The Yao Hold Heaven, the Wu Hold Earth

After the dragon, phoenix and qilin clans had withdrawn from the great contest, countless peoples were scattered among the old mountains and waters. Dijun and Donghuang Taiyi walked out from the sun, one holding the Hetu and Luoshu and the other the Chaos Bell, and began to gather the demon kings of every quarter.

Cultivators grown from birds, beasts, scaled creatures and plants came to join them, and the peoples gradually took the common name of the Yao clan. Fuxi came to work out the turning of the heavens, Kunpeng received the title of preceptor, and Baize and the other great demons took their commands before the hall.

Dijun and Taiyi climbed the heights of Mount Buzhou and raised a Heavenly Court in the thirty-three heavens. Dijun took the title of Heavenly Emperor and Taiyi that of Eastern Emperor; when the Hetu and Luoshu were spread out the stars found their stations in them, and the Chaos Bell carried its note from the palace gate to every quarter.

Dijun took Xihe as his companion, and ten suns afterwards rose by turns from the Fusang in the Valley of Hot Water. The Heavenly Court set the seats of the demon gods by the lodges of the sky, and the turning of sun and moon and the wind, rain and thunder were divided among them.

On the earth, the Twelve Ancestral Witches walked out of Pangu Hall. They are written as engendered from Pangu’s blood, forging no primordial spirit and taking the force of the mountains, rivers, wind and thunder into their bodies; the great witches and their peoples gathered outside Pangu Hall about them.

Dijiang, Zhujiuyin and the rest divided the mountains, rivers and seas among them, so that the Wu settlements spread out from the four sides of Mount Buzhou. Zhurong’s people lived in the country of the fire veins, Gonggong’s moved along the rivers, and Jumang, Rushou and the others held the forests and the metal veins.

The Yao clan patrolled the world from above, the Wu clan pastured, hunted and moved upon it below. Their borders overlapped again and again at Mount Buzhou, along the Yellow River and the Luo, and on the coasts of the four seas. When a people’s men were killed, each side called up its neighbours, and small killings grew into armies drawn up against each other.

Dijun worked out the stations from the Hetu and Luoshu, chose three hundred and sixty-five demon gods to hold the great star banners and thousands more to hold the small, and set out the Zhou-Heaven Star Formation step by step. The Twelve Ancestral Witches gathered their blood in Pangu Hall and drilled the Twelve Capital Gods and Demons Formation, which when complete could call out Pangu’s true body.

From then one side held the Heavenly Court and the stars and the other the mountains and the land. After several great battles both drew back and went on gathering banners and forging weapons in secret; only when the ten suns rose together and Kuafu and Hou Yi met their fates did the standoff between heaven and earth break open again.