honored his loyalty and made him guardian of the Southern Heavenly Gate, after he released them both. 3/3
🎨 建哥 不贱

heaven. His loyal dog, Black Ear, licked the final drops and pursued her into the sky. When Chang’e fled into the moon, Black Ear grew monstrous and swallowed both moon and goddess whole. Captured by heaven’s generals, he was spared by the Queen Mother of the West, who 2/3

In Chinese #mythology, a lunar eclipse was no mere shadow but a moment of cosmic dread: Tian Gou, the Heavenly Dog, was devouring the moon.
The tale begins after Hou Yi shot down nine suns and hid away the elixir of immortality. Chang’e drank it first and rose alone to 1/3

magistrate mirroring the empire’s earthly bureaucracy. Some were fallen heroes, some upright officials, and some were even elevated by local devotion. 2/2
📷 Xiahai City God Statue at the Xiahai City God Temple in Dadaocheng

In Chinese #mythology, the City God (城隍) stands at the threshold of two realms, protecting the town above while ruling the underworld below.
First revered as the spirit of city walls and moats more than 2,000 years ago, this deity later became a yin official, an unseen 1/2

galloping horses. Legend says he once offered pine nuts to Emperor Yao, but the ruler never tasted them. Others who did were said to live for 300 years. 2/2
🎨 《偓佺采藥》 清

In Chinese #mythology, Woquan (偓佺) is a strange and wondrous immortal of Mount Huai, known for gathering sacred herbs and living on pine nuts alone. His hair hangs seven inches long, his eyes look in two directions, and he flies through the sky with the speed of 1/2

haunting tragic legends.
📷 Ke Chaoxing and Lu Wenbin (left) perform the Cantonese opera Legend of the Peach Blossom Fan. 3/3

Their romance cannot survive history’s violence, yet it refuses to vanish. Li Xiangjun’s blood-stained poem upon a treasured fan becomes more than a love token: it is memory, grief, and resistance pressed into silk, turning private heartbreak into one of China’s most 2/3

In The Peach Blossom Fan, love blooms as the world falls apart. Kong Shangren’s masterpiece follows scholar Hou Fangyu and courtesan Li Xiangjun, whose devotion is tested by the Ming dynasty’s final ruin: corruption, betrayal, and political collapse closing in on every side. 1/3

offering his life to the depths. The river answered by transforming him into Hebo, its immortal god. Yet his legend carried a darker legacy: for generations, villagers tried to appease him with annual sacrifices, casting a young maiden into the water. 2/2

In Chinese #mythology, Hebo was once Fengyi, a mortal who gave himself to the Yellow River. Even after Yu the Great subdued the world’s floodwaters, the river remained fierce and untamed.
To quiet its wrath, Fengyi tied stones to his body and plunged into the current, 1/2

she became the legendary mother of Chinese silk. 3/3
🎨 Dayuhaitang

strong, and full of promise. Captivated, Leizu studied silkworms feeding on mulberry leaves, learned how to raise them, and devised the reel and loom to transform their filaments into shimmering cloth. Revered as the “Goddess of Silkworms,” 2/3

In Chinese mythology, Leizu (嫘祖), wife of the Yellow Emperor, is remembered as the woman who drew softness and splendor from nature. As she drank tea beneath a tree, a silkworm cocoon slipped into her cup. When she lifted it, a delicate thread began to unwind: fine, 1/3

swaying atop a tiny donkey. Behind him, his graceful sister rides a stubborn water buffalo, followed by a lively train of ghostly attendants. Drawn from New Year exorcism rituals, the scene became a favorite in Chinese painting. 2/2
🎨 Dong Shulin

In Chinese folklore, Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister (鍾馗嫁妹) turns a demon-slayer into an unlikely matchmaker. Fierce enough to terrify spirits, Zhong Kui arranges his sister’s marriage to his loyal friend Du Ping, then leads the wedding himself: beard wild, slightly drunk, 1/2

as if no one else exists. The tale turns an ordinary object into something quietly uncanny: a mirror that reflects not company, but solitude, where every gaze is trapped alone with itself. 2/2
🎨 Ladies Facing a Mirror (《對鏡仕女圖》), Zhu Ben (朱本)

鐵鏡，荀諷者，善藥性，好讀道書，能言名理，樊晃嘗給其絮帛。有鐵鏡，徑五寸餘，鼻大如拳，言於道者處得。亦無他異，但數人同照，各自見其影，不見別人影。 ~ 《酉陽雜俎 卷十·物異》

In Chinese folklore, a strange metal mirror, said to have come from a Daoist, holds an unsettling power. Though only a little over five inches wide, it reveals a private world to every viewer.
When several people look into it at once, each sees only their own reflection, 1/2

Here, animal speech becomes a warning: when beasts speak plainly, human power is already beginning to crumble. 3/3
🎨 柳相禾招

only for the dog to answer, “Ignore him.” Once his senses returned, the exchange haunted him. Later, as Emperor Zhaozong was overthrown and chaos closed in, Yan recognized the omen’s meaning and withdrew in time to escape disaster. 2/3

左軍容使嚴遵美，一日發狂，手足舞蹈，旁有一貓一犬，貓忽謂犬曰：「軍容改常矣，癲發也。」犬曰：「莫管他。」俄而舞定，自異貓犬之言。遇昭宗播遷，乃求致仕，竟免於難。 ~ 《北夢瑣言》

In ancient Chinese folklore, a talking cat is never just a curiosity. It signals that the world has slipped out of joint.
When the military commissioner Yan Zunmei fell into madness, he overheard a cat remark to a dog, “The commissioner has lost his mind,” 1/3
#caturday

suspended between earthly authority and heavenly blessing. 3/3
🎨《瑞鶴圖》趙佶 宋

The balance is exquisite: movement above, order beneath. Huizong’s signature slender gold script adds another layer of elegance, uniting painting, calligraphy, and imperial symbolism.
In this vision of “auspicious cranes,” the court becomes almost weightless, 2/3

In Northern Song(960-1127) art, Emperor Huizong turns cranes into an omen of refined power and celestial grace. Twenty birds sweep across the sky, hovering, gliding, dipping low, each alive with its own rhythm, while the palace roof below holds the scene in poised stillness. 1/3

in the sound of silk being torn, and to amuse her, Jie poured vast wealth into jeweled palaces, like Yao Terrace, Xiang Corridor, Jade Bed, and more, while the state decayed beneath their glitter. In the tale, luxury becomes omen: every shred of silk echoes a dynasty unraveling. 2/2

In Chinese folklore, Mei Xi (妺喜), the dazzling favorite of Jie, the last ruler of Xia, became a symbol of desire entwined with collapse. So captivated was the king that he cast aside ritual, seated her on his lap in open court, and bent the kingdom to her whims. She delighted 1/2

Ten days later, each fragment is said to become a living turtle. Grisly yet mesmerizing, the tale turns death into multiplication, imagining nature as a place where sacrifice, rebirth, and abundance emerge from the same dark ritual.
🎨 Turtle Longevity Painting, Liu Wanming (劉萬鳴)

取鱉，挫令如棋子大，搗赤莧汁和合厚，以茅苞，五六月中作，投地中，經旬，臠臠盡成鱉也。 ～《博物志 卷四》

In Chinese #folklore, even turtles slip into the realm of the uncanny. One bizarre method of breeding them calls for a turtle to be cut into chess-sized pieces, soaked in red amaranth juice, wrapped in reed grass, and cast into a pond in the fifth or sixth lunar month. 1/2

🎨 Five Sheep (《羊圖》), Zhao Fu (趙福), Tang dynasty