As the Gods withdraw from creating the earth, the age of great heros begins. Demi-gods and great sages who challenge the gods and the natural world to bring specialized knowledge of technology and medicine to improve the lives of humanity, lifting us from stone aged hunter-gatherers into the metal-working, agrarian societies that lead to greater civilizations and achievements.
The Story of Fuxi
A very long time ago, there was a country called Huaxu. The people who lived there were happy and long lived. Their lives were not that different from the Daoist Immortals. One day, a beautiful young Huaxu maiden was out strolling in the forest near Thunder Lake when she unwittingly wandered into the domain of god of Thunder. She saw a giant footprint on the ground and she was very curious. She held out her foot next to the giant print to see the difference in size. The instant she set her own foot into the giant footprint, the air was filled with the rumbling sound of thunder, and giant passed over her head then disappeared in a flash.
The Huaxu maiden took fright and ran back. She didn’t expect that after that day her belly would begin to get bigger, but ten months later she gave birth to an adorable baby boy. She named him Fuxi.
From the time he was little, Fuxi was smart and talented. Once he chopped down a small paulowina tree, trimmed it, and strung it with fifty strings. He called it a Se Harp and when he began to play it, it made melodious sounds that were very beautiful to hear.
One day, while Fuxi was playing music, a peal of thunder arrived from far away. He raised his head and thought to himself, “I have heard it said that my father is the god of Thunder that lives in Heaven. I too should go to Heaven and see him. Yes! Some people say that there is a tree called Jian Mu in the Southeast, it is extremely high and large, only if I climb that can I reach the Heavenly Court of the Immortal gods!” Thus, Fuxi took his Se Harp and departed Huaxu to begin his search for Jian Mu.
Fuxi headed out towards the Southeast. The more he walked, the more desolate it became. One day, he saw a group of starving people hitting a bison in order to kill it for food. They pulled the meat off a piece at a time, dripping with blood, and stuffed it into their mouths and ate it. Seeing them act this way, Fuxi was extremely astonished.
When he arrived at the banks of Blackwater River, Fuxi saw a person standing in the river grabbing at fish. When a small fish passed by, the person immediately pounced on it, but actually pouncing on thin air they were swept into the torrent and were carried away by the water in the blink of an eye. Fuxi saw this and felt very sad.
Fuxi walked and watched, walked and watched until he met the goddess Sunu. He then went up and asked, “Excuse me, but may I ask, do you know the way to Jian Mu which leads up to Heaven?” She answered his question with one of her own, “Are you so unsatisfied staying upon the Earth? What are you doing looking for Jian Mu?” Fuxi answered, “In order to go up to Heaven! In Heaven waits my father, the god of Thunder!”
“Very well, I will tell you where to find Jian Mu, but remember, when you climb up Jian Mu, you must on no account turn and look down!” When Sunu finished speaking, she pointed her finger. Fuxi followed her pointing finger and as expected, he saw a giant tree, unmatched in size by any other, growing straight into the sky. It was surely Jian Mu.
In order to show his gratitude, Fuxi loosed the Se Harp from his back and gave it to Sunu. After that, he began to climb Jian Mu. This was a very strange tree, the bark was very smooth and difficult to climb. Fuxi didn’t dare to be even a little bit careless, and slowly, slowly pulled himself up. Meanwhile, Sunu sat down under the tree and used the Se Harp to play some music. The sound that traveled up to Fuxi’s ears was very soulful, like it was expressing all the woes of the mortal world. He listened and listened and was soon distracted. Not paying attention, he slipped a long way down the tree.
Fuxi quickly pulled himself back together and continued climbing upward. At the very moment he climbed to the highest branch of Jian Mu, the music Sunu was playing echoed through the skies, forlorn and filled with sorrow. Fuxi was afraid; he forgot the warning of Sunu and turned his head to look back downwards. This time he was ruined. He felt nothing but the sky and earth spinning, and all of a sudden he fell down.
Fuxi, bearing his pain, began to get up from the ground. He yelled out, “Sunu!”, but she was nowhere to be seen. At that moment, the waves in Blackwater River rose suddenly and issued forth a rare and mythic creature. The creature said, “You have fallen from Heaven. It was not Sunu that caused you to be distracted, but your own reluctance to leave the mortal world!” When Fuxi heard this he was quite amazed, and decided not to climb Jian Mu again.
