Neuwa slays Healthuturn
At the last year of the name of Fuhei, a ghoulish man, named
(aka Healthuturn*), appeared on Hope Island. This bronze head metal forehead, red hair, snake body man had an extremely mean and scary appearance, his demeanours were especially aggressive and his temper was bad. As luck would have it, the hundreds of names there were courageous and fearless, and so he was chosen to be their leader. He led his underlings everywhere, invaded and conquered foreign places by water attacks; he was about to be named King in nine continents. Unfortunately, Fuhei's little sister, Neuwa, would not bend and was against him.
Neuwa had a grotesque appearance, an ugly human face matched with a snakish body, but she knew and could do many things; she could change things seventy times in one day, she could change whatever she wanted to change; you could say she was the first ancient heroine among the thousands of tales from the sky below.
After Fuhei's death, Neuwa became his replacement, she saw Healthuturn kept using water to harm people and was determined to withstand (him). In order to learn about herself and her opponent, she disguised as an old farmer and ran to Healthuturn's (space) to deeply investigate the fakes and the reals; all she saw was Healthuturn's underlings in separate groups practicing "water attack" drills: some used sand bags to block river ways which caused water levels upstream to rise, when the sand bags were removed, the water will immediately rush downstream; some were at the dams by the river sides, when they opened the dams'gates, a huge volume of water will rush out and flood a mass of land; some were trapping water descending from streams and rivers on mountains and hills, once they remove any traps, the water from the mountains and hills would descend rapdily from openings, like a stampede of ten thousand horses, and created floods in all four directions.
Neuwa saw and calculated in her heart; and so, upon her safe return, she commanded the hundreds of names in her kingdom to prepare: twenty thousand rocks big and small, and to separate them by marking them into the following five colours: green, yellow, red, black and white; one hundred logs of wood, long and short, and another longer twenty logs on top of that(, Neuwa personally attended to the collection of woods by carving a turtle** on each); five hundred thousand stacks of grass (of squash); all within one month's time. The hundreds of names upon hearing did not understand but went ahead with the collection to meet the deadline imposed on them. Neuwa also chose the strongest men among the thousands, assigned them to a tall hill and told them to run up and down such hill twice a day to train for speed. She chose another two thousand smart male and told them to swim and dive four times a day. Neuwa used her goddess power to give them the secret method to dive underwater for half a day.
Aside from overseeing their training of running and swimming, she also made thousands of adult size clay men continuously during her free time.
According to rumours, Healthuturn's invasion of the south was fast approaching, the hundreds of names were starting to rush. Neuwa said, "I have my plans, do not rush. Mountain running and water diving are preparations to defend against his water tactics. You folks prepare the bamboo wood and other sharp tools and all is good." Hundreds of names knew she would have goddess' plans and clever calculations and each went on to prepare bamboo wood and other sharp objects.
After a few days, the residents of east north came one after the other to report, "Healthuturn already leading many gathers and are approaching." Neuwa requested people to move the woods, rocks and grass to the front; while she led the three thousand who have practiced mountain running and water diving to carry the thousands of clay men towards the front. Uncounted days, arrived at a plain, the view was an uncounted hundreds of names hand holding boys, carrying girls, all escaping to the west and screaming, "No good! Healthuturn is attacking!". Turns out the empty song was surrounded by water: the west was all River, the east was rich in water, the north was connected to the point of the greatest volume of yellow water; the southern land, known as a great rich plain called Empty Song, was lowest.
Healthuturn arrived at this plain, immediately saw the water surrounding the plain, and began attacking with his water battle tactics. Among the hundreds of unfortunate names of the plain, many uncounted drowned to death; while the luckier ones, who managed to escape, were all scattered, separated, lost and covered in completely mud. Neuwa immediately commanded people to seprate in two the five hundred thousand stacks of (squash) grass, burn them into ashes, mix them with mud and, after that, carry the mixture to the front to fill and cover any water spots. Neuwa casted her spells from the back. After a little bit, the water that came from Healthuturn all returned back to Healthuturn's direction.
