Dijun

By the usual account, after heaven and earth first opened, two breaths were nurtured within the solar star and gathered into shape over long ages: one became Dijun and the other Donghuang Taiyi. The two came out of the sun one after the other and called each other brother.

Dijun travelled the four quarters of the world in his early years and saw that the Twelve Ancestral Witches already held the land, each in his own place, with the Wu clan growing stronger. He agreed with Taiyi that they would gather the birds, beasts, scaled and feathered creatures scattered everywhere and make a clan of their own.

The two called the demon hosts together, opened a realm above the heavens and raised halls and towers there: this was the Yao Heavenly Court. Dijun presided at its centre, Taiyi held it with the Chaos Bell, and the preceptor Kunpeng and the demon gods of every quarter came in turn to take their orders.

He brought the two books into the Heavenly Court and worked over the signs of the sky with them day and night.

Following the Hetu and Luoshu, Dijun laid out the Zhou-Heaven Star Formation, using the demon hosts as its eyes, the stars ranged in a circle and answering one another, to hold the four borders of the Heavenly Court against the Wu clan.

Dijun also took Xihe as his consort. Xihe lived in the Valley of Hot Water in the east and bore ten sons, all of them golden crows, who roosted in the Fusang tree: these were the ten suns. At first they took the sky in turn, and only one crow was permitted to rise each day.

While they were young the ten kept the rota; over time they grew careless, and at last they flew up together and would not come home. The earth burned under ten suns at once, the rivers dried, the fields cracked open and every plant withered.

After the ten suns rose together, Kuafu chased the sun until he died beneath it. The great witch Hou Yi then climbed to a high place and shot nine golden crows out of the sky one after another, leaving one to light the world.

When word of the nine dead sons reached the Heavenly Court, Dijun and Xihe hurried to the Valley of Hot Water and found only one golden crow left in the Fusang tree. The calamity of the ten suns and Hou Yi’s shooting drew in both the Wu and the Yao clans, and the old border skirmishes turned into full war.

Seeing the Yao clan grow, the Twelve Ancestral Witches sent troops again and again against the borders of the Heavenly Court. At first Dijun tried to negotiate and to draw a line between their territories, but the grievance between the clans had grown too deep to settle.

The two clans drew up facing each other. Dijun and Donghuang Taiyi went out together, summoned the preceptor Kunpeng and the demon generals of every quarter, and entered the Zhou-Heaven Star Formation to stand against the Twelve Capital Gods and Demons Formation of the Ancestral Witches.

In the opening of the war the Yao clan blunted the enemy several times through the strength of the star formation, while the Wu clan threw flesh and blood against it. Losses on both sides were heavy; the land shook, mountains changed shape and the seas ran backwards.

The fighting dragged on and both sides began to give way. Dijun armed himself and led the best of the Yao clan straight at the Wu lines, meaning to settle it in one battle, and closed with several of the Ancestral Witches.

In the melee Dijun was badly wounded, his robe soaked with blood, and still held the Zhou-Heaven Star Formation turning, trying to keep its eyes intact; but the Wu assault grew fiercer and the formation began to loosen.

Donghuang Taiyi swung the Chaos Bell to his aid. The sound of it shook the field and drove several Ancestral Witches back for a moment, but the Wu attack did not slacken; it grew harder still, and the two were gradually surrounded at the centre.

At the height of the decisive battle Dijun’s strength gave out and he fell where he stood. Seeing their commander dead, the best of the Yao clan broke ranks, the star formation collapsed, and its light scattered across the field.

Donghuang Taiyi fought on and fell not long after. With both its founders gone, the Yao Heavenly Court had no head; the demon peoples withdrew one after another and its halls fell into ruin.

After Dijun’s death Xihe passed into the human world with the story of the ten suns, and the Hetu and Luoshu were lost. Later tellers mostly say the two books scattered on the battlefield; who took them is told differently in every version and has never been settled.