Wang Ziqiao was the Crown Prince Jin of King Ling of Zhou. He liked playing the sheng, and he played a piece called “Phoenix Cry.” While traveling between Yi and Luo rivers, a Daoist priest named Fuqiugong took him up to Mount Songgao for more than thirty years. Later, when they searched for him on the mountain, they met Huan Liang, who said: “Tell my family to wait for me at the peak of Guoshi Mountain on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.” At that time, he indeed arrived riding a white crane and stayed at the mountain top; they looked up but could not reach him. He raised his hand to bid farewell to the people of his time, then left after several days. A shrine was also built in honor of him at the foot of Guoshi Mountain and at the summit of Mount Songgao.

Wang Ziqiao’s use of music as a path to transcendence places him in a distinguished lineage of immortal musicians in the Lie Xian Zhuan. Qin Gao played the guqin for over two centuries before descending into the river on a red carp, while Kou Xian returned from death to play the five-stringed zither at the city gate — all three figures demonstrating that in Taoism, music is not mere art but a resonance with the Dao itself.

His thirty years of mountain cultivation under the guidance of Fuqiugong echoes the sacred mountain traditions seen throughout the Lie Xian Zhuan. Ge You led nobles up Mount Sui never to return, while Lu Tong was seen generation after generation on Emei Mountain — the sacred peak as a threshold between the mortal and immortal worlds is one of the defining images of Taoist biography.

Marvelous is Prince Wangzi, whose divine journey brings refreshing spirit. Blowing the sheng along the Yi and Luo rivers, his music imitated the sound of a phoenix’s cry. Fuqiugong was moved by divine response and took him up together to ascend. He waved his whip toward the green cliffs, riding on wings alone to go forth.

This eulogy captures the essence of Wang Ziqiao’s ascent: not a flight from the world, but a completion of it. Like Pingchangsheng, who appeared and disappeared across decades — leaving only his robe and belt — Wang Ziqiao’s final wave from the mountaintop is a gesture of grace rather than abandonment. Both figures remind us that the immortal does not escape the human world; he simply outgrows it.