The prince watched the old man play chess and became immortal after eating something. What's the story?

The legend of the immortal ascension of the prince

The legend of the Prince's Ascension to Immortal has a long history and is widely circulated in Dancheng, East Henan. According to "China Folk Tales Integration, Henan Dancheng Volume", a long time ago, there was a young man named Prince in Wangjiazhuang, Wuli, northeast of Ningping City, "Dancheng". One morning, the prince went to "Dancheng" with chopped firewood, and it was still dark when "Dancheng" arrived. The prince was about to put down the firewood to rest when he heard a noise in the hole under the bridge. When he got closer, it turned out that two old people were playing chess. The prince was cold and hungry. He bypassed the locust tree at the mouth of the cave and asked, "Grandpa, isn't it cold in the morning?" The two old people smiled and replied: "I am seeking longevity!" " Thinking that the old man was making fun of him, the prince said to himself, "I want to become an immortal, too" and sat down to play chess. After a while, a dung beetles buzzed by. An old man shook his sleeve and the dung beetle fell to the ground. The old man picked it up, held his head and ate it. After a while, another dung beetles flew in, and another old man photographed it with his sleeve and picked it up and ate it. The prince thought, they can eat, why can't I eat? So, I picked up dung beetles's head and neck to eat, and it was delicious. I suddenly feel refreshed and not hungry. I don't know how long it took, but it was hot and cold, and the leaves turned green and yellow. Finally, an old man said, "Seven days have passed. Time to go. Young man, you go home! " "The prince remembered to go home. He walked out of bridge opening and found that everything had changed. When I first entered the cave, "Dancheng" was still a small collection of dew. Now out of bridge opening, "Dancheng" has become a big market town where people come and go. Touch your own firewood, the pole has rotted to ashes, and the axe has rusted into iron knots. The prince returned to his village in a daze and no one recognized him. He told an old man with a white beard that he was the prince of their village. The old man and the villagers are very angry. It has been said for decades that the prince sold firewood and got lost in Dancheng. Now this young man pretends to be their ancestor, and everyone will beat him. It was difficult for the prince to argue, so he turned and ran. The prince ran in front and the young people in the village chased after him. He ran around the village, stumbling from time to time, then got up and ran again. Every time he falls, a big mound rises behind him, and soon there are mounds everywhere in Wangjiazhuang. At this time, the villagers believed that it was really their ancestor prince who came back. By the time he wanted to keep the prince, he had already run in the direction of Dancheng. When the villagers arrived in Dancheng, they found that the prince had boarded the immortal road on Mianhe Bridge in Dancheng. Since then, the Minghe Bridge in Dancheng has been renamed as "Wang Zisheng Xianqiao" and Wangjiazhuang has also been renamed as Wang Zizhuang.

Second, the prince and his affair

Legends have been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. Although the time is getting longer and longer, the content and protagonist of the legend have not changed, and there are more and more legends and stories about the prince. I don't know when it started, but there is a poem circulating in Dancheng: The prince went to seek immortality, and Dancheng went into the cave for nine days, and the Chinese went into the cave for seven days, which lasted for thousands of years.

Who is the prince? Whether it exists in history is just a legend, fiction or fiction. Scholars visit and chase them, and people in Dancheng argue and ask them. Since the reform and opening up, with the development and discovery of archaeology, literature and information resources have become public, and there are more and more information about the prince, and the context is becoming clearer and clearer. According to textual research by scholars of literature and history and folklore in Dancheng, the Prince was born in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. It is said that the prince was born in his grandmother's house on the second day of the second lunar month. It was cold on February 2nd, but there were cicadas singing outside, hence the name. The prince and the boy are clever, and the mother and son live together. Life is hard, but the Queen Mother still sends her son to school. After the cicada changed into Zen, I had high hopes. When the prince grew up, he often went to Dancheng to sell firewood in order to solve the difficulties in his family. Because there is a kind of dry wood called "Longjiaomu" in its firewood, it is the best firewood for alchemy metallurgy. At that time, Lao Tzu set up an alchemy furnace at the northern end of Dancheng Bridge, so he kept buying firewood from the Prince, and the Prince and Lao Tzu made unforgettable friends. Laozi often tells the prince the essence of self-cultivation and the truth of being a man, and the prince benefits a lot. One day, Lao Tzu invited the prince to watch him play with Xuanwu real people. In the meantime, the prince ate the elixir prepared by Laozi and became immortal. Dancheng was named after "Dancheng".