roccoschili Chapter 208 The rope pulls the clouds
Chapter 208 The rope pulls the clouds
It is said that this is a true story.
During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, there was a servant named Wang Tingzhen in the Yamen of Jining Prefecture, Shandong Province. This person knows some magic and can pray for rain.
Once, Wang Tingzhen sat on the table of the state official because he was drunk and called himself a heavenly master.
The governor (similar to the prefect, the highest chief executive of a state, equivalent to the current secretary of the municipal party committee) was very angry when he saw it, dragged him out and beat him twenty times.
Not long after that, there was a severe drought in Jining Prefecture. The governor invited many Taoist priests to pray for rain, but all had no effect.
All the gentlemen in Jining Prefecture knew that Wang Tingzhen knew magic and could pray for rain, so they unanimously wrote a letter asking Wang Tingzhen to try it.
The governor had no way to refuse, so he could only call Wang Tingzhen, apologize to him, and ask him to pray for rain.
Wang Tingzhen felt uncomfortable because he was beaten twenty times by the governor last time, so he did not agree at first.
The gentlemen and the people had been begging for a long time, and then Wang Tingzhen agreed.
Wang Tingzhen asked the governor to close the south gate and open the north gate, and then selected eight boys who were all dragons to wait for dispatch.
They also sent people to rub a fifty-two-foot-long rope for use.
After Wang Tingzhen and all the boys fasted for three days, they took a bath and changed clothes, then climbed onto the altar and began to chant mantras.
The practice started in the morning, and it was not until noon that clouds slowly began to drift from the east in the sky, and the clouds were piled on top of each other as if they were covered with thick cotton wool.
Upon seeing this, Wang Tingzhen quickly threw the rope into the air.
Strangely enough, it seemed as if someone had grabbed the end of the rope in the sky, and the rope was hanging in mid-air without falling.
After all the fifty-two feet of rope was thrown up, Wang Tingzhen handed the rope ends left in his hands to the eight boys and said loudly: "Pull quickly! Pull quickly!"
The eight boys tried their best to pull. Although the cloud seemed to be extremely heavy, the children did not dare to relax at all.
If the clouds in the sky are in the west, Wang Tingzhen directs the boys to pull the clouds to the east; if the clouds are in the south, Wang Tingzhen directs them to pull them to the north.
Wang Tingzhen directed the children to use ropes to pull the clouds, just like directing the children to fly kites.
Just like that, not long after, there was lightning and thunder in the sky, and heavy rain poured down.
After a while, the water on the ground was more than a foot deep.
Wang Tingzhen then asked the boys to take off the rope, and then walked off the altar.
In the rain, from time to time there would be thunder from the sky that wanted to hit Wang Tingzhen on the head. Wang Tingzhen would use the feather fan in her hand to cover it, and the thunder would gradually go away.
From then on, Wang Tingzhen's reputation became so great that if there was a drought in the surrounding prefectures and counties, they would come to ask him to help pray for rain.
Wang Tingzhen responded to every request, but he only asked for some wine and never asked for money.
People were surprised and thought he should receive some reward.
Wang Tingzhen explained: "If I accept even a tiny bit of money, my magic will not work!"
Later, Wang Tingzhen discovered that every time he prayed for rain for others, his relatives at home would be harmed.
Gradually, he was no longer willing to do this.
At that time, the governor of Jining Prefecture was Lan Zhilin's son and daughter, and this was exactly what Lan Zhilin told Mr. Yuan Mei.
Therefore, the credibility of this story is very high.