A close-up of the dragon head incense at Nan Yan Palace

In Nan Yan, a stone sculpture protruding from a cliff has always been a topic of great interest to people. This stone carving is called the Dragon Head Stone, which is commonly known as the "Dragon Head Incense". The Dragon Head incense is three meters long and 0.55 meters wide. It is a combination of two dragons carved by ancient artisans using various techniques such as round carving, inlowed-out carving and shadow carving. The two dragons suspended and stretching in the air on the sheer cliff are said to be the imperial mounts of Emperor Xuanwu, who often rode them to patrol around. It is precisely because of the mystery and status of the dragon Head incense that the believers and disciples, in order to show their piety, would burn the "Dragon Head Incense" every time they came to pay homage to Wudang, thus crossing the boundary of life and death of Yin and Yang. As it is located at the foot of a bottomless abyss, the person burning the dragon head incense has to crawl from the narrow dragon's body to the dragon head to light the incense, and then kneel back. A slight mistake could cause them to be crushed to pieces. There is no doubt that since the establishment of the Longtou Incense burner in the Ming Dynasty, countless people have fallen from it, and the scene is truly heartrending. So much so that the Qing Dynasty had to explicitly prohibit the burning of dragon head incense.