Healthuturn originally thought Neuwa is a woman, did not have much knowledge nor skills; on top of that he has never lost with his water attacks so he was not prepared. While he was still planning and calculating, ridding Neuwa meant becoming the king of the sky below. Suddenly, heard the bawling sounds of water and his underling's cries of, "NO GOOD, WATER ALL COMING AT US!" Although they were all well versed in water, not afraid of water; however, clothes, food and etcetera. were easily ruined when flooded by water and so they were scrambling, fighting and moving things around; sudden chaos. Healthuturn had no methods and simply sent down the command to fall back.
Neuwa wanted to rid of any future worries, continued to chase and attack. Healthuturn fell back to the high mountains, was about to clearly see the situation before attacking again; he promptly realized Neuwa was at his back, immediately commanded to kill. Healthuturn's people responded like wolves and tigers, rushed in from everywhere; their war cries shook the sky and land.
They abruptly saw thousands of tall and big giants dashing aggressively towards them, they could not hide their surprise and fear. Secretly, they thought how in the world could such giants exist! Terrified that those could be god's soldiers, their morale fell drastically. Seeing thousands of giants were fast approaching, all began running away after letting out a big cry. Although Healthuturn was scary and mean, he could not put a stop to it and could only rush to leave.
Turns out those giants were the clay men Neuwa made. Neuwa commanded them to chase for a while, once Healthuturn was chased far away, they were turned back to its original state; she then proceeded to give a command to the two thousand who have practiced swimming, "After Healthuturn returns home, he will strategically place his defence. North from here is yellow water gather, north of yellow water gather is big land water gather, northwest of yellow water gather is chill remaining care big water gather***, where Healthuturn's old home is. Big land water gather is surrounded by structurally sound fortresses. When we attack, he will open the floodgates. You folks bring the wood I prepared, first connect with the lake gather with fortress, order (the logs) according to size, use the biggest four as four pillars, hammer them down like you are planting new trees and then hammer the smaller logs beside them. This way he will not be able to open his defense (floodgates)."
The folks heard but were convinced and not convinced, Neuwa explained further, "In the ocean, Turtle is the best at carrying weight, it can even carry the biggest mountains! These woods have my carving of the Turtle, they can withhold the defense, with these woods how can they possibly open the defense?" The folks were delighted after hearing her explanations and followed her instructions.
Neuwa leading the folks arrived at Yellow Water Point but did not see a trace of Healthuturn. Traveled for another two days, arrived at Big Land Water Point. Ah ha! Healthuturn's underlings were there on guard. They used ships as homes, saw Neuwa's rush arrival and all sailed towards Big Land Water Point. Some landed on shore and attempted to open the defence but could not move the defence an inch even after putting all of their strength attempting to open it. They used all their might to sail away towards the West but encountered the onslaughts of hundreds of names under Neuwa together with thousands of gigantic clay men with sharp tools and so they abandoned ships and ran for Chill Remaining Care Big Water Point.
Chill Remaining Care Big Water Point was surrounded by high mountains in all four directions, naturally easy to defend, Healthuturn prepared openings on top long ago, these openings welcomed unwelcome guests by flushing them away in one swoosh motion - open gate, flush, be gone. As such, after returning to Hope Island, Healthuturn thought he could sleep soundly with no worries. Afterwards, the sight of his underlings escaping and returning from Big Land Water Point as well as talks of Neuwa's imminent attacks did not phase him one bit. Instead he madly and angrily lectured them for being useless and not smart enough to butler or protect their own homes.
The following day cries from below the mountain, reported from left and right, "Neuwa and people are here." Healthuturn commanded his people to quickly dig open the defence openings, use water to flush them away, left and right ways said, "Already dug but for some reasons there are five colour rocks blocking the openings, we cannot open the opening no matter how hard we dig." Healthuturn was furious, "How can this be! The openings were prepared long ago, who dares to clog them? Even if there were enemy spies, how can they possibly clog so much in one evening? It is impossible that the openings cannot be dug open!"
While talking, heard a sudden rise of human sounds, Healthuturn took one look, turned out Neuwa's folks took a shortcut up. At this time, Healthuturn could not care about others and led his closest to his big ship and began sailing to Big Point. The remaining people all escaped to some water points, no one was protecting Healthuturn anymore. Neuwa's two thousand divers, were like Chao Dragon****, they surrounded Healthuturn's ship from all four directions, not long after, Healthuturn was captured alive.
