consumed by fire and thereby freed to become an immortal.

The Perfected One Yu had originally been a woman. After encountering an extraordinary person, she stopped eating and withdrew into seclusion on Mount Zhongnan. Most scholar-officials held her in high regard. Early in the Chongning era of Emperor Huizong of the Song dynasty, the emperor first summoned Liu Hunkang to Maoshan, then summoned Xu Shenweng to Hailing and the Perfected One Yu to Mount Zhongnan. He also summoned Zhang Xujing to Yiyang. He had them gather every day in a secret palace hall to discuss the mysteries of the Dao.

In Tangluan Market, within Renqiu County, Mozhou, fish were piled up in heaps like small hills. During the Daguan era of Emperor Huizong of the Song dynasty, a poor woman of unknown origins often stayed in a shrine dedicated to many deities. Each morning she went to the market to take fish as an offering, then leapt about as she roasted and ate them. The others...

In Tangluan Market in Renqiu County, Mozhou, fish were piled up like small hills. During the Daguan era of Emperor Huizong of the Song, a poor woman of unknown origins often stayed in an abandoned shrine. Each morning she went to the market to buy fish, then danced, cooked them, and ate them. No one ever saw her eat anything else.

When people gave her clothes, she cut them to pieces with a knife. If anyone came near, she cursed them; if they pressed her, she might stab them, so no one dared approach. She was beautiful, with fine, pale skin.

Soldiers from the prefecture conceived the intention of violating her. Suddenly they saw a great serpent where she was sitting and fled in terror. When they looked back, her seat had become a precious lotus flower. The poor woman said, “I can no longer stay here.” Before long, she disappeared without a trace.

Yu Xiangu

Yu Xiangu was from Fengxiang. Her family had originally been in the tea trade, and they lived at Yuewenzhai. Though born into an ordinary household, Yu Xiangu loved quiet and cleanliness from childhood. She ate no meat and recited the Laozi every day. Whenever her parents gave her money, she saved it to buy wastepaper and worn-out documents, which she made into clothing for beggars.

Later, among these pages she came across Daoist methods of regulating the breath known as “Xu, He, Yan, Chui, and Xi”—forms of cultivation that coordinate breathing with vocal sounds. After practicing for a long time, she began fasting from grain, a Daoist cultivation practice that involves abstaining from the five grains. At fourteen, she refused to marry. Women from the surrounding area who were interested in the way of the immortals often came to visit her.

One day, they agreed to go to Mount Hua. In the mountain stood a stone chamber, and deep inside it was a jade casket containing a recipe for an elixir. People had tried many times to retrieve it, but none had managed to open the casket. They suspected it held a precious scripture of the Shangqing tradition, a revered realm of Daoist immortals, accessible only to someone who had attained the Way. Since Yu Xiangu had refused marriage to cultivate the Way and could already fast from grain, they thought she might be able to open it and asked her to go. She agreed, while the other women waited outside. Inside the chamber, she found the jade casket and opened it, discovering the Great Cavern Scripture. Worried that the others would fight over the text, she came out and told them, “The jade casket is indeed there, but I couldn’t open it.” They were all disappointed. Back home, she studied the scripture alone and practiced its methods day and night. In time, she mastered the method of transcending the world and refining the body, a Daoist practice for escaping the mortal realm and cultivating the physical form.

It was said that she could walk on a woven bamboo canopy and sometimes remain in a coffin for several months. When her disciples opened the coffin to look inside, they saw only dust piled up within. Yu Xiangu then gently shook the dust from her clothes, rose, and stepped out.

When Emperor Huizong of the Song heard of this, he summoned her to the capital, Dongjing, bestowed on her the title “Perfected One,” and praised her in a poem: “Her body is a songstress among the clouds beyond the Three Mountains; her heart is untouched by a speck of worldly dust.” In the early Jingkang era of Emperor Qinzong’s reign, Yu Xiangu told her disciples, “I am about to leave. I will return in sixty years.” Not long afterward, she died. Following her instructions, her disciples made a large coffin open at both ends and placed it in a valley of the Zhongnan Mountains. When people heard of this, they came in crowds to see her. Several months later, Yu Xiangu suddenly rose and said to her disciples, “I warned you not to let the crowds come and see me. How did this happen? Quickly dig a pit, twenty feet deep, and put my coffin in it.” After the disciples dug the pit, she returned to the coffin and told them to bury it, saying, “Will the crowds still be able to disturb me this way?” It is said that Xiang Tuan received her Daoist methods.

