Is “Dwelling in the Fire Cloud Cave, he sent a boy to bestow divine medicine to save an army from plague” true?
novel invention
In the Investiture of the Gods, the episode where Shennong resides in the Fire Cloud Cave and rescues the camp of the Western Qi from a smallpox epidemic is a divine hierarchy setting created by the novel.
Shennong
In official histories and legends, he is the progenitor of agriculture and medicine; in novels, he is revered as the Earthly Emperor among the Three Sovereigns of the Fire Cloud Cave.