The folks tied and knotted Healthuturn, gifted to Neuwa. Neuwa rejoiced, first she thanked the folks then she interrogated Healthuturn, "You invaded Hope Island, should have been satisfied. Why did you continue to attack others? and use this "water tactics" to harm at least ten thousand residents. Your deeds are unforgivable!" After this, she commanded folks to chop off Healthuturn's head. After one chop, not even half a drop of blood came out from his neck, a stream of black smog came out instead, floated to the empty space until the shape of a dragon is formed and, finally, moved in a snake-like manner towards the north. Upon seeing this the folks were in total shock. Neuwa said, "He was a descendant of the black dragon spirit, now his spirit returns back to the sky above, not surprised." After this, she commanded people to package his remains and take turns to carry this predeceased back.
*Healthuturn is this translator's abbreviated interpretation of the original text's first sentence. If you read the first sentence of the original text as a stand-alone sentence, it could mean Fuhei is dying and people hoped for his health to return. This translator did not want to make it so obvious with the nickname of the monstrous hope or prayer people had for the return of the healthy Fuhei so this translator created the nickname of Healthuturn as in Health-U-Turn.
**Turtle is this translator's humble substitution word for the traditional Chinese character to describe an ancient gigantic creature from the sea. According to my Chinese dictionary, it is a big creature that resides in water, can claw on all four, resembles a turtle, but has soft skin on top of its shell; it could very well be an unidentified turtle of enormous size. There was no picture in my dictionary depicting this creature. Unfortunately, I did not have access to one of Neuwa's log.
***This translator believes that many names of places with large bodies of waters were included in the original text. This translator likes to sometimes translate names of places from meaning and or spell out the sounds that she creates. Use the translated names at your own risk. This translator tends to ignore names. At the beginning of the story, Neuwa traveled to spy on Healthuturn and at this point of the story, she is recalling places she traveled to while journeying to his kingdom.
****Chao Dragon is this translator's humble translationn of the name of a great water dragon in ancient myths. According to legends, it is a creature shaped like dragon that can command water, could very well be a dragon.
Edit One: January 18, 2018 before noon. Edit unfinished.
Edit Two: January 20, 2018. Lots of typos and small edits.
Neuwa had a grotesque appearance, an ugly human face matched with a snakish body, but she knew and could do many things; she could change things seventy times in one day, she could change whatever she wanted to change; you could say she was the first ancient heroine among the thousands of tales from the sky below.
After Fuhei's death, Neuwa became his replacement, she saw Healthuturn kept using water to harm people and was determined to withstand (him). In order to learn about herself and her opponent, she disguised as an old farmer and ran to Healthuturn's (space) to deeply investigate the fakes and the reals; all she saw was Healthuturn's underlings in separate groups practicing "water attack" drills: some used sand bags to block river ways which caused water levels upstream to rise, when the sand bags were removed, the water will immediately rush downstream; some were at the dams by the river sides, when they opened the dams'gates, a huge volume of water will rush out and flood a mass of land; some were trapping water descending from streams and rivers on mountains and hills, once they remove any traps, the water from the mountains and hills would descend rapdily from openings, like a stampede of ten thousand horses, and created floods in all four directions.
Neuwa saw and calculated in her heart; and so, upon her safe return, she commanded the hundreds of names in her kingdom to prepare: twenty thousand rocks big and small, and to separate them by marking them into the following five colours: green, yellow, red, black and white; one hundred logs of wood, long and short, and another longer twenty logs on top of that(, Neuwa personally attended to the collection of woods by carving a turtle** on each); five hundred thousand stacks of grass (of squash); all within one month's time. The hundreds of names upon hearing did not understand but went ahead with the collection to meet the deadline imposed on them. Neuwa also chose the strongest men among the thousands, assigned them to a tall hill and told them to run up and down such hill twice a day to train for speed. She chose another two thousand smart male and told them to swim and dive four times a day. Neuwa used her goddess power to give them the secret method to dive underwater for half a day.
