Wen Zhong

Wen Zhong took Jinling Shengmu as his master in childhood and cultivated fifty years in the immortal mountains, refining a three-eyed body whose third eye could send out a beam of light. When he came down, Jinling Shengmu gave him the black qilin, which travelled a thousand li a day. He served two reigns of Shang as Grand Preceptor, stood at the head of the officials, and won victory after victory.

In King Zhou’s reign, Yuan Futong of the northern sea joined with nine circuits of lords and rebelled. Wen Zhong was sent with an army to put it down, fought more than twenty engagements, and at last took and killed Yuan Futong and his party; he was away campaigning for fifteen years, and the business of the court was handled by others.

On his return he found the king neglecting the government and doting on Daji, the Deer Terrace and the roasting pillar both in use and loyal officials condemned one after another. Grieved and angry, he went up into the hall to remonstrate, offered ten measures to set the state right, and then went west with an army again.

As Western Qi grew stronger, King Zhou sent Zhang Guifang, Feng Lin and others against it, and all were defeated. Seeing Jiang Shang beat the Shang armies again and again, Wen Zhong asked to take command himself and led a great army west on his black qilin with his golden whips, attacking Huanghua Mountain and Chuanyun Pass along the way and fighting dozens of engagements with the Zhou officers. Deng Jiugong and others marched with him, and four officers attended him — Deng Zhong, Xin Huan, Zhang Jie and Tao Rong — carrying paired maces, flying blades, magic rings and the apricot-yellow banner.

He called in the four sages of Jiulong Island and the Ten Heavenly Lords, who set out the Ten Absolutes to block the Zhou army. Jiang Shang and the Chan disciples broke them one by one; the four sages and several of the Heavenly Lords were killed, and Deng Zhong, Xin Huan, Zhang Jie and Tao Rong died in turn as well.

After the Ten Absolutes failed, Wen Zhong gathered more than a hundred wandering immortals from the mountains, and the two sides fought a general engagement below Western Qi in which the wandering immortals suffered terribly without turning the battle. He then brought Zhao Gongming down from Three Immortals Isle; Zhao Gongming wounded Zhou officer after officer with the Sea-Stilling Pearls before dying under the Seven-Arrow Book of Nails, and the Three Xiao’s Nine-Bend Yellow River Formation failed too. Wen Zhong himself took the field, meeting Yunzhongzi, Randeng and other Chan figures with the white beam of his third eye, and still could not turn the war. Since setting out he had lost seven or eight of every ten of his men, his supplies were running short, and he had to order a withdrawal.

Retreating, Wen Zhong fought several more engagements with Yang Jian, Nezha and others and broke out of encirclement more than once, without recovering the campaign. Coming to Jueleng Ridge he saw peaks standing on all sides, dense woods, and crows circling and calling above; he felt the omen but urged the army forward all the same, and was drawn into the ridge by Yang Jian in the shape of a woodcutter. Yunzhongzi had long since set the Heaven-Reaching Divine Fire Pillars there, hidden among the trees with thunder and fire laid in them, and the moment Wen Zhong entered he was trapped and could not get out.

Thunder and fire struck from every side, smoke hid the sun and the fire burned on and on, and Wen Zhong died among the pillars. His soul did not disperse but went straight back to Chaoge and appeared before King Zhou, setting out the defeat at the front and the coming fall of Shang, and then departed.

On the day the roll was read at the investiture terrace, Jiang Shang installed Wen Zhong as the Heavenly Venerable of the Nine Heavens Who Responds to the Origin and Universally Transforms with the Voice of Thunder, at the head of the twenty-four true gods of the thunder department, with charge of cloud and rain and of punishing the wicked; Deng Zhong, Xin Huan, Zhang Jie and Tao Rong were enfeoffed into the thunder department with him.