Is “Immortal guidance to retreat from the world and cultivate in seclusion” true?
novel invention
The Records of the Grand Historian, in the biography of Bo Yi and Shu Qi, records that Bo Yi was revered by Confucians as a man of utmost virtue; the embellishments in works like Investiture of the Gods, where immortals guide them, are purely literary inventions.
Bo Yi
In official history, he is the son of the孤竹 ruler at the end of the Shang dynasty, a noble hermit who refused to eat the grain of Zhou; in fiction, he is a symbol of unwavering loyalty to his lord.