Aside from overseeing their training of running and swimming, she also made thousands of adult size clay men continuously during her free time.
According to rumours, Healthuturn's invasion of the south was fast approaching, the hundreds of names were starting to rush. Neuwa said, "I have my plans, do not rush. Mountain running and water diving are preparations to defend against his water tactics. You folks prepare the bamboo wood and other sharp tools and all is good." Hundreds of names knew she would have goddess' plans and clever calculations and each went on to prepare bamboo wood and other sharp objects.
After a few days, the residents of east north came one after the other to report, "Healthuturn already leading many gathers and are approaching." Neuwa requested people to move the woods, rocks and grass to the front; while she led the three thousand who have practiced mountain running and water diving to carry the thousands of clay men towards the front. Uncounted days, arrived at a plain, the view was an uncounted hundreds of names hand holding boys, carrying girls, all escaping to the west and screaming, "No good! Healthuturn is attacking!". Turns out the empty song was surrounded by water: the west was all River, the east was rich in water, the north was connected to the point of the greatest volume of yellow water; the southern land, known as a great rich plain called Empty Song, was lowest.
Healthuturn arrived at this plain, immediately saw the water surrounding the plain, and began attacking with his water battle tactics. Among the hundreds of unfortunate names of the plain, many uncounted drowned to death; while the luckier ones, who managed to escape, were all scattered, separated, lost and covered in completely mud. Neuwa immediately commanded people to seprate in two the five hundred thousand stacks of (squash) grass, burn them into ashes, mix them with mud and, after that, carry the mixture to the front to fill and cover any water spots. Neuwa casted her spells from the back. After a little bit, the water that came from Healthuturn all returned back to Healthuturn's direction.
Healthuturn originally thought Neuwa is a woman, did not have much knowledge nor skills; on top of that he has never lost with his water attacks so he was not prepared. While he was still planning and calculating, ridding Neuwa meant becoming the king of the sky below. Suddenly, heard the bawling sounds of water and his underling's cries of, "NO GOOD, WATER ALL COMING AT US!" Although they were all well versed in water, not afraid of water; however, clothes, food and etcetera. were easily ruined when flooded by water and so they were scrambling, fighting and moving things around; sudden chaos. Healthuturn had no methods and simply sent down the command to fall back.
Neuwa wanted to rid of any future worries, continued to chase and attack. Healthuturn fell back to the high mountains, was about to clearly see the situation before attacking again; he promptly realized Neuwa was at his back, immediately commanded to kill. Healthuturn's people responded like wolves and tigers, rushed in from everywhere; their war cries shook the sky and land.
They abruptly saw thousands of tall and big giants dashing aggressively towards them, they could not hide their surprise and fear. Secretly, they thought how in the world could such giants exist! Terrified that those could be god's soldiers, their morale fell drastically. Seeing thousands of giants were fast approaching, all began running away after letting out a big cry. Although Healthuturn was scary and mean, he could not put a stop to it and could only rush to leave.
Turns out those giants were the clay men Neuwa made. Neuwa commanded them to chase for a while, once Healthuturn was chased far away, they were turned back to its original state; she then proceeded to give a command to the two thousand who have practiced swimming, "After Healthuturn returns home, he will strategically place his defence. North from here is yellow water gather, north of yellow water gather is big land water gather, northwest of yellow water gather is chill remaining care big water gather***, where Healthuturn's old home is. Big land water gather is surrounded by structurally sound fortresses. When we attack, he will open the floodgates. You folks bring the wood I prepared, first connect with the lake gather with fortress, order (the logs) according to size, use the biggest four as four pillars, hammer them down like you are planting new trees and then hammer the smaller logs beside them. This way he will not be able to open his defense (floodgates)."
The folks heard but were convinced and not convinced, Neuwa explained further, "In the ocean, Turtle is the best at carrying weight, it can even carry the biggest mountains! These woods have my carving of the Turtle, they can withhold the defense, with these woods how can they possibly open the defense?" The folks were delighted after hearing her explanations and followed her instructions.
