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Sylvia Rose

Anqi Sheng & the Elixir of Immortality

Updated: May 28

Anqi Sheng (An Qisheng) is a wizard of Chinese lore. He lives on mystic Penglai Mountain Island and has the power to turn invisible. The first Chinese Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, talks for three days and nights with An Qisheng about eternal life.


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Emperor Qin Shi Huang (Qin Shihuang) is famous for the Terracotta Army and other massive tomb architecture such as palatial towers and rivers of mercury. Work on his tomb begins when he ascends to Kingship at age thirteen in 246 BCE.


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In 221 BCE he forcibly unites the Warring Kingdoms to become China's first Emperor. An unpopular ruler, slayer of scholars and book-burner, he survives at least three assassination attempts. He begins a monumental search for the Elixir of Eternal Life.




On Mount Penglai, mage An Qisheng is about a thousand years old in the time of Qin Shihuang. Acutely aware of mortality and old age, the Emperor fears death and obsessively seeks a divine ambrosia, the elixir of immortality.


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In his conversations with invisible An, Qin Shihuang offers him jade and gold but the wizard has no use for them. The elixir ingredients remain a secret. Finally, in 219 BCE, the Emperor sends an expedition under alchemist and court sorcerer Xu Fu (Xushi) to Penglai Island.




Xu Fu's mission is to find the wizard Anqi and bring him back with the elixir of life. He sets out with a hundred barques, legions of armed warriors and a thousand young men and women. However it's not easy finding an invisible immortal on a fabled island.

With Fangzhang and Yingzhou, Penglai is one of three sacred islands believed to exist on or beyond the periphery of China, specifically the Bohai Sea, a gulf of the Yellow Sea. Not far from the habitat of humans, the islands are the homes of immortal gods and goddesses.



peaceful scene of mountains & fog & fisher people in china


According to the Records of the Grand Historian, the earliest known Chinese alchemist Li Shaojun visits Anqi Sheng during his travels. No records exist of their meeting. In 130 BC, Emperor Wu of Han sends an expedition to find Anqi, without success.


Anqi holds an important place in the Taiqing and Shangqing Schools. Biographies of the Daoist transcendent Maming Sheng portray him as a disciple of Anqi Sheng. The wizard reportedly gives him a waidan or alchemical apparatus to refine the elixir of immortality.




Waidan, translated as 'external alchemy' or 'external elixir', is the early branch of Chinese alchemy. It focuses on compounding elixirs of immortality by heating minerals, metals, and other natural substances in a luted crucible.


The practice of waidan originates in the early Han dynasty (206 - 220). It grows in popularity until the Tang dynasty (618 - 907), when a more inward-seeking form of alchemy arises, and several Emperors die of alchemical elixir poisoning.




The Grand Historian or Shiji, a compilation of Chinese history from the 1st century BCE back to the "Yellow Emperor" of c. 2600 BCE. In its Sacrificial Ceremony Section' the text mentions the sacred island quests undertaken by Emperor Wu-ti (156 - 87 BCE).


Based on the tales of alchemist / sorcerer Li Shaoun, Wu-ti of the Han Dynasty searches the seas for the mysterious islands and the elixir of immortality. Poet and music lover, he's also a maniacal despot.



dead woman on beach with eyes open


For perceived wrongs he orders thousands of people slaughtered. He builds prisons and fills them with his enemies. He forces his last queen to commit suicide.


Li Shaojun tells Wu-ti he


... traveled to the seas and saw An Qisheng [Anqi Sheng]. An was eating a kind of jujube, which was as big as a watermelon. An Qisheng, going back and forth between Penglai Mountain, only met those who are predestined. If someone who was not predestined wanted to meet, he would just hide. Then, the Emperor started to offer sacrifices to the kitchen god and later sent alchemists to look for An Qisheng and other gods in the sea


hidden secrets beneath the sea


Over several years, Wu-ti organizes more quests for the sacred islands. Discovery of the glorious elixir obsesses the minds of elites and royalty of Imperial Chinese dynasties. The potion remains elusive, as do the islands and the immortal magician An Qisheng.








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