Today we're gonna be doing some creative interpretation of the myth of the 10 suns (like we did with Sun Wukong becoming the Monkey King a while ago), start to finish, and I'm gonna try to include as many elements from different sources as I can.
So to begin with, the 10 suns are just sick and tired of their mother, Xihe, smothering them. She's too overprotective and refuses to let more than one of them outside at a time, and even then only with her direct supervision on a very set course. So they decide to indulge in a little teen rebellion and all go up into the sky before their mother comes to collect them one morning and immediately decide that teen rebellion is the best and they're never coming down.
Their parents, Xihe and the current ruler of the cosmos Di Jun, try everything in their power to convince them to come down because they're causing the mortals on Earth to suffer, but they don't care and keep partying up in the sky. Eventually, Di Jun thinks that if an authority figure can't convince his sons to come down, maybe a friend will, so he calls up Hou Yi. Hou Yi, being the caretaker of the suns and the god of Riyue Mountain, is the obvious choice. He knows the 10 suns very well and is a good friend to all of them. Surely nothing could go wrong if he was in charge!
When Hou Yi goes down to the mortal realm to scope out the situation it's bad. Like, really bad. He meets up with a mortal man, Shen I, who had been tasked by the human emperor to deal with the suns with his bow and arrow (somehow), and the ypung demigod Erlang Shen who is pissed beyond reason that his mother died in the heat of the extra suns. The three of them go along to try and talk the suns down, with Hou Yi giving Shen I some very helpful archery tips and becoming good friends with both younger men. He convinces them to let him try to talk it out first, which they reluctantly agree to.
They eventually reach the suns and Hou Yi tells them about all the horrible things happening down on earth because of their behavior, but they refuse to listen. Enraged at his mother's killers being apathetic to the situation they created, Erlang starts throwing mountains at them. He manages to hit a few, but most fly up too high out of his reach and refuse to come back down. This leaves Hou Yi and Shen I no choice but to take their bows and shoot down suns until only one remained in the sky.
With the crisis solved, Hou Yi leaves his mortal friends and goes back to the Heavenly Court, where Di Jun and Xihe are furious. Hou Yi tries to explain the situation, but they're too beside themselves in grief and rage to listen. So, instead of sharing the blame with his two friends, Hou Yi takes all the blame for the incident himself and is punished alone. They strip him of his immortality and banish him to the mortal world. His wife, Chang'e, tries to intercede and have them reconsider but is only sentenced to join her husband in his punishment for her troubles.
Down on earth, Hou Yi is horrified and wracked with guilt that his beloved Chang'e has been reduced to a mortal doing menial tasks and condemned to an eventual death, so he decides to do something about it. He travels all the way to Kunlun and the court of Xiwangmu and explains his situation. She feels really bad for him and wants to help how she can, but she only has one pill of immortality left. The other one had been scooped up by this mortal kid named Shen I, and he was long gone by now. By the time Hou Yi found him, he would have already taken the pill. Disappointed but not hopeless, Hou Yi takes the remaining pill and returns home.
Back at the house, he tells Chang'e the situation and insists she take the pill but she refuses. She's his wife and any life she lives, mortal or otherwise, will be at his side and nowhere else. Hou Yi does his best to try and convince her, but she's stubborn and eventually they decide to put the matter to rest until a later date.
They end up making a life in the mortal realm, with Hou Yi becoming a well respected figure in their community for his archery skills. He takes on several apprentices, including a young man named Feng Meng. He accidently lets it slip to his disciple that there's a pill of immortality in his house, and Feng Meng gets a very dastardly idea. Waiting until Hou Yi was gone, Feng Meng attacked Chang'e when she was alone and demanded the pill. Struck with the choice of regaining her divinity and being separated from her beloved husband for eternity or allowing her killer to become a god, Chang'e takes the pill herself and smites Feng Meng in all her divine glory.
However, she is now unable to stay in the mortal world. Going to find her husband, she explains what happens and they have a tearful goodbye before she ascends into the heavens once more. However, she was unwilling to rejoin the divine court that had banished her husband in the first place, even if Di Jun had stepped down in shame for his sons' actions. So she goes to the moon instead, wanting to be just that little bit closer to her beloved.
This isn't quite the end, though. You see, Erlang and Shen I had been having their own adventures in the intervening years and had become gods themselves. Finding out what had happened to their friend and his wife, they were horrified, especially Shen I who had walked off with the pill of immortality that would have allowed Hou Yi and Chang'e to stay together. He feels even worse because his wife had ended up stealing the pill anyway! (Then she turned into a toad) Both of them end up swearing to assist Chang'e in any way they can in honor of their friend who protected them from Heavenly punishment and was doomed to a mortal life in their stead.
SUCH DRAMA! I love it! What about you guys?
