The story of Nüwa repairing the sky is one of the most famous myths in Chinese mythology, illustrating both her wisdom and her deep love for humanity. The disaster began when the furious God Gong Gong, in a fit of rage, collided with the great pillar that supported the heavens—Mount Buzhou. The pillar broke, causing a catastrophic event. Half of the sky collapsed, leaving a massive hole in the heavens. Firestorms ravaged the forests, and floods burst forth from the earth. Meanwhile, wild animals and venomous creatures, taking advantage of the chaos, began attacking humanity. The people were left helpless, overwhelmed by fire, flood, and predatory beasts. The world seemed on the verge of total destruction.
Seeing the suffering of her creations, Nüwa was deeply saddened. She longed to confront Gong Gong and make him pay for his actions, but after careful consideration, she realized that Gong Gong’s ferocity and temperament made him a difficult foe to deal with. If she fought him, the consequences could be dire for humanity. Instead of seeking revenge, she chose to focus on saving the people first.
Nüwa observed the source of the disaster—the enormous hole in the sky—and realized that only by repairing the heavens could the disasters be stopped. The question was: how to fix the sky? After much thought, she decided that the only way to patch the heavens was with five-colored divine stones.
Nüwa traveled to Kunlun Mountain, the source of the world’s rivers, where she gathered many five-colored stones. These stones were red, yellow, gray, white, and blue. At the foot of a cliff in Kunlun, she built a furnace large enough to hold a mountain. She placed the stones into the furnace and waited anxiously, for she knew that the longer the repairs took, the more suffering humanity would endure. After 49 days of intense heating, the stones were transformed into 49 giant stones, each imbued with magical properties: they were impervious to fire and water, and could levitate.
With these powerful stones in hand, Nüwa flew into the sky and began filling the hole. Each stone she placed gradually reduced the size of the gap. After 49 days, the sky was repaired, and the celestial hole was finally sealed.
However, while the heavens had been mended, the great pillar that once supported the sky—the pillar that had broken—remained absent. Nüwa knew she had to find a way to restore the pillar and prevent the sky from collapsing again. After searching far and wide, she discovered a giant turtle in the vast sea.
Approaching the turtle, Nüwa said, “The sky has been repaired, but the great pillar that once held it up is gone. I need your help to support the heavens once more.”
The giant turtle, sensing the urgency, asked, “What can I do to help, my lady?”
Nüwa replied, “I need your four legs to hold up the sky. Will you help me?”
Without hesitation, the giant turtle agreed to help for the sake of the world’s stability. Nüwa then took the turtle’s four legs and used them as columns to prop up the collapsed half of the sky.
Though the celestial disaster had been resolved, the troubles on Earth were far from over. The wild beasts and venomous creatures continued to threaten humanity, with the most dreadful of all being a black dragon that lived in the depths of the sea. Nüwa led her people to slay this ferocious dragon, sending a strong message to all other demons and beasts—never again would they dare to wreak havoc on the world.
Next, Nüwa guided the people in damming the floods and restoring balance to the rivers. With Nüwa’s guidance and protection, humanity was finally freed from the greatest disasters the world had ever known.
However, the damage to the world had left a lasting mark. The west side of the sky, where the pillar had once stood, was now slightly lower than the eastern side, even though the turtle legs held the heavens up. From that moment on, the sun and the moon would always rise in the east and set in the west, as the heavens remained tilted due to the collapse of the celestial pillar.
Nüwa’s compassion and wisdom had saved the world, and from that time on, she was revered as the goddess who protected humanity and restored balance to the universe.