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The second article, titled "The legend of Huang Daxian," opens with a poem in which the story is retold of Ge Hong's ascent to heaven, taking even the dogs with him, and of Huang Yeren's late arrival and subsequent life as an earthbound fairy. After relating two stories of healings by Huang Yeren (stories taken from literary sources about the Luofu Huang Yeren; see n. 16) the article then asserts that
According to historical records the Red Pine Huang Daxian of the Hong Kong Huang Daxian temple was a Jin dynasty man from Danxi. His original surname was Huang and his given name Chuping. In his youth when he was tending sheep he was taken by the famous Jin dynasty refiner of cinnabar, old saint Ge Hong, as an apprentice. Ge Hong jokingly named him Huang Yeren. After Ge Hong had ascended to heaven Huang Daxian continued to travel all over practicing kindness and helping the people. He first went to Mt. Xiqiao, and later to Hong Kong.
These extraordinary attempts to weld the two Huangs into a single figure are not based, as far as we can tell, on any literary sources. The pseudonymous authors, who very likely have had some official connection with Luofu,17 were engaged in what appears to us to be the creative reconstruction of myth.
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This reconstruction has doubtless been at least partly successful. The cultural affairs cadres who met us at the Chongxu Guan had clearly been influenced by such ideas. With some knowledge of the Luofu saints, but little knowledge of the Taoist literature, they related to us a story which managed to incorporate into the biography of "Huang Daxian” elements of both Huang Chuping, Huang Yeren, and Huang Li.18 They were somewhat confused by the conflicting traditions but, nevertheless, asserted with some confidence that the two Huangs, Chuping and Yeren, were the same.
It might be thought that the Taoists who serve at the temple would wish to clarify the situation, and to inform visitors that the temple's Huang was Huang Yeren, the disciple of Ge Hong, and