Heaven and earth were a chaotic mass, like an egg. Pangu was born within it. After eighteen thousand years, heaven and earth split apart. The clear, bright yang became heaven; the murky yin became earth. Pangu remained between them, transforming nine times each day, divine in heaven and sacred upon the earth. Heaven rose ten feet each day, earth grew ten feet thicker, and Pangu grew ten feet taller. This continued for eighteen thousand years, until heaven had reached its utmost height, earth its greatest depth, and Pangu his full stature. Thus, heaven stood ninety thousand miles above earth. Only afterward did the Three Sovereigns appear.
The breath of heaven was vast and indistinct, and life began to sprout. Heaven and earth separated, and the universe took shape. Yin opened and yang responded, primordial energy spread throughout, and the balanced essence was born: humanity. Pangu was the first to be born. As he lay dying, his body transformed. His breath became wind and clouds, his voice became thunder, his left eye became the sun, and his right eye the moon. His limbs and torso became the four cardinal extremes and the Five Sacred Mountains. His blood became rivers, his veins the contours of the earth, his flesh the fields, his hair the stars, his skin the grasses and trees, his teeth and bones metal and stone, his marrow pearls and jade, and his sweat rain and dew. The insects on his body, touched by the wind, transformed into the common people.
Pangu was the primordial lord from whom all things in heaven and earth began. Where did he come from, and where did he go? People have long speculated, but what is the truth? When a young man from the twenty-first century is mysteriously summoned to a place called the Hidden Sage Continent, he discovers that the one who summoned him was a family letter written by Pangu. Stranger still, the letter was written to him. And so Letian sets out to walk his father’s path once more.
