Fuhei and Neuwa
Heavy clouds, howling wind, roaring thunder; pounding rain was coming at the blink of an eye. One man urgently placed dried moss he regularly gathered on top of a rooftop made of tree skins to prevent the heavy rain from breaking the roof.
His only son and daughter were only ten years of age; probably used to summer's heavy thunder and rain; not scared; continued to play innocently with mud outside and, only occasionally, lifted their heads to look at their father. The man finished placing the moss on the roof, got down and brought the children into the house. Heavy rain began crying down as soon as they entered the door.
The rain got heavier with each fall, the wind blew faster with each blast, the boom bomb* thunder roar louder with each shout; it seemed like the thunder grandpapa (aka ThunderGong) up above was angry and was throwing a temper tantrum that was disaster-like to people.
The man saw the situation from inside the house, seemed to realize a catastrophe was beginning, shouldered a metal cage he had completed earlier, placed it at the open space below the roof, opened the metal cage; his hand held a Tiger Hunting Fork (aka Tiger Fork) and stood there waiting.
The sky above was filled with thick clouds dense as ink, the lightning-fast piercing ill-tempered thunder struck continuously one after the other; however, the man standing in the open space underneath the roof was not frightened at all; he was very solemn.
Following lightning and a mountain collapsing like colossal sound, a green-faced ThunderGong** flew down from the rooftop, axe in hand; his meaty back wings were flapping in a fan-like motion, a terrifying twinkling light was beaming in his eyes. The man standing in the open space underneath the roof did not wait for thunder grandpapa to stand steady, he quickly and busily used Tiger Fork to fork. ThunderGong was not expecting this move, Tiger Fork landed a bull's-eyes, dead center of (ThunderGong's) back, and propelled (ThunderGong) into the metal cage; metal cage (with the captive trapped inside) subsequently shouldered (by the man) into house.
"This time you were captured by me, let's see if you can still be up to no good?" The man smiled at the ThunderGong inside the metal cage.
ThunderGong, head down, lost all his spirits, had nothing to say.
The man told the children to watch ThunderGong. The children seeing the oddly shaped greened face ThunderGong was scared at first but after seeing (this creature) for a while was no longer afraid.
The next morning, the man went to the market to buy spices in preparation for killing, cleaning, cooking and eating ThunderGong. Before he left, he repeatedly instructed the children, "Remember. Do not give him water."
After the man left, ThunderGong began making sounds of distress in the metal cage and acted in all sorts of agony. The two children ran over to see him, asked him why was he making that sound. Thunder grandpapa said, "I am very thirsty, please give me a bowl of water to drink."
The older boy said, "Dada told us not to give you water before he left."
ThunderGong acted out the expression of pain once again and begged, "One bowl of water, not ok, please give me one cup of water, I am really very thirsty!"
The boy remembered his father's command, and firmly said, "No, dada will be angry at us!"
ThunderGong begged non-stop, "Then, please bring here the brush for brushing the wok on top of the helmet and sprinkle just a drop of water on me, that's good enough, I am dying of thirst!"
ThunderGong finished talking, closed its eyes, opened its mouth and waited there.
The younger girl saw the agony of ThunderGong which moved her kind loving heart, she thought ThunderGong has been locked up by father for one day and one night already and cannot even drink water; what a poor thing! And so she said to her brother, "BroBro, let's let him drink a few drops of water". Her brother thought, perhaps a few drops of water would not cause much harm, agreed.
The brother and sister duo went into the kitchen, took the brush for brushing the wok, rub it against water and sprayed it on ThunderGong's mouth. ThunderGong having gotten water was very happy and said to the children, "Thank you! Please leave this room temporarily, I need to leave now!".
The children ran out the door in a panic and only heard a lightning-fast ear and heart-piercing sound, sky shook earthquake***, ThunderGong broke the metal cage and flew out from the little house.
ThunderGong picked one tooth from his mouth, gave it to the two children, "Quickly, plant it into the ground. If you encounter a disaster, you can hide inside the seed."
After saying that he accompanied the detonating thunder and flew up to the sky. The children looked up to the sky, extremely surprised.
Not long after, their father brought home the purchased spices, saw the metal cage was already broken. ThunderGong has already escaped. He panicked and rushingly searched and found the children, asked and finally understood what happened. Their father knew a catastrophe was upon them, did not blame the innocence of his children, hastily prepared the supplies and attended to the construction of a boat day and night, just in case.
The two children with their curious hearts planted ThunderGong's tooth into the ground. Oddly enough, not long after planting, a fresh green shoot began to sprout from the ground. The new shoot grew very fast, in only one day, it began to blossom and form new seeds.