Zhang Xiangu

Zhang Xiangu was from Nanyang. There is no detailed record of how she attained the Dao. When someone fell ill, she would often sit facing the patient, close her eyes, and meditate quietly, secretly guiding her Qi to treat the illness. The patient would soon feel warmth in the chest, as though a fiery glow were flickering inside, followed by a sound like thunder. Even those who were gravely ill recovered. Many powerful and influential people of the time therefore honored and admired her. Emperor Huizong of Song once summoned her to Dongjing, the Northern Song capital. After that, she disappeared without a trace.

Xu Daosheng

Xu Daosheng was a woman from Shanyang Army, an administrative district during the Song dynasty. She later entered Shenguanguan and became a Daoist. When she heard that Xu Shenweng, a Daoist practitioner, was in Hailing, she went there to follow and serve him.

She asked Xu Shenweng calmly, “The human body is formed from impure things, yet in ancient times some people could ascend to immortality in broad daylight. Is such a thing really possible?” Xu Shenweng replied, “I have heard that there is a Bone-Changing Rock on Mount Taihang. Those who wish to make their bodies light and ascend must first go there to change their bones, and only then can they rise to Shangqing, the Daoist realm of the immortals, and be entered in the registers of the Immortals.”

After hearing this, Xu Daosheng went in search of the Bone-Changing Rock. When she arrived, she saw a sheer, towering peak that was almost impossible to climb. Resolute and unafraid of death, she grasped the kudzu vines and made the perilous ascent, finally reaching the precipitous summit. There indeed stood a spacious hall, surrounded by more than a thousand immortal skeletons known as “locked bones.” The remains were seated cross-legged beneath straw mats. Xu Daosheng placed black agarwood in her mouth, then departed. From that time onward, she too disappeared without a trace.

Chen Qiongyu

A woman surnamed Chen, named Qiongyu, was from Jinhua County in Louzhou.

Chen Qiongyu, whose given name was Qiongyu, was from Jinhua County in Louzhou. When she was seventeen, she invited her elder brother to go boating on the sea near Siming. He traveled by boat, but she walked across the water. Several days passed, and her clothes did not get wet. When she returned, she told people, “In the water I met the Star Lord of the Woman Star, who led me to Penglai. Only then did I learn that I was originally the master of the Thirteenth Grotto.” She then awakened to her identity in a former life and stopped eating. She was also skilled at composing poems and lyrics, and could foresee people’s fortunes and misfortunes. Officials and commoners came to visit and seek her counsel every day, and shoes crowded the space outside her door.

In the seventh year of the Zhenghe era under Emperor Huizong of Song, the prefect Liu Anhe and regional inspectors Lu Tianji, Wang Ruming, and others submitted an account of her deeds to the court. The court summoned her to the capital and bestowed on her the title “Wondrously Still Refinement Master,” an honorific for a woman accomplished in Daoist cultivation. After meeting the emperor, she immediately asked to return to her mountain. The court then granted her a sedan chair, carried by attendants.

Where Guo Chongshi lived, Ge Immortal Peak stood in front and the Immortal Maiden Altar lay behind. She lived alone in a small room. During the Zhenghe era, the county magistrate He Tingjian praised her in a poem:

“How many years has she refined herself,

fasting and gathering her spirit?

All day she shuts her door to quiet cultivation,

at ease and free.

In silence atop the lofty peak,

she joins in accord with Magu;

the wondrous method she received firsthand

from the Lady of Lou.

Her cultivation has long surpassed

the bounds of the Three Realms.

Her noble, pure name reaches

the highest palace in the heavens.

