Archive of Our Own

Long ago, when the world was young and the gods still roamed the earth, the Heavenly King and Queen had ten suns. They were spoiled and immature, so their parents assigned them the task of walking across the sky each day, one by one, east to west, in the hopes of ingraining in them a sense of responsibility. But they inevitably grew bored, and one dawn, they decided to all walk at once across the sky so they could play their games sooner.

The combined radiance of all ten suns was terrible. They turned the air into a furnace and burned the earth. They blistered crops and parched rivers. Humans collapsed where they stood, drained by the heat. It quickly became clear that if this continued, the world might be destroyed by the suns’ carelessness.

The Queen of Shu Han¹ had the legendary archer Yi in her service. Yi and his wife Yue were once gods themselves but left the Heavens to wander among the humans. At the Queen of Shu Han’s request, Yi confronted the suns, but they were undaunted and spiraled into even more chaos as they danced across the earth, leaving burning footprints in the land.

So Yi took out the bow and quiver gifted to him by the Heavenly King himself and shot down the suns, one by one. As the first nine suns were each shot in turn, they tried desperately to cling to the Heavens. But they all inevitably fell. Each time one landed on the earth, their radiance passed to a child marked for greatness by the Heavens, and a Sun Summoner was born.

Just before Yi could shoot the tenth and last sun, the Heavenly Queen intervened, pleading for her child’s life. Yi relented, for the world needed the final sun to warm the crops and to light the day, and the remaining sun had been humbled by its siblings’ fates. But the Heavenly King was made furious by the slaying of his children, and as punishment, he took away Yi and his wife’s divine essences so that they could not return to the Heavens.

However, even though the Heavenly Queen mourned her children, she understood the necessity of Yi’s actions. She was able to smuggle the elixir of immortality, which can give its drinker true godhood, out of the Heavens behind her husband’s back. The Heavenly Queen gave the elixir to Yi, but there was only enough for one dose. Yi and his wife Yue could not both take the elixir and return to the Heavens. If they split it, they would still be able to live forever but only on earth.

The Queen of Shu Han also gave rich, fertile lands to Yi as a reward for his heroic deed. Some say that over time, Yi became a greedy, cruel lord who was waiting to take the elixir at a time he could deal the most harm to his enemies. He ignored the welfare of his people, whose care fell to his wife as she made them rice cakes so that they would not starve. To save the world from an eternity of his tyranny, one night Yue drank the entire elixir herself, which sent her back to the Heavens while Yi was left to perish as a mortal on the earth. Yue resumed her seat on the moon where her only companion is the White Jade Rabbit as they spend their days endlessly making mooncakes.

Others say that Yi waited because he loved his wife dearly, and he struggled to decide what to do with the elixir. He delayed too long, and one night a jealous handmaiden broke into their room. She demanded that they give her the elixir, or she would kill them both. Instead, Yi told his wife to drink the elixir while he defended her, and Yue was borne by her restored divinity to the Heavens, away from her husband forevermore. She still makes mooncakes with the White Jade Rabbit, but she does so because they were her husband’s favorite food.

The descendants of the legendary archer Yi married into the imperial family of Shu Han and proved to be a line of wise kings. As a reward, the gods sent four legendary animals to stand beside the imperial throne so that the whole world would know that they were blessed.

The first animal was the Azure Dragon, who represented the king’s strength. The second was the Vermilion Bird, thought to be a phoenix, who represented the king’s piety. The third was the White Tiger, who represented the king’s virtue. The last was the Black Tortoise, sometimes called the Black Warrior, who represented the king’s longevity.

However, one day a new king came into the throne, and he was greedy, cowardly, and malicious. The animals deemed him unworthy and abandoned their places by the throne. The Azure Dragon went east, the Vermilion Bird south, the White Tiger west, and the Black Tortoise north, where they guard the people who live in the remote corners of Shu Han, far from the imperial family’s protection. It is said that when a worthy monarch ascends to the Jade Throne of Shu Han, the Four Guardians will return to their places beside it.

One thousand years ago, where the glorious city of Ahmrat Jen stands today, there was only a craggy, barren mountain. In those days, sons were valued more than daughters, so female infants were often abandoned by the poorest families. One such child was Jen, who was left to die on this particular mountain.

But the child had a greater destiny than to perish from exposure, so the gods commanded that a falcon who dwelled on the mountain raise the human girl with the rest of her nest. Like the other hatchlings, Jen grew up learning how to find her own food, defend herself, and even fly, which leads some to speculate that she was a feng ju² or a yang ju³.

