Hán Yù raised his grand-nephew Han Xiangzi in the Confucian classics, but the youth abandoned scholarship for the Dao, setting uncle and nephew on opposing paths that would define both their legends.
Eight mortals who each found the Dao by different paths — a crippled beggar, a flamboyant swordsman, an ancient with a paper donkey, a court noble, a flower maiden, a genderless singer, a flute-playing youth, and a fan-waving general — together forming the most beloved band of immortals in Chinese tradition.
Han Xiangzi wrote a prophetic poem on a flower petal predicting his uncle Hán Yù's exile to Cháozhōu, and when the great Confucian was banished for offending the emperor, the immortal nephew appeared through the snow at Lan Pass to rescue him — proving at last the power of the Dao the old scholar had spent a lifetime denying.
Lü Dòngbīn took Han Xiangzi as his disciple, teaching him the secrets of the Dao until the young man climbed a heavenly peach tree, fell from its branches, and achieved immortality in the instant before he struck the ground.
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