In the ancient days of the world, when the boundaries between the celestial and the mortal were still thin, a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions struck the Middle Kingdom. This was the era of the Great Flood, a time when the heavens themselves seemed to have split open, pouring down a relentless deluge that transformed the fertile valleys into vast, inland seas. The waters did not merely rise; they surged with a malevolent intent, swallowing the hills and creeping up the sides of the highest peaks. The people, led by the weary Emperor Yao, were forced to retreat into the high caves of the mountains, watching in despair as their homes, their crops, and their ancestors' graves vanished beneath the murky, swirling depths. The cries of the orphaned and the wails of the starving rose like a dark mist, yet the heavens remained silent, seemingly indifferent to the plight of the shivering mortals below.
Among the advisors to Emperor Yao was a man of great stature and even greater resolve named Gun, the Count of Chong. Gun was a descendant of the Yellow Emperor, and within his veins flowed the blood of the divine, yet his heart beat for the suffering of the common people. For years, he had watched the futile attempts of his kin to stem the tide. They built walls of mud and wood, only to see them dissolved by the current in a single night. Gun realized that mortal materials were no match for a flood of cosmic origin. He understood that to fight a divine disaster, one needed a divine solution. He spent many nights in deep meditation and research, consulting ancient scrolls and the spirits of the mountains, until he learned of the existence of Xirang—the 'Expanding Soil' or 'Breathing Earth.' This was a substance of the highest heaven, a handful of which could grow into a mountain in the blink of an eye, never ceasing its expansion until it had filled the space allotted to it.
However, the Xirang belonged to the Jade Emperor, the supreme sovereign of the celestial realms, and it was guarded with jealous care in the treasuries of the stars. To ask for it was to be denied, for the gods often viewed the cycles of destruction on earth as a necessary purification. Gun, driven by an agonizing empathy for the drowning world, decided that he would not ask. He would steal. Making the perilous journey to the gates of the Heavenly Palace, Gun waited for the moment when the celestial guards were distracted by the changing of the lunar watches. He slipped into the treasury, guided by the shimmering light of the magical soil itself. When he found it, the Xirang looked like nothing more than a pile of golden sand, yet it pulsed with a rhythmic, living heartbeat. Gun scooped the soil into a silken pouch and fled back to the mortal world, descending through the clouds like a falling star.
Upon his return to the flood-stricken lands, Gun did not wait for ceremony. He traveled to the most critical points of the inundation and cast small pinches of the Xirang into the water. The effect was instantaneous and miraculous. As the golden grains touched the water, they hissed and began to swell, erupting upward in massive, solid ridges. The earth grew beneath his feet, forming great embankments that pushed back the surges. For the first time in generations, the people saw the waters recede. Gun worked tirelessly, traveling from province to province, laying down the foundation of a new world. The people hailed him as a savior, and for nine years, it seemed as though the theft of fire had been matched by the theft of earth. But the peace was fragile. Gun’s method was one of containment and opposition; he sought to imprison the water rather than lead it, and the pressure behind his dams grew with every passing season.