Who can ask the Queen Mother of the West for me:

which immortal of Jinhua is my master?”

Many others presented poems to her, but this was the one she alone cherished. Over the course of her life she wrote several thousand poems, often containing predictions that told of the good and ill fortune awaiting people throughout their lives.

Her younger brother Zhao once asked, “The words in your poems and lyrics come true like an echo. How do you know these things?” She replied, “Once my reputation reaches the immortal realm, celestial officials bring me registers and let me know what happened in the past and what will happen in the next five hundred years. To avoid revealing Heaven’s secrets, I entrust my predictions to lines about wind, flowers, snow, and moonlight, concealing good and ill fortune within them. I do not merely know these matters; I also govern them. Earlier, I served temporarily as a Commandant of Impermanence, overseeing people’s lives and deaths. Later, I served temporarily as an Officer of Yin, overseeing six kinds of transgression: illicit dealings with official funds, the five grave acts of rebellion and disobedience, sexual misconduct, theft, breaking the law, and deliberate murder. Many people in the world commit these offenses, and so they often suffer calamities sent down from Heaven. Those who do not commit them will have someone in their family become an immortal within three generations. More recently, I have been in charge of the immortal registers of the Moon Terrace. All intelligent people are entered in the registers; those who perform meritorious deeds and cultivate themselves can become immortals of the Moon Terrace.”

For the most part, she always urged people to strive to be loyal, filial, honest, and trustworthy. Even in her eighties and nineties, her appearance showed no signs of aging. Later, no one knew where she had finally gone.

Wu Shi was the daughter of a scholarly family in Jurong County and was known as the Perfected One Miaoming. As a child, she met an extraordinary person and received instructions for cultivation. From then on, she ate no food and drank no water.

During the Xuanhe era of Emperor Huizong of the Song, the emperor summoned her to the palace, and she stayed at Cai Jing’s residence. Cai Jing praised her in a poem: “Even the immortals of Mount Gushe drink dew; the Queen Mother of the Turtle Terrace has not yet given up eating peaches.” Later, she asked to leave the capital and returned to Qiantang. Before long, she prepared to go elsewhere. When someone asked why, she said, “The city is full of black Qi. We must leave at once.” A little over ten days later, the Jin army invaded.

The Perfected One had a refined, radiant appearance and spoke with clarity and grace. She had never studied books, yet there was nothing about the past or present she did not know when asked. Later, she lived in seclusion on Mount Luofu in Huizhou.

Wu Yuanzhao

The Perfected Wu was named Yuanzhao. She was the daughter of a family from Xiaoshan in Kuaiji. While she was still an infant in swaddling clothes, whenever her mother ate meat or fish, she would refuse to nurse all day. When her mother switched to vegetarian food, the child returned to normal. Her mother found this strange.

As Yuanzhao grew older, her family discussed marrying her to a local wealthy man. After accepting the betrothal gifts, she became gloomy and unhappy. Her mother taught her needlework, but whenever she sat down, she would doze off. Her mother struck her, and Yuanzhao explained, “I am not deliberately being lazy. Yesterday I dreamed that a golden-armored spirit told me that Houtu, the deity who governs the earth, had summoned me to return and would take me with her. I entered the clouds and came to a vast hall. I saw a high perfected being—a transcendent who had attained the Dao—seated inside, with Jade Maidens standing on either side. They called me into the hall and admonished me: ‘You were originally a Jade Maiden, but because of a past transgression, you were temporarily demoted to the human world for thirty years. Now it is time for you to return. Once you do, you must abstain from food, leave worldly affairs behind, and cultivate the Dao.’”

When she awoke, she wanted to stop eating, but her mother forced her to take food. She then dreamed again that the spirit was angry and said, “I ordered you not to eat, yet you disobeyed my instruction.” The spirit cut open her abdomen, removed her stomach and intestines, washed them in a jade basin, then put them back and stitched her up. Afterward, the spirit taught her the Lingbao Great Cavern method, a Daoist practice of inner cultivation, and the “Great Cavern Great Master’s Seal of the Perfected One of Returning Wind and Harmonious Union,” a Daoist ritual seal, instructing her to treat the sick in the human world. Hearing this, her mother awoke with a start and realized that her daughter was extraordinary. She agreed to end the marriage arrangement and let Yuanzhao cultivate the Dao as she wished.