Neuwa leading the folks arrived at Yellow Water Point but did not see a trace of Healthuturn. Traveled for another two days, arrived at Big Land Water Point. Ah ha! Healthuturn's underlings were there on guard. They used ships as homes, saw Neuwa's rush arrival and all sailed towards Big Land Water Point. Some landed on shore and attempted to open the defence but could not move the defence an inch even after putting all of their strength attempting to open it. They used all their might to sail away towards the West but encountered the onslaughts of hundreds of names under Neuwa together with thousands of gigantic clay men with sharp tools and so they abandoned ships and ran for Chill Remaining Care Big Water Point.
Chill Remaining Care Big Water Point was surrounded by high mountains in all four directions, naturally easy to defend, Healthuturn prepared openings on top long ago, these openings welcomed unwelcome guests by flushing them away in one swoosh motion - open gate, flush, be gone. As such, after returning to Hope Island, Healthuturn thought he could sleep soundly with no worries. Afterwards, the sight of his underlings escaping and returning from Big Land Water Point as well as talks of Neuwa's imminent attacks did not phase him one bit. Instead he madly and angrily lectured them for being useless and not smart enough to butler or protect their own homes.
The following day cries from below the mountain, reported from left and right, "Neuwa and people are here." Healthuturn commanded his people to quickly dig open the defence openings, use water to flush them away, left and right ways said, "Already dug but for some reasons there are five colour rocks blocking the openings, we cannot open the opening no matter how hard we dig." Healthuturn was furious, "How can this be! The openings were prepared long ago, who dares to clog them? Even if there were enemy spies, how can they possibly clog so much in one evening? It is impossible that the openings cannot be dug open!"
While talking, heard a sudden rise of human sounds, Healthuturn took one look, turned out Neuwa's folks took a shortcut up. At this time, Healthuturn could not care about others and led his closest to his big ship and began sailing to Big Point. The remaining people all escaped to some water points, no one was protecting Healthuturn anymore. Neuwa's two thousand divers, were like Chao Dragon****, they surrounded Healthuturn's ship from all four directions, not long after, Healthuturn was captured alive.
The folks tied and knotted Healthuturn, gifted to Neuwa. Neuwa rejoiced, first she thanked the folks then she interrogated Healthuturn, "You invaded Hope Island, should have been satisfied. Why did you continue to attack others? and use this "water tactics" to harm at least ten thousand residents. Your deeds are unforgivable!" After this, she commanded folks to chop off Healthuturn's head. After one chop, not even half a drop of blood came out from his neck, a stream of black smog came out instead, floated to the empty space until the shape of a dragon is formed and, finally, moved in a snake-like manner towards the north. Upon seeing this the folks were in total shock. Neuwa said, "He was a descendant of the black dragon spirit, now his spirit returns back to the sky above, not surprised." After this, she commanded people to package his remains and take turns to carry this predeceased back.
*Healthuturn is this translator's abbreviated interpretation of the original text's first sentence. If you read the first sentence of the original text as a stand-alone sentence, it could mean Fuhei is dying and people hoped for his health to return. This translator did not want to make it so obvious with the nickname of the monstrous hope or prayer people had for the return of the healthy Fuhei so this translator created the nickname of Healthuturn as in Health-U-Turn.
**Turtle is this translator's humble substitution word for the traditional Chinese character to describe an ancient gigantic creature from the sea. According to my Chinese dictionary, it is a big creature that resides in water, can claw on all four, resembles a turtle, but has soft skin on top of its shell; it could very well be an unidentified turtle of enormous size. There was no picture in my dictionary depicting this creature. Unfortunately, I did not have access to one of Neuwa's log.
***This translator believes that many names of places with large bodies of waters were included in the original text. This translator likes to sometimes translate names of places from meaning and or spell out the sounds that she creates. Use the translated names at your own risk. This translator tends to ignore names. At the beginning of the story, Neuwa traveled to spy on Healthuturn and at this point of the story, she is recalling places she traveled to while journeying to his kingdom.
****Chao Dragon is this translator's humble translationn of the name of a great water dragon in ancient myths. According to legends, it is a creature shaped like dragon that can command water, could very well be a dragon.
Edit One: January 18, 2018 before noon. Edit unfinished.
Edit Two: January 20, 2018. Lots of typos and small edits.
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