Eighteen Bends

Eighteen Bends

Eighteen Bends

You can hike up via Immortal Bridge, Bamboo Joint Ridge, and the Eighteen Bends trail, or take a car directly to the mountaintop. Along the Eighteen Bends path, there is a rock shaped like a carp, with its head above ground and half of its body below. Legend has it that ancient emperors, fearing instability in their rule, sent many feng shui masters to various places to investigate and disrupt dragon veins. One day, one such master came to Yuntai Mountain, where he discovered the Carp Stone and also noticed a First Heavenly Gate on this ridge. He knew that if the carp leaped through the Heavenly Gate, it would become a dragon, reincarnate in the home of the mountain’s owner, and grow up to seize the emperor’s throne. The feng shui master sought out the mountain owner and told him what he had found. The owner was delighted and asked how to prevent the carp from jumping through the gate. The master advised that if they built the Eighteen Bends right next to the Carp Stone, the carp would be led to leap through the gate. So the owner hired workers to build the Eighteen Bends day and night, and the master left reassured. It turned out that only by leaping through the Heavenly Gate could the carp become a dragon—but if it landed in the eighteen bends instead, it would merely become a dish on a human table, and the feng shui would thus be broken.