Immortal's Grinding Stone

Immortal's Grinding Stone

Four kilometers west of Huangcu Town stands a mountain peak called Yantou Mountain. At the foot of the mountain flows the Yantou River, which is spanned by the Yantou Bridge, commonly known as the "Tofu-Repaired Bridge." This is a stone arch bridge, three zhang long and one zhang wide, built with red rocks. Its uniqueness lies in a differently colored padstone at the center of the bridge deck, shaped like a single square of white jade. People say that it’s not stone, but a piece of tofu placed there by an immortal.

Legend has it that during the bridge’s construction, every early morning, a tofu seller would deliver a load of tofu to the bridge builders. The site was far from residential areas, making food supplies hard to come by, yet regardless of wind or rain, the tofu seller faithfully delivered tofu to the construction site every day. The bridge took 81 days to build, and the tofu seller delivered 81 loads of tofu.

One day, the tofu seller brought another load of tofu. By then, the new bridge only needed one final square bluestone slab to be completed, but all the pre-cut stones were used up. The stonemason picked up a random stone and began chiseling away. But for some reason, this last stone was particularly difficult to shape—several attempts yielded unsuitable pieces. At that moment, the tofu seller held up a block of tofu and said to the mason, “Master, take a break. Let me patch it up with this tofu for you.” Hearing the idea of repairing the bridge with tofu, everyone burst out laughing. But the tofu seller solemnly lifted the tofu and sang: “Four-cornered stone bridge stands so fine, let a piece of tofu fill the line.” Then with a flick of his hand, a loud “smack” was heard as the tofu landed perfectly in the center of the bridge—neither off to the side nor broken. It gradually expanded, quickly filling the gap, fitting snugly without being too high or low, and became extremely solid.

The bridge builders were stunned and applauded in amazement. Someone remarked, “The tofu seller must be a celestial being!” But when they turned back to look, the tofu seller had vanished without a trace.

After the tofu immortal helped complete the bridge, the story spread from one person to ten, then to a hundred, growing more and more miraculous. It stirred the imagination of many, who dreamed night and day of learning immortal arts and becoming immortals themselves. Some traveled far and wide searching for the tofu immortal, all the way to the summit of Yantou Mountain. There, they found the immortal master pushing a stone mill with both hands, grinding tofu. “What are you here for?” the immortal master asked. The people knelt before him and said, “We’ve come to learn your magic,” “We’ve come to seek immortality.” The immortal master asked back repeatedly, “Why do you want to learn magic? Why do you want to become immortals?” The crowd couldn’t answer right away and could only stammer, “With magic, our work would be easier. As immortals, we’d live better lives.” The immortal master replied, “To walk the path of immortality, you must first build many bridges and pave many roads. It seems your fate to become immortals is not yet strong—go back!” But they refused to leave, bowing to the master, some even hugging his legs, pleading to learn magic and immortality. Annoyed by their persistence, the master angrily hurled the mill handle into the air, stepped onto a five-colored cloud, and ascended into the sky before disappearing. The crowd, seeing this, could only return home dejected, resigning themselves to farming for a living.

The immortal master was gone, but his grinding stone remained on Yantou Mountain. The two stacked flat, round boulders have turned black over time from wind and rain. Around the lower millstone, there are still streaks of white soil—people say it’s the soy milk the immortal master ground back then. And the piles of grayish-white stones in the mountains are the leftover tofu dregs from his tofu-making. As for the mill handle? When the immortal master grew angry and threw it away, it landed over ten li away in Xicao Village and turned into a Mill Handle Mountain.

Today, his grinding stone and mill handle remain. Whenever elders tell this story to the young, they always say: “Even immortals have to work. Those who seek comfort without labor are despised by the gods!”