From then on, Yuanzhao lived alone in a quiet room and treated people with talisman water. People came from near and far to seek her talismans. Sometimes, when someone asked her to visit a sick person at home, she would have two servants carry her there in a sedan chair. She took no provisions. If her companions grew hungry on the way, she would buy just two peaches, breathe on them, and hand them over. Each person ate one and could walk dozens of miles without feeling hungry.

An investigating censor named Chen lived in Qiantang and treated people with the Heart of Heaven method, a Daoist art. He built a tall tower in the vegetable garden beside his house. The gardener said he had seen someone riding a horse across the roof of the tower. Chen scolded him, saying it was impossible. In late spring, Chen spent a night beneath the tower with his sword and heard a horse whinnying too. Not long afterward, his family knocked at the door and urged him to return, saying that his young daughter seemed to be held aloft by some force and had been unconscious for several days. Chen went up to the tower and performed a Zhaijiao purification ritual to drive away evil. Suddenly, a fire broke out in the wall. He rushed down in alarm, and the fire immediately went out. He then invited a Daoist priest to perform rites, but as soon as the priest reached the doorway, his headcloth vanished. The family was terrified.

Chen wrote to Yuanzhao and asked her to come. She arrived neatly dressed, and Chen’s daughter rose to meet her at the door, speaking and laughing as usual, as if she had never been ill. Yuanzhao took the girl to stay in the tower for three days and three nights. No strange events occurred, and the girl remained safe and well.

Han Zichen was a descendant of the Duke of Grand Command and served as an official in the capital. He had once written a memorial to the Celestial Court by hand, describing his encounters with the Most High, a Daoist title for the supreme deity, and with Xingyun, among other matters. No one else knew about it. He asked Yuanzhao to present the memorial on his behalf. She bowed low for a long time, then rose and recited its contents word for word. She also said, “The Lord on High commends you for being content with stillness and for not seeking favors through chance. The reply says: ‘Carefully maintain your practice for twelve hundred days, and the Court of Discernment, the Celestial Court office responsible for investigation and judgment, will reward you according to your merit.’” Events later unfolded exactly as she had said.

Han Zichen had suffered from a foot ailment since childhood. When it flared up, his legs and feet became stiff and he could not bend or straighten them. Yuanzhao massaged him and found that his lower back was hot as fire. She also massaged his internal organs and found them hot as well. Then a stream of Qi dispersed from his toes, and he was immediately able to stand and walk steadily. His illness was cured.

A servant in the Han household once stayed in a cramped room beside the house. At night, he dreamed that a ghost was pressing down on him and fled outside with a cry. Yuanzhao happened to arrive, but the servant did not tell her what had happened. She simply walked slowly with him to the room. When she reached the doorway, she turned back and said, “There is someone inside who hanged himself. His hair is loose and his tongue is hanging out. He is asking me to deliver him from suffering.” She wrote a talisman and ordered the servant to burn it. That night, he dreamed that the man thanked him, saying, “I received a talisman from a True Official and have been delivered into rebirth. I will not come again.” Then he opened the door and left.

The Han family prepared a bed for Yuanzhao to stay the night, but they could not hear her breathing. After a while, they saw blue clouds rising from her nostrils. A jade-green infant, about three inches tall and gleaming like crystal, appeared. Its light filled the bed as it circled above her abdomen, then soon disappeared.

A maid in the household of Prince Zhang Xun became pregnant but did not give birth even after her due date had passed, so they asked Yuanzhao to come. Many maids stood nearby. Yuanzhao looked only at the pregnant woman and sighed, saying, “In a previous life, you were a woodcutter who once killed a great snake with a blow of your palm. Now the snake has come to take revenge. It is coiled inside your abdomen, devouring your organs, and will not stop until it has eaten them all.” She told them to report the matter to Prince Zhang Xun at once and have the snake removed. She then wrote two talismans and gave them to the maid. The maid followed her instructions, burned the talismans, mixed the ashes with water, and drank it. She gave birth to a great snake. When Prince Zhang Xun heard what had happened, he was deeply shocked. He respectfully bowed to Yuanzhao and offered her gold and silk, but she declined.

