Upside-down Cypress Tree

Upside-down Cypress Tree

A few kilometers south of Shuangpaishi at the border of Gaochun County and Lishui County, heading toward Gaochun town, you’ll find on the right side of the road an ancient tree that is tall, massive, and oddly shaped. This is a rare cypress, several zhang tall and over ten spans in girth. From afar it resembles a canopy stretching to the sky, and up close it looks like an enormous natural bonsai. What’s even more peculiar is that the tree’s branches are sleek and shiny, with only clusters of vivid green leaves at their tips, exuding vibrant life. Each branch is twisted and intertwined, coiling and spiraling as if dragons were rising to the heavens, or like dense roots tangled into a ball. Scholars have described it as “soaring ambitions rooted in the earth, holding up the sun with roots reaching to the sky,” while local villagers call it the “upside-down cypress.”

The “Upside-down Cypress” has long been one of the Four Treasures of Gaochun, renowned far and wide. Legend has it that the tree was planted by a Taoist immortal named Xu Jingyang during the Jin Dynasty. Blessed with divine energy, it has thrived for over 1,600 years.

The story behind Xu Jingyang and the upside-down cypress is quite fascinating. It is said that Xu Jingyang originally came from Henan, but in his childhood, he and his parents drifted to the south and settled in Tanduxi, Gaochun. The young Jingyang was very intelligent. At the age of six, he began studying at the nearby Nandao Temple, where he excelled academically. After some time, his teacher noticed that he was often late in the mornings and asked him about it. What he learned was startling. It turned out that every day on his way to school, Jingyang had to pass through a dense bamboo grove. One day, as he was walking to school with his schoolbag, a little child dressed only in a red bellyband suddenly ran out from the bamboo forest and insisted on playing hide-and-seek with him. Seeing how lively and adorable the child was, Jingyang agreed, and the two began to play together. They got so caught up in their game that they completely forgot about going to school. When the teacher heard this, he was astonished. There were no houses in the bamboo forest—where could this child have come from? Could it be, he wondered, what people called a “Gastrodia elata spirit”? Gastrodia elata is a highly beneficial tonic believed to grant immortality. Why not try to capture it for good fortune? With that thought, the teacher felt a surge of excitement. He quickly found a piece of red thread, handed it to young Jingyang, and instructed him on what to do.

The next morning, as usual, Jingyang played hide-and-seek with the child. When the child wasn’t paying attention, he quietly tied the red thread around a small braid sticking up from the child’s head. Having set the trap, Jingyang hurried to school and reported to the teacher. Overjoyed, the teacher grabbed a shovel from the backyard and rushed into the bamboo forest with Jingyang. Sure enough, deep in the grove, they found the end of the red thread poking out from the grass. They followed the thread and dug for a long time until they unearthed a long, thick piece of Gastrodia elata. After bringing it back, the teacher cleaned it and placed it in a clay pot to simmer, intending to enjoy the “good fortune” all by himself. But the Gastrodia elata had become a “spirit” and was tough to cook—by afternoon it was still too hard to eat. Just then, someone came to ask the teacher to attend to village business, so he left after giving a few instructions to the student. Not long after the teacher left, Jingyang caught the tempting aroma of meat wafting from the kitchen, which distracted him greatly. He sneaked into the kitchen, lifted the lid of the pot, and saw the “fat baby” tumbling in the hot soup, with a little bird perched on top. So he took a pair of chopsticks, picked off the little bird, and ate it. When the teacher returned and found that one of the bird-like parts was missing, he nearly fainted from shock. Suspecting that Jingyang had eaten it, the teacher was furious but didn’t show it. Then he thought, since the whole thing needed to be consumed for its full effect, why not let the boy finish it off? That would count as a good deed. After school, the teacher kept Jingyang behind. Jingyang was initially frightened, thinking he was about to be punished. But when he realized the teacher genuinely wanted him to eat it, he started devouring the entire Gastrodia elata without hesitation.

After eating the Gastrodia elata, Jingyang grew stronger and stronger, both in body and strength. One day, while the teacher was away, the students ran riot in the backyard. After playing for a while, someone suggested a strength contest to see who could pull up a small cypress tree growing by the wall. The tree, already over a person’s height with a trunk a few fingers thick, was no easy task to uproot. A few older kids tried but failed. When it was Jingyang’s turn, he planted his legs apart, gripped the trunk, and pulled upward with force—and up came the tree. His classmates burst into cheers. Emboldened, Jingyang pulled up another. Just then, news came from the front gate that the teacher was returning. The students panicked and fled back to the classroom. Halfway there, Jingyang remembered the two trees he had pulled down. He ran back, quickly gathered them, and stuffed them into two wells in the courtyard used by the Taoist priests for alchemy, successfully hiding them from the teacher.

Years later, Xu Jingyang passed the imperial exams, became a county magistrate, and later, after being enlightened by an immortal, devoted himself to Taoism, eventually becoming a widely known Taoist master. One day, villagers noticed his house simply lift off the ground and fly up to the heavens, and he and his family vanished without a trace. News of Xu Jingyang’s ascension to immortality spread rapidly, becoming more and more exaggerated. People said he had ascended to heaven and become a “True Lord.” To commemorate him, locals renamed the Nandao Temple where he studied as the “Xunzhen Temple,” and the place where he practiced alchemy became known as the “Alchemy Platform.”

Strangely enough, the two small cypress trees that Xu Jingyang had hastily planted upside-down in the wells back then eventually grew into towering giants. Their shapes were bizarre—their branches resembled roots, making them look as though they had been planted upside-down. One of the trees was blown down by a strong wind many years ago, leaving only the “Alchemy Well.” The other survived to this day and is regarded as a rare treasure.

When you visit Gaochun, don’t forget to get off at Gubaizhen and approach this thousand-year-old cypress to witness the charm of this celestial tree. The tree’s ethereal presence seems like the embodiment of the Taoist immortal Xu Jingyang; the fragrant scent wafting from its branches seems to lead you into an incense-filled temple; and the scene of Xu Jingyang’s ascension to immortality will unfold before your eyes once again.