Prologue

Pangu split the heavens and earth, transforming the primordial chaos, and thus the Heavenly Dao was established. The Great Dao has fifty paths, but the heavens manifest only forty-nine, leaving one concealed. The Heavenly Dao is incomplete; therefore, calamities unceasingly sweep the world. Yet the Heavenly Dao is without feeling, while the Great Dao is compassionate, offering a thread of destiny.

During the catastrophic conflict between the Witch and Demon clans, the ancestral witch Gonggong, in a fit of rage, crashed into Buzhou Mountain, causing a rupture in heaven and earth. The celestial river poured down upon the vast land, inflicting untold suffering upon all living beings. At that time, the great goddess Nuwa, moved by the plight of the earth’s creatures, used the Cauldron of Heaven and Earth to refine five-colored stones and repair the sky. The Cauldron of Heaven and Earth is a supreme treasure, attainable only by those of great wisdom, boundless virtue, and profound goodness. Later, Nuwa molded clay to create mankind, thereby attaining the status of a sage and becoming revered as the Holy Mother of the human race.

When the era of the Three Sovereigns arrived, humanity flourished, but many perished from illness. Subsequently, the Earth Sovereign, Shennong, obtained the Cauldron of Heaven and Earth, tasted hundreds of herbs, refined divine medicines, and composed the Classic of Divine Farmer’s Herbs to benefit future generations, ultimately earning the title of Human Sovereign. During the time of the Five Emperors, the demon clan wrought havoc among mortals, causing catastrophic floods. Emperor Shun appointed Yu the Great to control the waters. Yu opened mountains and split rocks, enduring countless hardships, and finally succeeded in taming the floods. Emperor Shun then yielded the throne to Yu. Under Yu’s governance, the human race prospered and the world knew peace. To ensure the enduring fortune of humanity, Yu sought out the Cauldron of Heaven and Earth, divided it into nine parts, and used them to stabilize the realm, establishing the division of the world into nine provinces.

In the Warring States period, the descendants of the Nine Li clan of the Witch tribe founded the state of Qin. When the First Emperor destroyed the six kingdoms and unified China, he believed his military achievements unmatched. To consolidate the rule of the Nine Li clan and fulfill his longing for immortality, he recklessly excavated the nine cauldrons that safeguarded the fortune of China. The nine cauldrons vanished without a trace, leading to the decline of Qin's national destiny, and the dynasty perished in its second generation. As the fortune of the Chinese people waned, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth dispersed, prompting the great adepts to migrate beyond the mortal realm. By the Tang dynasty, cultivators in China had nearly disappeared. Over the next thousand years, China suffered repeated invasions by foreign powers: the chaos of the Five Barbarians, the Mongol conquest of the Song, the Manchu replacement of the Ming, the Eight-Nation Alliance invasion at the end of the Qing, and later, Japanese aggression during the Republic era.

China’s history stretches five thousand years, the ancient past beyond counting.