The following morning, the children went to see and it has already grown into a gigantic squash****. The brother and sister duo returned home for the saw knife, sawed open the squash in half; the squash was crammed with countless sharp teeth, a terrifying sight. However, the children were not scared and picked all the teeth out. After discarding all the teeth, they climbed in to play and discovered the size was just right for the two of them. After they finished playing, they dragged and left the empty squash at a far and quiet place.
The next day, just as their father finished the metal boat, the weather changed dramatically; the wild four began blowing black wind, violent destructive rain poured heavily down from the sky, muddy water blasted out from the ground below; like a stampede of wild horses; the never-ending continuous land filled with tiny mountains, tall hills, farmlands, dwellings, forest villages were all covered by one voluminous ocean.
Inside the wind and rain, their father saw the risky situation, yelled out, "Children, quick, take cover, ThunderGong is sending his violent water as revenge!" The two children hurriedly hid inside the squash while their father went into the metal boat and floated along the powerful waves of rising water.
The tide rose higher and higher until it elevated all the way to the sky. The father rode the metal boat against the howling wind and roaring rain all the way to the sky door. He stood on the boat's head and hit the door with his hand, the sound of his banging trembled the sky of nine depths*****. "Open your door now, let me in! Let me in!".
He shouted impatiently outside the door, used his fist to bang on the sky door even harder. The sky god inside was frightened, commanded the water god hastily and loudly to quickly stop the water. The water god followed the command; suddenly, the rain ended and the wind stopped, the powerful tide dropped like there is no tomorrow, dry soil appear on the great land. The father riding along the metal boat fell from the sky. The metal boat and him crashed onto the ground, everything shattered.
The two children hiding in the squash did not die. The squash can bounce, it only jumped around after falling onto the ground; safe and sound, the brother and sister duo did not sustain any harm.
After this episode of sky spitting of powerful water, all the people of the great land died, except for these two children. The two children had no names because they survived inside the squash their names began as,
Everyone else of the great land died; however, because this pair of children were not young and knew a bit about farming and planting, they were able to survive on their own, lived each day with happiness and led troublefree lives. At that time, the sky and land were not that far apart, the sky door was always opened, the brother and sister duo went hand in hand and climbed up the sky ladder to the sky hall to play.
Time passed gradually, the children finally grew up, and knew about the matters of life. One day, the older brother proposed to the younger sister to become man and woman together but the sister did not want to, dismissively said, "How can this be, we are brother and sister!"
The brother begged repeatedly (at least three times), the sister realizing there are no other man or woman knew the matter proposed by his brother cannot be rejected and eventually said to him, "You try to chase me, if you can catch up to me then we can become man and woman together."
The brother and sister ran round and round around a great tree. The sister was smart, smooth and quick, the brother chased for a while and still failed to catch up. After a while, the brother thought of a new idea, he chased and chased, and suddenly turned around and ran the other way; the sister was not prepared to defend, huffingly and puffingly ran into her brother's embrace.
After the two were united, the sister gave birth to a weirdly shaped meatball. They felt weird, carried the meatball and wanted to head to the sky to ask the gods for explanations. Unfortunately, the weirdly shaped meatball was not easy to carry and so they cut the meatball up into small slices, packed them up and followed the sky ladder toward the sky hall. Unexpectedly, half way up the sky, a strong gust of wind suddenly blew and carried the package of tiny meat balls away. The little mince-like meatballs scattered, flew all over and landed onto the great land and became mankind. According to talks, the ones that landed on leaves took the last name of leaf, the ones that landed on wood took the last name of wood, and so forth and so on, they took the names of whatever they landed on. From that moment on, the world had human again. The couple Fuhei and Neuwa became the ancestors of the first rebirths of mankind.
*Boom bomb is this translator's humble attempt to translate the Chinese characters used in the original text to imitate the sound of thunder. As the drafting of this translation, this translator could not think of the English words used to imitate the sound emitted by the moving wheels of a train. In other words, thunder could sound like the explosions of bombs or the moving wheels of a train.
**ThunderGong is this translator's nickname for the controller of thunder. At the time of this translation, it is unknown what type of being ThunderGong is.
***Sky Shook Earthquake is this translator's stubbornness to keep the four words Chinese character phrase, a close to but not a literal translation.
****Squash is this translator's short for butter squash, not a direct translation of the original text; however, the shape of the plant being described in the original text is a plant that is shaped like a butter squash.
*****Nine depth is not an exact translation but it takes nine brush strokes to write not the exact translation of depth. The definition of this character could mean something of a great difficulty.
Edit One: January 18, 2018 - Grammatical changes. Substituted the word water with tide in two instances.
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