Thus, he came into the East, and there he established a kingdom. He taught the people how to hunt, how to domesticate wild animals, how to use string to weave nets, and he taught the people to use the nets to catch fish and birds. Ever since then, people have not had to go hungry and their lives are much better than they were before.
Shen’nong Tries All the Plants
In ancient times the five crops and the weeds all grew together, medicinal plants and all the flowers bloomed in one place. No one could clearly distinguish which plants could be eaten or which ones could be used to treat illness. The common people were dependent on hunting for their livelihood, but the more they hunted the birds that flew the air, the fewer they became; and the more they hunted the beasts that walked on the ground, the rarer they became. People often went hungry. And if someone got a rash or got sick, then there was no way to treat them, and people could only look on helplessly and wait for the them to die.
The tribe’s chief, Shen’nong considered the situation of the suffering of ordinary people and he felt pain in his heart and mind. He decided to find crops that could sate hunger and herbs that could be sued to treat illness for his people. He lead several of his subjects, setting off from Mt. Li and walking towards the Northwest. They walked and walked, they walked for seven times seven or forty-nine days. They arrived at a place where the peaks of high mountains met and canyons ran into one another. Growing atop the mountains were strange plants and unusual grasses that they could smell even from very far away. Shen’nong was extremely happy and led his people into a canyon until they reached the foot of a large mountain.
This mountain stuck straight up into the sky, and all four sides were steep cliffs. The cliffs were overgrown with moss, and rivulets of water slid down them. He saw without a ladder to heaven they could not ascend. His subjects pleaded with him to let it be, to return home with haste. Shen’nong resolutely shook his head. He looked up and down the high mountain, carefully sizing it up then thought hard. Suddenly he spotted several golden monkeys following along high old hanging vines and moving horizontally between the cliffs and climbing the trees that grew there. Shen’nong had an idea! He called for his people to come then had them chop wood, cut vines, and build a shelf frame that leaned against the cliffs. Every day they built another layer no matter if it was windy and rainy, or snowing and freezing, they never stopped working. They built constantly for one year until they reached the mountain top.
Shen’nong carefully, cautiously climbed up the wooden frame up the mountain. Wow! The top of the mountain was truly a world of flowers and grasses, Shen’nong was very excited. He called to his people to guard against attacks from wolves, tigers, panthers or other animals. He himself picked flowers and plants and put them in his mouth to taste them. By day, he led his people around the mountain top tasting plants; by night, the people lit a bonfire, and he would sit by the fire and record in detail his discoveries of the day: which ones are bitter and which sweet, which ones can sate hunger and which can cure illness. He wrote it all down clearly and distinctly.
Once, he put a very strange looking plant into his mouth and began to chew, immediately he became dizzy and fell to the ground. His subjects rushed to help him up. He was at once aware that he was poisoned, but he was already unable to speak. He could only feebly point at the bright red reishi mushroom ahead and then point to his own mouth. One subject understood his meaning, and quickly fed him the reishi mushroom. After Shen’nong ate the reishi, he felt instantly refreshed, and the poisoned miasma melted away all at once. He quickly told his people to record the poisonous plant, as well the healing reishi. Even though this time they averted disaster, his subjects worried that this way of tasting everything would sooner or later be dangerous, so they begged him to go back down the mountain. But as before, he resolutely shook his head.
When he finished tasting all the plants on one mountain, Shen’nong went on to another mountain to keep tasting, until his footprints were stamped all over the mountain range. Finally, he tasted wheat, rice, millet, corn and a whole bunch of edible beans and later these became known as “the five crops”. He also tasted three hundred and sixty-five types of medicinal herbs and wrote “Bencai Jing”, the classical book of Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine.
Years flew by in the blink of an eye, Shen’nong was about to carry the herbs he had picked and the seeds he had gathered down the mountain when he discovered that the wooden frames they had built had grown roots. During the long days, they had unexpectedly grown into a sea of trees. While Shen’nong was trying to figure out how to get down the mountain, a flock of red-crested cranes flew by in midair and carried him and the subjects at his side up into the Heavenly Court. In later years, people will come to give Shen’nong the title of Flame Emperor Yan Di.
Gallivantrix 