Now this dude here is one of the 8 immortals, and he was the first one, which means he was the most badass.

You know, in other pantheons all the gods are gods by default, because they are the shiz when they come into being, but it’s not so here for our homie, Tie Guai Li.

He’s also known as Iron Crutch Li, and besides helping him walk, his crutch doubles as a kickass weapon in battle when he and his other 7 homies cross the sea, but that’s for a later post.

So anyway, this dude here was born mortal, which means he’s totally like us, and it gives us a kind of hope that we can live forever. Or something like that. I mean, all the heavenly peaches you can eat? Count me in! He was the son of a farmer, and during one particularly bad harvest [there was a drought] his father killed himself and his mother wept till she went blind. When this shit hit the fan, Li was all, damn I neeeda do somethin’ to save my family, yo, and he went round begging.

People all round him were really stingy, so he took to stealing. He got so good at it, but that didn’t mean he didn’t get caught ‘cause people avoided him like the plague [you’ll see what I mean, later]. One night, when he tried to steal a wok, he met this bearded old man with a staff who was all, “Dude! What’re you doing? You better put that wok back right now.”

And Li was all, k ‘cause he was sorry for stealin’ so much.

And the immortal gave him a gourd with magic pills and told him to heal the sick instead of taking stuff from people. A totally rad improvement, I must say.

So Li practised the way and became all badass and shit, and he even had a disciple. Li could even astral project his body so he could go on looooong journeys. Awesome. He was going to Mount Hua and he told his disciple to take care of his body, but if he ain’t back after 7 days, the body’s gotta go, yo.

And so on the 6th day, the disciple’s mum had died, so he had to go back home to take care of shiz, but he also had to take care of his master’s shiz, and he was in a real pickle here, so he was all, fuck this shit, I’m burning the body, and that’s what he did.

So when Li came back he was all, Dude, wait, what? There ain’t no body left! So he took the body of an old beggar instead, and was all, “Wow this is some suckage. I’m lame, fat, old and ugly. Geez.” But Lao Zi appeared and was all, “Dude. If you’re like, totally immortal, you’d look beyond appearances. Just saying.”

So Li was all, yeah yeah, and kept this body. No wonder he’s pissed off all the time.

But hey, this guy is so awesome, ‘cause he’s like this magic healer, patron saint of the sick and all. So if you get a flu or something, be sure to give him a ring, and maybe he’ll swing by to help.

Give it up for this miracle worker here.