Zhu Jiweng was a native of Luo. He lived at the foot of Beishan in Shixiang, raising more than one hundred chickens for many years. The chickens numbered over a thousand, each with its own name. At dusk they roosted in the trees and during the day were let out to roam freely. If one wished to summon them, calling by name would cause them to come immediately. Selling chickens and their eggs earned him tens of thousands; he would then put the money aside and leave. He went to Wu and built a fish pond for raising fish. Later, when he ascended Wushan, hundreds of white cranes and peacocks often stayed near him, it is said.

The white cranes and peacocks that gathered around Zhu Jiweng on Wushan echo the birds that came to Xiao Shi when he played the xiao — in both cases, the immortal’s inner cultivation expressed itself outwardly through the natural world, drawing sacred birds as a sign of alignment with the Dao. The eulogy makes this explicit: “though humans and animals are different, the Dao is inherently connected.”

Like Fan Li, who accumulated vast wealth and then abandoned it all to disappear, and the Wine Connoisseur who earned ten thousand coins a day before resigning his post and vanishing, Zhu Jiweng repeatedly earned great sums and then simply “put the money aside and left” — a pattern of radical non-attachment that is one of the defining marks of the Taoist sage.

Though humans and animals are different, the Dao is inherently connected. Zhu Weng Bangtong raised chickens to bring joy. Raising fish and practicing the Dao, he allowed his chickens to roost at the tops of trees. The transformation of things through cultivation is a practice that cannot be altered.

This eulogy’s final line — “the transformation of things through cultivation is a practice that cannot be altered” — points to the deepest principle at work in Zhu Jiweng’s story. His chickens came when called by name because he had cultivated a genuine relationship with them; his fish thrived because he understood their nature. This is the Taoist vision of mastery: not domination, but attunement. Qin Gao achieved the same attunement with water, descending into the river and returning on a red carp, while Ge You achieved it with the mountain itself, leading followers up its slopes to immortality. In each case, the sage does not conquer nature — he becomes fluent in it.