Nuwa Repairs the Sky

Long ago, after Nuwa had created humanity from yellow clay, the world knew peace. But then two gods went to war. Gonggong, the god of water, and Zhurong, the god of fire, clashed in a battle that shook the cosmos. Their conflict was so fierce that it threatened to tear the world apart.

Gonggong was defeated. In his shame and rage, rather than accept defeat, he smashed his head against Mount Buzhou, the great mountain in the northwest that served as one of the pillars holding up Heaven.

The mountain crumbled. The pillar collapsed. And the sky... cracked.

A great tear opened in the heavens, through which fire poured down. The world began to tilt, for the northwestern pillar was broken while the southeastern remained intact. Waters rushed toward the southeast, flames consumed the forests, and floods drowned the fields. Monsters and demons emerged from the chaos to prey upon the suffering people.

The four corners of the world were shattered, the nine regions were rent asunder. Heaven did not cover all, Earth did not bear all. Fire blazed and could not be quenched, waters flooded and would not recede.

Nuwa, the mother who had created humanity, could not bear to watch her children perish. She set out to repair the broken world and save all living things.

First, she gathered stones of five colors from the rivers - blue, white, red, yellow, and black. She melted these stones in a great fire and used the molten mixture to patch the hole in the sky. The brilliant colors spread across the heavens, becoming the clouds that paint the sunset.

But repairing the sky was not enough. Nuwa still had to restore order to the ravaged earth.

She killed the Black Dragon that had been terrorizing the people, driving back the chaos monsters. She piled ashes from burned reeds to absorb the floodwaters that threatened to drown the land. And for a new pillar to support the sky, she cut off the four legs of a giant cosmic turtle and set them at the four corners of the world.

Thanks to Nuwa's labor, the sky was sealed, the floods receded, and the monsters were driven back. Life could begin again.

But the world was never quite the same. Because the northwestern pillar remained broken and shorter than the others, the sky still tilts toward the northwest. That is why the sun, moon, and stars appear to move toward the west. And because the waters rushed southeast when the world tipped, the great rivers of China still flow to the eastern sea.

Nuwa, her work complete, retired to her celestial abode. But the five-colored stones she melted still shimmer in the sky at sunrise and sunset, a reminder of the goddess who saved the world.