At the foot of Cangshan’s Wutai Peak, near the banks of the Wanhua Stream in Dali, the ruins of Tangmei Monastery hold a deep history of devotion. Originally established as Linghui Monastery during the Tang Dynasty's Nanzhao period, the temple began with a miraculous event. During a campaign against the Moxie people, the Nanzhao ruling Meng family retrieved a Buddha statue from the Jinsha River. They first housed it in Lanpo Temple, where a ten-day torrential rain drowned all fires except for a single lamp burning before the image. This sign prompted the military to build Linghui Monastery to enshrine the statue.

In the Song Dynasty, Duan Siping, the founder of the Dali Kingdom who was born nearby, expanded the sanctuary. He deified his mother here as the Heavenly Response Auspicious Star Merciful Holy Mother, carving her image in a gentle nursing pose surrounded by children. The monastery later took the name Tangmei after a legendary plum tree planted on the grounds during the Tang Dynasty.

Human hands constantly reshaped this sacred space. During the Ming Dynasty's Jiajing period, a local villager named Yang Chui led a major renovation. In the late Ming and early Qing, the monk-poet Dangdang lived within these walls, writing verses in the quiet courtyards. Later, the Yunnan-Guizhou Governor Fan Chengxun and local Xizhou poets Zhao Tingyu and Zhou Fu traveled here to compose poetry beneath the plum blossoms. In 1866, local official Zhang Zhengxiong initiated another reconstruction, and Yang Mao expanded the Mirror Lake Tower. At its height, the monastery was rumored to contain thirty-six courtyards, a scale second only to Dali's Chongsheng Temple. Visitors once heard the resounding chime of a five-foot-tall bronze bell echoing for miles across the valley.

Today, the great bell is no longer at the monastery; it was lost in the mid-1950s, while the ancient plum tree has also disappeared.Every year on the eighth day of the first lunar month, the ruins fill with the scent of burning incense during a lively temple fair. Hopeful couples still crowd the shrine of the Send-Son Goddess, carrying consecrated candles back to their homes to invite the blessing of new life.