After the edict was delivered, Master Xuandu cupped his hands in farewell to the immortals, mounted a cloud, and set off straight back toward Great Red Heaven.
Seeing that the decree had been personally issued by the Supreme One, and knowing that Zhuanxu was talented and had governed humanity in an orderly manner, the ministers raised no objections. They escorted their new master back to court as one.
It turned out that Zhuanxu was the grandson of Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan and the son of Changyi. He was born beside the Ruo River and grew up in the land of Qiong Sang. Twenty years earlier, his mother, Nüshu, had been gazing at the stars one night when the Yao Light of the Big Dipper suddenly blazed. A streak of starlight, sharp as an arrow, fell into her womb, and she soon became pregnant with Zhuanxu. Later, he was enfeoffed at Gaoyang, and thus the people respectfully called him the Gaoyang Clan.
After Zhuanxu ascended the throne, he threw himself into reform: he corrected the rites of marriage, established the rules for betrothal and wedlock, clarified the distinction between men and women, and ordered the relationships between elders and juniors—thus, human ethics and social order were first established, and the distinction between men and women gradually became fixed custom.
One year, torrential rain poured down for seven days and seven nights without stopping. Mountain floods burst forth, muddy waves surged to the heavens, and in an instant they swallowed fields and houses, sweeping away countless tribesmen. Zhuanxu hurriedly led the ministers onto a high cliff to escape the waters. Hearing the ceaseless wails and cries from below, his heart twisted as if cut by knives. Yet he was helpless, able only to beat his chest, stamp his feet, and sigh in despair.