Part I: Brightness Without End Beyond the Nine Heavens, so the tale goes, there lay a shadowed land, dim and u…
Part I: Brightness Without End
Beyond the Nine Heavens, so the tale goes, there lay a shadowed land, dim and unformed. No bright stars guided it, and no sun or moon cast down their light. High and low, the whole realm lay sunk in murk and confusion.
Then one day, a wandering immortal came drifting through the clouds from beyond the sky. Skin pale as cream, dark hair falling like a waterfall, clad in flower-bright robes, with a starry harness upon the shoulders and a dragon-seeking lamp in hand, the immortal descended into the mortal world in a wash of shifting radiance, bright, bright without end.
The immortal looked out across the land and asked, "What place is this? Why is there no River of Stars above?"
The people, fearful and bewildered, asked in return, "What is the River of Stars?"
The immortal sighed. "Can there truly be a place in this world that does not even know what stars are?"
With that, the immortal plucked a single star from the starry harness and gifted it to the people. In an instant, bright stars blazed forth, chaos split apart, and the darkened land beheld the light of heaven. The people marveled, fell to the ground in worship, and hailed the immortal as the Cloud Lord.
Seeing how remote, bleak, and pitiable the place was in its ignorance, the immortal took pity on it. Yet the immortal had a duty to fulfill and could not linger long in this wandering. So the immortal removed the starry harness and bestowed it upon the people, saying, "May this starlight light your way."
The immortal hung the harness high above the Heaven's Threshold. At once the stars spread across the sky, glittering in boundless splendor. Then the immortal vanished back into the clouds, leaving no trace behind.
But the weight of the stars was no burden ordinary people could bear. This treasure of the immortal was beyond any mortal's power to command. And so, for hundreds upon hundreds of years, the starry harness remained hanging high in the heavens, waiting for the one fated to claim it.
...
Part XIX: Drifting Far in Restless Flight
The Wang family's youngest daughter was only nineteen, yet already highly accomplished in martial arts, her movements swift and spirited. On water, she could steer a light boat a hundred li. On land, she could ride the clear wind and chase the bright moon. She roamed the world, righting wrongs and sweeping away injustice wherever she found it.
One day, she heard that the starry harness still hung aloft, where it had waited for a thousand years. At once she swore that she would climb the Heaven's Threshold, seize the stars, and bring their light to all under heaven.
But the road to the Heaven's Threshold was perilous beyond measure. One had to cross ten thousand ridges, ford a thousand li of rivers and marshes, gather flower seeds from the Driftseed Moor, water them with heavenly water from the Pond of Shaking Light, and tend them with care in harmony with the seasons of Heaven and Earth. Only then could the road to the sky be laid.
Though she knew how hard it would be, the Wang girl did not hesitate. That very day, she set out, wandering far in restless flight.
...
Part XXVI: Shining with Sun and Moon
Seven years passed in this endeavor. She endured hardship on the road, crossed mountains and rivers, and overcame countless trials until at last she reached the Heaven's Threshold. The starry harness had weathered centuries of wind, frost, rain, and snow. Its brilliance had faded, and little remained. Yet at last it had found one willing to bear its weight and rekindle the light of heaven.
For the stars were nothing less than the truths hidden within Heaven and Earth: the ways of farming and weaving, of fishing and hunting, the arts of craft, the principles of thought. There was nothing they did not contain, nothing they did not embrace.
Yet even with the immortal's treasure in hand, the search for its true meaning was still a long road ahead. From that day on, the Wang daughter wore the stars upon her back and followed their guiding light across the world, planting wisdom far and wide, easing the sufferings of the people. Thus did she too gain a name in the jianghu:
Cloud Lord.