Hou Yi, renowned as the greatest archer of all ages both in the Heavens and on Earth. He was capable of shooting down a tiny sparrow flying through thick foliage from far away with his unerring arrows. He was said to have been born with a longer left arm, a natural advantage for a great archer. As Di Jun bade him farewell, he presented Hou Yi with a handsome red bow and a quiver of razor-sharp, white arrows. Accompanied by his wife Chang E (a goddess of the moon), Hou Yi descended to the Earthly world.
Yao was overjoyed and relieved to see Hou Yi. Hope fluttered in his despairing heart and in the hearts of the people who were on the verge of death under the burning suns. Hou Yi’s arrival rejuvenated the population and many gathered on the main square of the imperial city to hail their last hope, crying out for him to deliver them from the evil sun devils. Like the heroic Hercules in Greek mythology who accomplished twelve extraordinary feats, Hou Yi, mandated from the Heavens, faced bravely up to his arduous mission, the hopes and very lives of the common people depending on his efforts.
What people hated most was the regularity with which the ten suns appeared at the same time in the sky. Hou Yi, mindful of the affection Di Jun bore his children, as a first gambit, sought to make a show of strength to the ten suns, hoping to intimidate them into departing the sky. These proud and arrogant children, borne of gods, were thoroughly spoiled and arrogant and they paid not the slightest attention to the Heavenly archer’s threats. They dashed across the sky to underline their scorn for this archer who they saw as being so impertinent as to challenge them. Hou Yi became extremely irritated. Walking to the center of the square, he plucked a white arrow from his quiver, drew the arrow back on his taut bowstring and let fly at one of the red balls in the sky. The great sun exploded violently in a great ball of flame. A deluge of golden feathers filled the air, and the sun fell to the Earth with an enormous crash. The feathers were discovered to be those of a gigantic golden three-legged crow, which turned out to be the incarnation of the sun-child’s essential soul. In the sky nine suns remained but it undoubtedly felt just a little cooler, and the people shouted in delight, their hopes greatly raised by the heroic archer.
Hou Yi knew that he had crossed a dangerous line. He had killed one of the Heavenly Emperor’s children. He sighed deeply and thought to himself, “As well hanged for a sheep as for a lamb”. He raised another arrow to his bow and let fly at the next sun, which like all his brothers, now had much more respect for the prowess of the archer and were rushing everywhere in panic. Hou Yi kept on shooting at the suns; his arrows darted forth in rapid succession like a chain of pearls, swift as the wind and powerful as lightning. One by one the fireballs in the sky exploded, bursting open with great tongues of flame, and innumerable golden feathers fell down in a great blizzard. The delighted cries of the people echoed throughout the land. At that moment Emperor Yao, delighted as he was to be almost delivered from the terrible catastrophe, realized that Hou Yi was so engrossed in his shooting that he was going to continue until no suns remained in the sky. No sun was just as bad as ten suns, the wise king mused. He told his men to secretly withdraw one arrow from Hou Yi’s quiver. In the end, nine suns were destroyed by the intrepid archer, and only one remained in the sky. The land cooled to the way it had been before and once again peace returned to the land.
The great scourge of the ten suns had been removed, but other hazards remained. Ferocious beasts and demented birds of prey still stalked the land and remained a great ter-ror to all. Hou Yi’s next mission was to slay these fearful creatures. He firstly came to the Central Plains and killed Ya Yu, a man-eating monster which resembled a cow with a man’s face and horse’s hooves, and whose howl was like a baby’s crying. Then he went to the Wil-derness of Zhou Hua to rid the world of Zao Chi, another monster with the head of a beast and the body of a man with five-or-six-inch-long chisel-shaped teeth. In the treacherous waters of the north, Hou Yi slayed Jiu Ying, a beast with nine heads who could gush water and flame from its mouths. On his way back, passing by Qing Qiu marsh in the east, he eliminated a murderous vulture named Gale. Then, in the Dong Ting Lake in the south he beheaded the Ba She Snake, a python that could consume an elephant. At last, he came to Son Lin Forest, capturing alive Feng Xi, a gigantic wild boar with long teeth and sharp claws.
After innumerable trials and hardships, Hou Yi eventually terminated all the evils that afflicted the land. Hou Yi was eulogized and praised by all for his great achievements.
Hou Yi is among the greatest heroes of Chi-nese legend and has been revered by countless generations.
