In the primordial age of the world, during the reign of the legendary Emperor Yao, the heavens were not as they are today. Instead of one sun rising and setting in orderly fashion, there were ten suns, the children of the Jade Emperor. These ten suns lived in a giant mulberry tree in the Eastern Sea, and each day, one would ride a chariot across the sky to bring light and warmth to the earth. However, one fateful morning, the ten suns grew weary of their routine and decided to appear all at once. The result was a catastrophe of cosmic proportions. The earth began to bake; crops withered into ash, the rivers and oceans began to boil, and the people suffered under an unrelenting, scorching heat that threatened to extinguish all life.
Enter Hou Yi, a mortal man of extraordinary strength and unparalleled skill with the bow. Seeing the agony of his people, Hou Yi ascended to the summit of the holy Mount Tai. He carried with him a divine bow of tiger bone and arrows tipped with dragon scale. With a heart full of resolve, he aimed at the sky and began to shoot down the suns. One by one, the extra suns burst into plumes of fire and vanished, leaving behind only the feathers of the golden ravens that inhabited them. As he prepared to shoot the tenth sun, the Emperor Yao intervened, realizing that the world needed one sun to survive. Hou Yi spared the final sun, and for his heroism, he was hailed as a savior and a king among men.
Hou Yi was married to Chang'e, a woman of such ethereal beauty and kindness that she was known throughout the land. Their love was deep and steadfast, a light that burned brighter than the nine suns Hou Yi had extinguished. Despite his fame, Hou Yi remained humble and devoted to his wife. However, his feat had earned him the attention of the gods. During a journey to the sacred Kunlun Mountain, Hou Yi encountered the Queen Mother of the West, Xiwangmu. Impressed by his deeds and his noble character, she gifted him a small porcelain vial containing the Elixir of Immortality. She warned him, however, that the vial contained enough for two people to live forever as earthly deities, or for one person to ascend fully to the heavens as a celestial god.
Hou Yi returned home and shared the news with Chang'e. Because they were so deeply in love, neither wished to leave the other. They decided to hide the elixir under their bed, intending to share it together on a special day so they could remain eternal companions on earth. But fame brings shadows, and Hou Yi had taken on several apprentices to teach them the art of archery. Among them was a man named Fengmeng, a person whose heart was as twisted and greedy as his skill was great. Fengmeng had overheard the couple speaking of the elixir and hatched a dark plan to steal the godhood for himself.
On the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, when the moon was at its fullest and brightest, Hou Yi led his students on a hunting expedition into the deep forests. Fengmeng feigned illness and stayed behind, waiting for the house to be empty. Once the archers were gone, Fengmeng broke into the house and confronted Chang'e with a sharpened blade, demanding she hand over the vial. Chang'e, knowing that a villain like Fengmeng would only bring misery to the world if he became an immortal god, realized she had no way to defend the treasure. In a moment of desperate sacrifice, she rushed to the hiding place, uncorked the vial, and drank every last drop of the shimmering liquid.
Almost immediately, the laws of gravity began to lose their hold on her. Chang'e felt her body become light as a cloud, her feet lifting off the wooden floor. She drifted out of the window and into the night sky, bathed in the silver glow of the moon. As she rose higher and higher, she realized she was being pulled toward the moon itself. She chose to land there because it was the celestial body closest to the earth; even in her divinity, she wanted to remain as near as possible to her beloved Hou Yi. She landed in a realm of silence and silver dust, where the great Guanghan Palace (the Palace of Vast Coldness) stood waiting for its new mistress.