And jade was essential for setting him on the sacred path to immortality.

The ancient Chinese didn't have diamonds, but they did have jade as a symbol of imperial authority and sacred power, and it becomes one of the symbols of imperial authority to the extent that the word in Chinese for jade is a picture of a king holding a precious jewel.

For the Han, jade became the primary ingredient in their recipe for immortality.

What I have in front of me are jade objects that were used either to cover or to plug the crucial openings in the human body.

According to ancient Chinese medicine, a person's vital essence could leak out through bodily orifices.

If you spoke too much, the vital essence would then concentrate in your mouth and would be depleted in other parts of your body.

If you listened too much, if you looked at something too much, and so life needed to be a life of balance.

When a king died, it was essential to preserve his vital essence for the afterlife by plugging his orifices with jade.

Jade that would be placed over the eyes, plugs placed in one's ears, plugs in the nostril, a plug for the anus as well as a covering for the genitals in order to ensure that the vital breath did not leave the body.

For the most important orifice, the mouth, the Chinese created a very special plug shaped like a cicada.

The bizarre life cycle of this curious insect made it especially significant to ancient Chinese observers.

They noticed how it spends most of its life underground and then at a crucial moment, it digs a tunnel through the earth up to the surface and when it reaches the surface, it sheds its old body and transforms itself.

Here you are buried deep in the earth, but we're going to provide you with an exoskeleton similar to that of the cicada, a marvelous jade suit that will keep evil influences away from you, that will allow your soul to exist, to be preserved, and then at the crucial moment, you can leave from your tomb, shed this exoskeleton we've provided for you, and through this body, transform yourself into an immortal.