Fengyun Cave

Legend says that over 1,000 years ago, Zhong Liquan, founder of the Zhengyang sect of Taoism, practiced asceticism in the Zhongli Cave above the Ladder to the Heaven and made pills of immortality under the ladder. One day when he went out to roam from place to place, a fire snake that had practiced asceticism for 500 years mistakenly entered the pill room and ate the immortality pills without permission. But as the snake’s religious attainments were not high enough, it felt burning inside like a fire. Being afraid of being discovered by Han Zhongli, it sneaked into and hid itself in the Yijing Pond in front of the Taoyuan Temple. When Master Zhengyang returned and found his pills were stolen, he counted on his fingers and knew the fire snake had stolen them. In a rage, he slammed down the cave where the snake was hiding (now the Fengyun Cave). Three years later when the Goddess of Mercy came to visit Master Zhengyang and got to know the truth, she enlightened the snake that a fire snake was not supposed to be confined to a pond and would turn into a dragon once encountering wind and cloud. With this enlightenment, the fire snake turned into a fire dragon one day when a rainstorm came, and flew to the heaven. This was how the cave derived its name (Fengyun means wind and cloud in Chinese).