Yuanzhao stayed in the Han household for a year, then prepared to return home. The family could not persuade her to stay. She sighed and took leave, saying, “I will not come again.” Everyone suspected that she was about to ascend to immortality. The next day, she traveled by boat back to Xiaoshan and, after reaching home, died without illness. Before this, more than ten households in her village had said they saw Yuanzhao arrive at their homes wearing Daoist robes, speak with them for a while, and then leave. Several days later, people went to visit her and were told by her family that she had died. Those who had received her earlier all said, “She came to my house only yesterday. How could she have died so suddenly?” When the dates they gave were checked, they were found to be the very day Yuanzhao underwent corpse liberation, a Daoist tradition in which a practitioner’s body departs as a means of transcendence: the eleventh year of the Shaoxing reign of Emperor Gaozong of the Song.

Sun Xiangu’s surname was Sun and her given name was Bu’er. She was known as the Reclusive One of Purity and Stillness. She was the youngest daughter of Sun Zhonglan, a prominent man from Ninghai. In the spring of 1118, the second year of the Tianfu era under Jin Taizu, her mother dreamed that seven immortal cranes were flying about in the courtyard. One of them gradually flew into her embrace. After waking, her mother became pregnant, and on the fifth day of the first month the following year she gave birth to Sun Bu’er. Sun Bu’er was intelligent from childhood and gentle and dignified in temperament.

Sun Zhonglan had heard that the Daoist master Ma Yifu, also known as Wumeng Zan, had the makings of an immortal, so he married his daughter to him. They had three sons and raised them in accordance with the orthodox way. Ma Yifu was wealthy and often helped the poor; Sun Bu’er supported him in this.

Later, Patriarch Chongyang (Wang Chongyang, founder of the Quanzhen Dao tradition) urged Ma Yifu and Sun Bu’er to cultivate the Dao through various miraculous deeds. At first, Sun Bu’er did not fully believe him. Once, after drinking, Patriarch Chongyang walked straight into her bedroom. Thinking he had behaved improperly, Sun Bu’er locked the door and sent a servant into the street to find Ma Yifu. Ma Yifu said, “The Patriarch is often at my side when he speaks with me about the Dao. How could he do such a thing?” He went home and unlocked the door, but found the room empty. When he looked in the hermitage where the Patriarch was staying, he found him fast asleep. Only then did Sun Bu’er begin to believe and revere the Patriarch.

Another day, Patriarch Chongyang showed her a painting of Heaven and said that if she became a nun, she would surely receive such a reward. After this, Sun Bu’er resolved to leave home and cultivate the Dao. In 1167, the seventh year of the Dading era under Jin Shizong, Zhou Botong of Ninghai donated his residence to be converted into the Golden Lotus Hall and invited Patriarch Chongyang and the others to take charge of it. On the fifth day of the fifth month, Sun Bu’er left her three sons, severed her worldly attachments, and went to the Golden Lotus Hall to seek the Dao. In front of everyone, Patriarch Chongyang had her burn her vow document, gave her the name “Bu’er” and the title “Reclusive One of Purity and Stillness,” and wrote a poem to encourage her, saying that she had been taught and transformed many times before and had at last formed a bond with the cultivation of the Dao. He also took her into the streets to beg for alms, built another hermitage for her to live in, and transmitted Daoist teachings to her. Sun Bu’er was then fifty-one years old.

