Taiyi Zhenren

Taiyi Zhenren cultivated in the Golden Light Cave on Qianyuan Mountain. Li Jing’s wife, Lady Yin, carried a child for three years and six months and gave birth to a ball of flesh; Li Jing cut it open with his sword, and a boy sprang out wearing the Qiankun Ring and wrapped in the Red Armillary Sash.

Taiyi Zhenren came to Chentang Pass that day, named the boy Nezha, and took him into the Golden Light Cave. He told Li Jing that Nezha was the Numinous Pearl come down into the world and would one day open the road for the Zhou camp.

Drawing the Xuanyuan bow at Chentang Pass, Nezha killed one of Lady Shiji’s boys without meaning to. Shiji seized Nezha and pursued him to Qianyuan Mountain; Taiyi Zhenren fought her inside the Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Cover, nine fire dragons coiling round it, and at last burned her back into her true form.

Nezha then killed the dragon king’s third son Ao Bing while making trouble at the sea, and the dragon kings of the four seas pressed upon Chentang Pass. Nezha cut away his flesh for his mother and his bones for his father, and after his death a fragment of his soul drifted to Qianyuan Mountain to beg his master’s help.

Taiyi Zhenren first had Nezha appear to Lady Yin in a dream and ask her to build a shrine where he could receive incense. When Li Jing found the image he smashed the shrine, and Nezha, with nowhere to lodge, returned to the Golden Light Cave to ask his master to act.

Taiyi Zhenren took two lotus flowers and three lotus leaves, laid them out in the shape of a man, and put Nezha’s soul inside. He gave a shout like thunder, and the flowers and leaves became a new body; so Nezha lived again.

With the fire-tipped spear, the wind-fire wheels, the golden brick and the Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Cover, Nezha came down the mountain to hunt Li Jing. Taiyi Zhenren came down after him, and later Randeng pinned Nezha with the golden pagoda, so that father and son laid down their weapons for the time being.

When the Ten Absolutes opened, Taiyi Zhenren was ordered by Randeng into the Blood-Transforming Formation. Heavenly Lord Sun poured black sand down inside it, and all of it was held off by the auspicious cloud above Taiyi Zhenren’s head; when Sun turned to flee, Taiyi Zhenren raised the Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Cover and burned him to death within his own formation.

After the Three Xiao set out the Nine-Bend Yellow River Formation, Taiyi Zhenren went with the Twelve Golden Immortals and was taken into it by the Hunyuan Golden Dipper. When Laozi and Yuanshi broke the formation he woke with his fellows and recovered the treasures that had been taken from him.

Nezha went east with the Zhou army from then on, while Taiyi Zhenren followed Yuanshi Tianzun to the Zhuxian and the Ten Thousand Immortals formations. When the Investiture List was opened, Nezha attained sainthood in the body, and Taiyi Zhenren too was not enfeoffed from the roll.