Gong Gong's Wrath Shatters Mount Buzhou

Long, long ago, when the world was still young, it was an amazing place—beautiful and perfectly balanced. The whole sky was held up by a giant pillar: Mount Buzhou. Its peak reached right into the heavens, made of the strongest jade and metal, keeping the sky and earth apart. On the mountain, you’d find cinnamon and sandalwood forests, where rainbow-colored phoenixes lived among the branches. Rivers of liquid silver—moonlight tears—flowed down the cliffs, watering the lands below. Humans lived in peace, guided by kind gods and watched over by the Emperor of Heaven.

But trouble was brewing in the celestial court. Gong Gong, the Water God, was a real hothead—powerful and unpredictable, like the oceans he ruled. He had these swirling, angry eyes and a serious grudge. He thought he should be the top dog, the ruler of everything, instead of the wise old Emperor. So he gathered a bunch of rebellious gods and monsters and started a huge fight against the heavenly order.

The battle shook the whole universe. Gong Gong’s wild army of water spirits and fire demons clashed with the loyal celestial troops. It was chaos—divine weapons clashing, stars trembling. But despite his fury, Gong Gong’s rebellion started to fall apart. His forces were pushed back, his plans ruined by the skilled generals on the other side.

In a last, desperate rage, Gong Gong decided to take his anger out on the world itself. He gathered all his power and charged straight at Mount Buzhou like a living comet, full of pure spite.

The impact wasn’t just a loud noise—it was like the universe tearing apart. The jade pillar cracked, a web of light spread across it, and the top third exploded into a million pieces. The sky, now unsupported, tilted violently. A huge hole opened up in the northwest, letting in the chaotic void.

Down on Earth, it was total disaster. The ground tilted, rivers overflowed, and floods covered everything. The silver rivers from Mount Buzhou turned into destructive torrents. Forests burned, fields drowned, and people screamed in terror. The balance of Yin and Yang was broken, and the world plunged into darkness.

But from the chaos, a hero emerged: Nüwa, the gentle goddess and mother of humanity. Seeing her children suffer, she felt deep pity and decided to fix the broken world. She traveled to the edge of the universe and collected five-colored stones representing the five elements—wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Using starlight and her divine power, she melted them into a glowing, molten mixture.

Flying up to the tear in the sky, she carefully patched the hole, smoothing the celestial fabric and stopping the chaos from leaking in. The darkness faded, and sunlight returned to the battered earth.

But things weren’t the same. The sky was fixed, but not perfectly. Mount Buzhou stood broken, a permanent reminder of the catastrophe. Because the sky was now tilted, the sun, moon, and stars began their eternal journey toward the northwest, which is why they rise in the east and set in the west. And because the earth was tilted too, all the rivers in China started flowing southeast, carving new paths in the changed world.

Gong Gong’s rage didn’t get him the throne—he just broke the world and left it with a new, imperfect beauty. It’s a lesson written into the fabric of existence: unchecked ambition and anger can destroy even the most perfect harmony. And while compassion and resilience can mend the breaks, the world that emerges is forever marked by its trauma. The story of the broken pillar is whispered by the rivers flowing southeast and written in the paths of the stars—a timeless reminder of the day a god’s pride shattered the world.