A clever young man, Wu Kang started out as a farmer. On seeing his crops growing with no difficulty, he decided that farming was not enough of a challenge, and so he apprenticed himself to a furniture maker. On being told by his master that in another three to five years he would be able to make reasonable furniture, he gave up in disgust and decided to take up business. He then went to work in shop where a similar situation occured, so he again gave up and decided that he wanted to be an immortal.

　　Wu Kang then went to live in the mountains where he importuned an immortal to teach him. First the immortal taught him about the herbs used to cure sickness, but after three days his characteristic restlessness returned and he asked the immortal to teach him something else. So the immortal to teach him chess, but after a short while Wu Kang's enthusiasm again waned.

　　Then he was given the books of immortality to study. Of course, Wu Kang became bored within a few gays, and asked if they could travel to some new and exciting place. The immortal, no doubt with a gleam in his eye, suggested the moon; and as even the patience of saints and immortals is finite, he left Wu Kang there to chop down a cassia tree.

　　The cassia tree, if not completely chopped down in a day, reappears whole the next day; and as Wu Kang lacked (and possibly lacks) the patience to finish the job, he is up there chopping still.