The story of Yuantu and Abi

In the common account of the sea of blood in the underworld, the two swords Yuantu and Abi were engendered together out of the killing-force of that sea. When Minghe Laozu took shape in it, the two swords floated up beneath the waves.

Minghe reached out and took both, and carried them back to his palace in the sea of blood. Yuantu and Abi hung one on either side before his seat and went with him wherever he travelled.

After Nüwa had made humankind, Minghe too tried to make living things beside the sea of blood. He gathered drifting souls and blood-water, the Asura were engendered out of the sea one after another, and the two swords stood on either side of the altar.

When the Asura had gathered into a people, Minghe founded the Asura Sect. Its followers built halls and altars along the islands of the sea of blood, and Yuantu and Abi were still carried by Minghe himself.

When Houtu entered the underworld and became the six paths of rebirth, the sea of blood met the passage of the wheel and the asura path was numbered among the six. Minghe stood at the edge of the sea of blood with the two swords and watched the newly born souls go their way along the wheel.

If an outsider afterwards came into the sea of blood, Minghe took Yuantu and Abi down from his hall and led the Asura up to meet him at the surface; when the intruder withdrew, the two swords went back into the sea of blood with him.

The palace of the sea of blood and the Asura Sect remained on the underworld’s side, and Yuantu and Abi were never handed on to anyone else.