That autumn, Patriarch Chongyang set out for Bianliang with Qiu Chuji, Liu Chuxuan, Tan Chuduan, Ma Yu, and others. He died the following year. Ma Yu later carried the Patriarch’s remains back to Liujiang Village at Zhongnan Mountain for burial and guarded the tomb for many years. In the year bing shen, Sun Bu’er passed through Tong Pass and wished to ask Ma Yu to confirm the fundamental principles of Daoist cultivation and dispel her doubts. Ma Yu sent her the poem “Langtaosha,” and Sun Bu’er replied with a bow of thanks. The two practiced in their respective hermitages and put the teachings they had received into practice.

Sun Bu’er later moved to Luoyang. There lived a Daoist woman known as Feng Xiangu, commonly called “Little Erniang.” According to the preface to Sun Bu’er’s commemorative inscription by the presented scholar Wang Yu, Feng Xiangu had originally come from the western regions around Guanxi and later lived in the area of Eastern Zhou. She did not reveal her surname, age, or place of origin. Judging by her accent, she seemed to be from Qin. She lived by begging for food and deliberately kept herself filthy and disheveled to avoid worldly entanglements. By day she feigned madness among the crowds; at night she stayed in abandoned shrines. She did not cling to love or hate, nor did she pass judgment on right and wrong. Detached and practicing Wuwei (non-action), she followed things as they came. She cultivated the immortal way inwardly while concealing every outward trace of her practice, and often explained profound principles through lines of poetry spoken offhand.

Feng Xiangu’s dwelling had two chambers, one above the other. She had Sun Bu’er live in the lower chamber and lived in the upper one herself. She often piled bricks and stones in front of the lower chamber and struck men who passed by with them, preventing outside disturbances. She taught and encouraged Sun Bu’er. Six years later, Sun Bu’er completed her cultivation and began traveling about to teach and transform others. Many people came to follow her.

Sun Bu’er once presented the poem “Bu Suanzi” to an audience. Its phrases “the union of Water and Fire,” “radiant light arising beneath the sea,” and “the Three Passes” describe Neidan (internal alchemy) practice: the practitioner harmonizes Yin-Yang within the body, allowing the movement of Qi to flow through the bodily gates, and ultimately forms the “Nine-Turn Cinnabar Elixir,” a symbol of the completion of Neidan cultivation.

At the end of a renyin year during the Jin dynasty, Sun Bu’er suddenly told her disciples that the Perfected Master had summoned her to the Jade Pool, and that the appointed time was near. She bathed and changed her clothes, then asked her disciples what time it was. When they told her it was noon, she ordered someone to prepare paper and brush and wrote a verse for the world: “With three thousand merits complete, I transcend the Three Realms; / I leap beyond the bounds of Yin and Yang. / Hidden or manifest, I move freely in every direction; / My drunken soul will not return to Ninghai.” The verse means that once her cultivation was complete, she had transcended the Three Realms, freed herself from the constraints of Yin-Yang, and gained freedom whether concealed or manifest; she would not return to Ninghai. When she had finished writing, she sat cross-legged and passed away peacefully. According to legend, fragrant breezes spread in every direction, and auspicious vapors lingered for a long time.

At that time, Ma Yu was staying in a small house in Ninghai. He heard celestial music in the sky, looked up, and saw Sun Bu’er passing by on a colored cloud, surrounded before and behind by immortal boys, jade maidens, and a ceremonial procession. Looking down, she told him, “I am returning to Penglai first.”

In the spring of the xinchou year during the Yuan dynasty, Governor Tian of Jingzhao prepared to bury the remains of Patriarch Chongyang. The Master Qinghe, Daoist priests from the ancestral temple, and the governor’s officials established the Temple of Celebrated Perfection at the estate of Li, a secretary, in Zhongnan County. They first exhumed Sun Bu’er’s grave, then reburied her in the Golden Lotus Hall within the temple, making it a place where female Daoists from across the land could worship her and take refuge. In the jiachen year, the court ordered that the temple be renamed a palace. In the first month of the yuanzhi jisi year, the court posthumously bestowed upon Sun Bu’er the title “Perfected One of Purity, Stillness, Profundity, Truth, and Virtuous Compliance.”

This concludes Volume Six of the Supplementary Collection of Comprehensive Records of True Immortals Throughout the Ages.