Yao Heavenly Court

In the common Honghuang account, two great solar essences took shape in turn upon the sun: one was Dijun and the other Donghuang Taiyi. Dijun was born with the Hetu and the Luoshu beside him, and Taiyi held the Chaos Bell.

The two left the sun and travelled the world, gathering the demon cultivators and shapeshifting creatures scattered through the hills and seas into one place. The gate of a palace rose in the heavens, and Dijun took the title of Heavenly Emperor and Taiyi that of Eastern Emperor.

Kunpeng entered the Heavenly Court as its preceptor, and Baize and the demon gods of every quarter came into the hall with their peoples to take orders. On a high terrace Dijun spread out the Hetu and Luoshu and worked out the Zhou-Heaven Star Formation from the courses of the stars.

As the array opened, the demon hosts held their star banners and the light of the vault fell into it layer by layer. Donghuang Taiyi stood beside the main station, and at a note of the Chaos Bell the demon hosts changed their positions with the banners.

Dijun took Xihe to wife, and ten golden crows roosted in the Fusang tree in the Valley of Hot Water in the east. The Honghuang continuation joins the old myth of the ten suns here, saying that they should have taken the sky in turn but one day all left the Valley of Hot Water together.

With ten suns hanging in the sky the fields cracked and the rivers shrank into their beds. The same continuation brings Kuafu and Yi of the old myth into the Wu clan: Kuafu died chasing the sun, and Yi then drew his bow and shot nine of them down.

When the ten suns had fallen, the old grievance between the Heavenly Court and the Wu clan could no longer be covered. Dijun recalled his demon generals, the Twelve Ancestral Witches gathered their peoples in Pangu Hall, and the star banners above and the divine malice below rose at the same time.

In the final Wu–Yao battle the Zhou-Heaven Star Formation poured starlight down on the earth and the Twelve Capital Gods and Demons Formation drew up the blood of the Ancestral Witches. The two arrays struck head-on, and the demon halls and the Wu camps were swept into the field together.

Dijun died in the general fighting, and Donghuang Taiyi fought with the bell to the last and never left his station. When the bell fell silent the star banners came down in whole ranks, and the Yao Heavenly Court was left without a master.

Some Honghuang continuations have Kunpeng carry off the Hetu and Luoshu in the confusion and withdraw to the northern sea; others write a different fate for the two treasures. The demon gods each took what was left of their peoples and withdrew from the broken gate of heaven into the world.

The halls of the old Heavenly Court stood empty after the fire. Some of the surviving demon peoples fell back to the northern sea and some scattered into the hills and marshes; the Heavenly Court that Dijun and Taiyi had raised was at an end.