Li Yi 李意

In Chapter 81 of the Romance, Liu Bei receives the memorial reporting Zhang Fei's death, wails aloud and faints, and when Zhang Bao and Guan Xing come one after the other and weep, he weeps again and beats his head on the ground. As the officials discuss how to console him, Ma Liang says that it does the army no good for the sovereign, who is personally leading a great army against Wu, to wail all day long. Chen Zhen says that west of Mount Qingcheng near Chengdu there is a recluse surnamed Li and named Yi, of whom people say that the old man is already over three hundred years old and is an immortal of the present age who can know men's life and death, good fortune and ill, and proposes summoning him to ask whether fortune is good or ill. Romance, Ch. 81 §22–28

Liu Bei agrees, and Chen Zhen takes the edict, travels through the night to Qingcheng and has a villager guide him deep into the valleys. A young boy comes out to meet him, calling him Chen Xiaoqi, and says that his master said yesterday that an imperial summons would surely come today and that the envoy would surely be Chen Xiaoqi. Li Yi declines to go, pleading old age, and sets out only after Chen Zhen has earnestly entreated him two or three times. Romance, Ch. 81 §28–30

In the imperial camp, the Li Yi whom Liu Bei sees has hair as white as a crane's and the face of a child, blue eyes with square pupils that shine brightly, and a body like an ancient cypress. Liu Bei, recognising him as an extraordinary man, receives him with great courtesy. Li Yi humbly calls himself a village elder from the wild hills, and when Liu Bei asks whether his course of avenging his two younger brothers bodes good or ill, he replies that this is the reckoning of Heaven and not something an old man can know. Romance, Ch. 81 §30–31

When Liu Bei asks again two or three times, Li Yi asks for paper and brush, draws more than forty sheets of soldiers, horses and weapons, and tears them up one by one. He then draws a large man lying on his back on the ground with a man beside him digging up earth to bury him, writes above it a single large character, 'bai' (白, 'white'), bows his head to the ground and leaves. Displeased, Liu Bei tells his ministers that he is a mad old man not worth believing, at once burns the picture and urges his army onward. Romance, Ch. 81 §31–32