SHANGHAI, CHINA — Call him unreliable, call him undependable, but don't call Mr. Wei indestructible or, for that matter, much of a mystic.

The late Mr. Wei of Shanghai, that is.

At the all-knowing age of 22, Mr. Wei believed he had mastered the mystical art of qi gong,or supernatural powers.

Full of himself, as 22-year-olds often are, and perhaps not much impressed with the world his elders had created through their own obviously fallible power, Mr. Wei decided to demonstrate to his mother the wonders he could work through qi gong.

To test his mystic power, Wei took his mother, as witness, to a railway and laid on the tracks.

To test his powers, Mr. Wei took his mother, as witness, to a railway outside of the city, and there he lay himself on the tracks, in the path of an oncoming train. Qi gong, he believed, would empower him to stop the locomotive.

"His family believed he was just talking idly. They never thought he'd really lie down on the tracks," said the newspaper Liberation Daily.

"But the train didn't stop and the man was crushed beneath the cow-catcher in front of the train wheels," the newspaper said.

And Mr. Wei was going, going, gong.

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