During the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, Suzhou Xuanmiao Temple had the physical body of a real person in a mantle. This body wore a bamboo hat, draped in a mantle, and hugged its knees with both hands. It looked lifelike, as if it was deep in thought.

According to the textual research of scholars, this real person in the flesh was a person from the Song Dynasty, named He Zhongli. He lived in the years of Xiaozong in the Southern Song Dynasty and was known as the Taoist in Lionyi. According to relevant historical records, He Zhongli was originally a scholar who had been admitted as a scholar. After failing the imperial examinations, he was disheartened and disappointed and came to Pingjiang Mansion (now Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province) to become a beggar.

Usually, He Zhongli liked to wear a white shirt, carry a broken bowl on the street, swagger and beg, regardless of the disdainful eyes of others, and people called him wild life. He Zhongli had no money to live in a hotel, so he had to live in Tianqing Taoist Temple (which was later Xuanmiao Temple).

After a few years, his clothes became more and more tattered, so He Zhongli mended them with grass and continued to wear them. After wearing them for a few years, his clothes completely turned into a sewing coat.

One day, He Zhongli felt itchy and uncomfortable all over, so he went to the river to take a bath. While taking a bath, he saw his own scruffy and dirty reflection in the river, and suddenly realized that he couldn't be so decadent, he must achieve something. From then on, in addition to going out to beg for food, he meditated all day in Tianqing Taoist Temple and studied Taoist secret techniques.

No matter whether it was spring, summer, autumn or winter, He Zhongli wore that coat, neither cold nor hot. Later, he began to practice inedia, and did not eat or drink for seven or eight days in a row. Someone was afraid that He Zhongli would starve, so he brought him a roast pig, and He Zhongli ate it all in one go, and then continued to meditate on India.

From that day on, if someone brought him roast pork, he would eat more than ten catties of pork at a time; but he never drank alcohol, and even if someone brought him old wine, he would not drink a drop.

Ten years later, He Zhongli finally mastered Taoist divine arts, and at the same time was able to predict the future. His primordial spirit left his body and became a famous Taoist expert in the Southern Song Dynasty.

One day, Song Xiaozong had a dream. He dreamed that a man in a mango was crying and mourning in the palace with bare feet. Song Xiaozong asked, "Who are you?" The man replied, "I am from Suzhou."

More than a month later, Emperor Gaozong of Song passed away, and Song Xiaozong remembered the dream he had had before, thinking that the man in coon clothes was reminding himself that Emperor Gaozong of Song would die, so he told the eunuch around him about it and asked the eunuch to pay attention to where there were people in coon clothes in Suzhou.

The eunuchs did not dare to neglect and ordered people to Suzhou to visit the people wearing lion clothes. As a result, after careful investigation, they found that only He Zhongli's identity and appearance matched the man in the lion clothes that the emperor dreamed of.

After Song Xiaozong learned of this, he ordered He Zhongli to be summoned to the palace, but He Zhongli refused. Song Xiaozong was not only not angry, but also gave He Zhongli the title of "Mr. Mastery."

Later, Emperor Gaozong of Song's wife, Empress Dowager Wu, dreamed that the Lionyi Taoist begged her for a piece of clothing, and she also respected He Zhongli very much, so she ordered the inner guard to send it quickly.

When the inner guards arrived at the Tianqing Taoist Temple in Suzhou, Daoist He Zhongli had been seated peacefully the night before. After He Zhongli was seated, the Taoists of Tianqing Temple placed his body in the Taoist Temple for worship, and it was well preserved until the Qing Dynasty five hundred years later.

It is said that in the Qing Dynasty, people prayed for blessings in front of Taoist Lionyi, and it was very effective. If someone was sick, pluck the grass from the Lionyi Taoist's clothes and go back to frying the soup to take it, and they would recover quickly.

Due to the large number of people who came to see a doctor, Daoist Lionyi's clothes were quickly stripped. The Daoist had to replace He Zhongli's body with new clothes three or four times a month.

From the look of it now, since the coats had been changed many times, it meant that it was not that the coats on He Zhonghe's body had magical curative effects, but that people believed in He Zhonghe's divine powers and believed that drinking boiled water with his coats would definitely eliminate all diseases. It was this powerful psychological effect that cured their diseases.