Folk tale

In the northeastern region of China, there is a folk rhyme that goes: "Fuyu's land is a treasure trove, gold and silver treasures are everywhere to be found; as long as one isn't lazy, golden and silver beans will run all over the ground." This rhyme about golden and silver beans leads us to an ancient tale.On the banks of the Songhua River in Northeast China, there lived a farming family surnamed Jin. The elderly couple had their two sons late in life. They saved diligently, scrimping and saving to accumulate some property for their sons, hoping they could one day marry and live good lives.

In the towns and villages of Zhejiang province, there is a famous dish known to every household, associated with the great Song Dynasty literary master Su Shi. Called "Dongpo Pork," it has been passed down for nearly a thousand years, and its story is quite fascinating.

Wu Song had just downed eighteen bowls of wine at an inn not far from Jingyang Ridge. He walked unsteadily, dragging his cudgel behind him, about to head toward the ridge. The innkeeper ran out after him, shouting: "You can't go! You can't go! There's a tiger on the ridge recently—it's already killed twenty or thirty people!" Wu Song merely smiled and said, "Don't try to scare me. Even if there really is a tiger, I'm not afraid!"

A famous prophecy passed down from the Ming Dynasty, "The Song of the Baked Bun," was authored by Liu Ji, the Imperial Preceptor during the reign of the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, also known as Liu Bowen. It is said that Liu Ji had profound knowledge of mathematics and numerology, and folk legends claim he was a celestial being descended to earth to assist the founding emperor in establishing his great enterprise. In folk tales and literary works, he is often depicted as possessing extraordinary foresight, capable of predicting the future without divination, understanding the past and present, and even commanding wind and rain with immense supernatural powers—described as knowing "five hundred years before and five hundred years after"—a figure as divine as a celestial being.