When she was a young woman, the gods spoke to her from the Heavens, and they commanded that she descend from the mountain in order to meet her destiny. She obeyed and left the falcon flock, traveling away from the mountain. Eventually she came upon a human settlement that was small but populated with honest, pious people. Jen remained with them for years, guarding them against raids from their stronger neighbors. She became a legend among humans, and the people worshipped her as the settlement swelled into a village, then a town.

One day, the gods spoke to Jen again. They told her that she must give the people enough land to build a proper city where they could defend themselves and live in paradise on earth. They sent omens to guide Jen back to the mountain where she was raised, but the mother falcon and her nest, the hatchlings who had grown alongside Jen, refused to surrender their territory. So for six days and six nights, Jen waged a terrible battle, and on the seventh morning, she slew the final falcon. As a reward for obeying the dictates of destiny without complaint, the gods raised Jen to the Heavens. They also blessed the mountain with eternal summer, allowing flowers and trees to grow where there was once only stone. There, the people built the city Ahmrat Jen, which means "the Citadel of Jen" in the Northern Shu dialect.

Many centuries ago, a zuo ju⁴ created a monkey out of stone. The monkey displayed extraordinary strength, speed, and agility from the moment he began to move. Fascinated, the zuo ju caged the monkey and took him home to study. However, the monkey soon grew strong enough to break out of the cage. When he did, he killed the zuo ju, ate him, and fled back to the wilderness.

The monkey absorbed the zuo ju’s powers by eating him, and he forged a magical staff from bamboo which could grow to the size of the largest ginkgo, or it could shrink to fit behind his ear. With the staff in hand, he went to a nearby clan of monkeys who declared him their king when they realized his powers and abilities.

The legend of the Monkey King spread throughout Shu Han, and in response, many ju⁵ tried to hunt him down so they could take his bones to amplify their own powers. All failed; the Monkey King killed them instead, and he ate them to absorb their powers for himself, therby making himself even stronger. To this day, ju are deathly afraid of the jungles in the southeastern corner of Shu Han, lest the Monkey King find them and eat them, too.

There once was an orphaned zuo ju named Kho. Instead of a patronym, he was given the surname Nergui, meaning No One in the Northern Shu dialect. He was an extraordinarily skilled clockmaker who attracted the attention of the King of Shu Han. Kho was lavished with riches and royal commissions in exchange for his marvelous inventions, but he became greedy and yearned to be named the Imperial Clockmaker.

When the King of Shu Han went to war, Kho thought to seal his place in the imperial court by creating an army out of clockwork that would never need to sleep or eat. At first, the clockwork army seemed like a blessing from the Heavens, an unstoppable force which trampled Shu Han’s enemies. But the King of Shu Han eventually realized that even he could not command them to stop, and the clockwork army began to rain destruction upon Shu towns and villages.

One day, the clockwork army began to turn toward Ahmrat Jen itself. A young woman, Neyar Kir-Ganbold, was the daughter of a blacksmith who had been elevated to noble status. She was determined to protect her city and the people who had changed her family’s fortunes. As the clockwork army neared, she went to her father’s forge and created the legendary sword Neshyenyer. With this blade, she single-handedly fought the clockwork army for three days and three nights until the last soldier was slain.

When the people demanded that Kho be punished for his actions, the King of Shu Han refused because it would reflect poorly on himself. So Neyar took up her sword again and led a revolution, chasing the King away and instead establishing the Queens of the Taban line on the Jade Throne.

Batu was a humble miller who served a nobleman in Shu Han. The nobleman wanted to host an extravagant banquet for his friends, but the day before the banquet, he found his storerooms empty. When questioned, Batu told him that he had given away all his flour to his friends in the months previous. The nobleman called him a liar and threatened to have him executed for thievery.

Yeryin, the miller’s daughter, begged that her father’s life be spared. In exchange, she would grind all the wheat in the storehouse overnight. The nobleman laughed at her but agreed, locking her in the storehouse so that she could not escape or seek help.

That night, Yeryin prayed to the Heavens, and the gods answered and sent fanshen⁶ to grind the wheat for her. Yeryin worked alongside them, and with the many helping hands, the work was done before dawn.

The next morning, the nobleman and his friends found Yeryin asleep on a pile of flour sacks. They were convinced that she had gotten help somehow through a secret entrance, and they began to dig a tunnel under the land around the mill. When they dug so deep that they could no longer see the sun, the gods sent a tremor which collapsed the tunnel around them.