The Legend of Xu Dun
It will be sunny on Tuesday, August 20, 2019
There is a mound above the ground in Shuanglin Village, Yuantan Town, Qianshan City. The descendants of the Xu family in Shahe who moved from the ground floor of the Xu family are gathered around it. Therefore, this mound is also called Xu Dun. This Xudun is in the shape of an inverted basin. Regardless of the vicissitudes of time, the shape of the basin will not change. The legend about this basin shape adds a bit of mystery to Xu Dun.
According to legend, the immortal master Ding Mengchang rode a donkey from Tongcheng Pass to Huangmei, Hubei, passing by the Lutan River in Yuantanpu. When he was tired and tired, he saw an old woman in her sixties cutting sesame seeds on the roadside. Mr. Ding asked the old woman if there was tea at home to quench her thirst. The old woman agreed: Yes, yes. Mr. Ding entered the thatched house. Where is the tea? The old woman washed the pot again and scooped out water, and said: Sir, sit down for a moment, the water will boil soon. Ding Mengchang went outside to lead the donkey to drink water. As soon as he entered the house, the old woman had already put the boiled tea in the cold basin and was waiting for him.
A year later, the immortal master Wu Jinyang came from Huangmei, Hubei to take a pulse and look for a dragon, and passed by the Lutan River during the Dragon Boat Festival. There was not much dry food left, so he wanted to use foreign money to buy some fried noodles from an old woman. The old woman agreed: yes, yes. When Wu Jinyang entered the house, he only saw two thin door panels covered with sycamore leaves. There were lumps of flour on the leaves. Where could there be fried noodles? The old woman handed a bowl of water to the husband and told him to wait a moment. She steamed three pots of wheat cakes in succession, handed three pieces to the husband to eat, and put the rest into the Wujin Yanggao. The husband counted out a few dollars of foreign money, but the old woman refused to accept anything and said: Who should take the blame when you go out? Now that you are so young, do you still care about how many cakes your husband eats?
A few years later, Prime Minister Zhang’s family in Tongcheng invited two immortal masters, Ding Mengchang and Wu Jinyang, to explore the feng shui of their Yangzhai. The two met to talk about worldly affairs, and they mentioned that there was a kind-hearted mother-in-law by the Lutan River in the west. After Prime Minister Zhang's affairs were settled, the two went to Chen's house in Zhangfa Mountain, Wancheng City. The two set out from Longmian Mountain in the morning and exchanged customs along the way. When they arrived at the Lutan River, the red clouds on the west mountain were colorful, and they hurriedly took a few steps to Yuantan to pave the streets. I happened to meet the old woman by the river. The old woman seemed to have seen each other before, but she couldn't remember it for a moment, but the two immortal masters remembered clearly: Old woman, I came to your house a few years ago to cause trouble. Oh, I don't remember. When the mother-in-law asked, she found out that the two of them were going to live on the street, so she said: My family is as big as the world, so if you don't mind, come to my house to have a good time. The two happily entered the house with their mother-in-law. There was only one liter of star anise brown rice left in the rice vat at her mother-in-law's house. She measured out one liter and two jiao rice and cooked half a pot of rice. She poured out the thin rice and red shrimp from the bamboo tube and cooked a bowl of soup with two eggs, red pepper and ginger slices. Stir-fried small fish from the Lutan River, half a bowl of rabbit meat from the first year, two bowls of shredded radish from the sandbank, and a cup of hot sauce. The two of them were really hungry after walking, and they felt that this meal was more delicious than the meal at Prime Minister Zhang's house yesterday.
After dinner, my mother-in-law boiled hot water for the two of them to wash their faces and feet. It was only when I was doing the housework that I realized that my mother-in-law's man had died of illness five years ago and was still there. When asked about the reason, my mother-in-law said bitterly that the old tombs were full and my family didn’t have a cup of earth to bury. The two immortal masters looked at each other, and Wu Jinyang told the old woman: Under the tree on the mound at the corner of the house, a coffin can be buried in the ox-glazed water. , I guarantee it can be done.
At night, my mother-in-law, her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson huddled on the door board and let the two guests sleep on the canopy bed. At dawn the next day, my mother-in-law got up to cook and saw that the canopy bed was empty. It turned out that the two immortal masters had left long ago. I drew a circle with charcoal on the door panel and wrote a few lines of words: Driving mountains to block seas and leaving gold basins, water ants will never invade; sycamore leaves give birth to children on some sides, willow branches produce righteous thoughts...
Later, the old woman asked the householder for the glazed water tang on the pier. When the time came to dig the well, there was no trace of water in Taipa, and the ground 1 to 6 feet deep was filled with small loess. With the help of the villagers, a 13-level wooden ladder was put down to dig the well to collect soil, and the edges of the well were built with granite strips. According to the instructions of the immortal master, the mound was in the shape of a basin, and the coffin was buried at the bottom of the basin. Ants could not attack it and water could not invade it.
Because the pier turned into a basin, the legend of Xu Dun was left behind.