Li Ching-Yuen

Li Ching-Yuen worked as an herbalist, martial artist, and tactical advisor in China, occupations that carried him through a life whose true length remains unknown. He alleged his birth year was 1677, a claim that would place his death on 6 May 1933 at an age of 256. Gerontologists regard the figure as myth—no evidence supports the span, and his actual age was never determined. What persists is the story itself: a man who either lived impossibly long or told the century's most enduring lie about time.