In remote antiquity, twin brothers – the Green Dragon and the Yellow Dragon – were living inside Green Creek Cave just located by the side of Xumi Mountain (须弥山). They detested evils and often fought with Wang and Liang (魍 and 魉), the two fierce devils resided along the East China Sea. 

One year, a great drought occurred on earth and everything complained to the Heaven. The Buddha knew the twin dragon brothers knew clearly all about the righteousness on earth; therefore, He dispatched the two to save the world. 

It did not take long time, the twins learnt that Wang and Liang were demons who were doing evils to people. They descended and distributed their sons and grandsons to set fire on the planet and implanted a kind of “hellish fire” in human’s heart. People who had this illness would do bad things and cause troubles to each other. They provoked chaos to the cool and happy world. However, because the charm of the active fire made many people had followed and worshipped it.

For world peace and righteousness, the Green and Yellow Dragons decided to eliminate the evils. The twins disguised themselves as monks. They went to the people’s residences and tried to cure the evils inside them. 

Because of the pestilence inflicted by Wang and Liang, most of the people on the planet suffered a disease called Yan (魇), which, the symptom was that a person would relieve or feel better for a while after he or she did some dirty tricks or evil behavior to others. The monk “doctors” gave people vermilions, pearls and seaweeds to take as remedy, also the taught them to say and repeat a curse to expel the devilish sickness. After using this set of therapy, many patients resumed their goodness and eliminated their ailments. The rehabilitated people told others about the effectiveness of the therapy and so many patients would follow. Three months later, tens of thousands people resumed their normal life by taking the therapy. People talked to each other that it was the merit of the two supernatural beings! 

Wang and Liang learnt that someone who knew their evil spells they sent their best generals, crocodile and toad, to the earth and investigate the facts behind. The tricky and wicked toad persuaded the simple-minded but cruel crocodile to disguise itself to become two patients, asking for treatment, mixing among the crowd and living in the place where the two monks resided. The toad, which had practiced magic spells for more than a thousand years and great spiritual power, could see the holy lights emitted from the two monks. It knew that they were quite powerful. However, it told the crocodile that they were just the lesser gods, they were unimportant, the crocodile should rest and the toad could catch the two lesser gods for its masters. The crocodile was very angry that it thought the toad would attain the whole merit! At this stage, it became the native God. He opened his chopper-like mouth with teeth and marched straightforward to the monks. 

The two monks had already known the two evil spirits would come. They were calm. When one of the monks saw the crocodile was coming straight-ahead, he took a small dragon ball, aimed at the monster and tripped it on the floor. The crocodile realized the situation was unfavorable it managed to escape. However, the other monk used his hand to grasp its head, which was then broken. The crocodile had died. The toad hurried back to the East China Sea, telling Wang and Liang that the enemies were the Green and Yellow Dragons. 

Wang and Liang were extremely angry. They sent evil troops of about 50,000 to challenge the Green and Yellow Dragons. The twin brothers told the people who had been cured staying at their homes and not to go out. They lined up in the heaven and prepared to fight with the devils. Both dragons cast their spells trying to beat the evil forces. It lasted for seven days and seven nights. The two devils realized that lost had been very heavy, but did not accept their defeat. They negotiated and a wicked idea appeared – they would cast evil spells to collect dedicated followers as their soldiers, they arranged and divided them into two gigantic, long snakes – one in the south and another in the north, stretching from east to west, looking like two long strips of fire, wanting to burn out the Chinese soil. They were moving to central China. The places they passed had become charred land. They wanted to destroy the Dragons and kill the cured people. 

The Green and Yellow Dragons had been struggling very hard for days. They were very tired. However, when they saw Wang and Liang attempted to kill all the people they had cured, they decided to save them. The twins ignored all the dangers, they changed themselves to two grand and cold rivers of their corresponding colors. They moved to the fire snakes, forced them to retreat and when they were contacting them, the whole-hearted followers were swirled into the river and died. The twin brothers expelled the devil snakes about 500 kilometers from their original positions before the fighting, which lasted three days and three nights. They pressed the devils under them and eventually the snakes were seriously hurt and buried underground. And the waters to which the dragons made had become the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. 

Today, the Chinese nation is still multiplying by the feeding of the two great rivers.

The Legend of Goddess Peak is so popular in Wushan Mountain of Yangtze River. Once upon the time, Goddess Yao Ji (瑶姬) was the twenty-third daughter of Holy Mother of Western Heaven. She had been living in Yaochi Palace. She learnt theurgy from San Yuan Fairy and became a teacher to young fairy boys and girls. She was then called Madam Yun Hua. However, Yao Ji was actually did not like the lonely life at the fairy palace because she was very active in her nature. One day, she left her palace with her maidservants to tour around the East China Sea. When she saw the gusty winds and pounding waves, which had given people devastating natural disasters, she left the sea and went westwards. She was so happy to see the life of the people on earth, which was unknown to her. By her surprise, she saw twelve fierce dragons in the heaven above Wushan. They were playing winds and waves, which harmed people so much. Yao Ji was so angry that she decided to get rid of these devils. She pressed on the cloud and used one of her fingers to point, then the sky thundered and the earth was shaking. Until calm, the twelve fierce dragons were dead and their bodies had become twelve big mountains, which blocked the Wu Gorge of Yangtze River. The river water was flowing west to Sichuan area, where became an ocean of fresh water. 

Xia Yu (夏禹, or 大禹, Da Yu) was a legendary hero of flood elimination in ancient China. He came to flood-battered Sichuan from Yellow River in northern China. However, it was very difficult to drive the floodwater out in such an area with high mountains and fierce flowing river by the traditional method of moving mountains. When Xia Yu was feeling very frustrated, Goddess Yao Ji was moved by his endeavoring spirit, she asked six servants to practice theurgy, helping Xia Yu to dredge the waterway of Yangtze River’s Three Gorges. This made the water could flow east to the East China Sea smoothly. 

Xia Yu knew that Goddess Yao Ji helped him, so he climbed up to the top of Wushan Mountain to acknowledge her. When he came to the top, he just saw a beautiful stone column stood. However, not long later, the column changed to a wisp of blue smoke, which went slowly up into the heaven and became grey clouds. The sky rained. Dragons, phoenixes and cranes were flying amongst the hills and valleys at the scene. Xia Yu was wondering why such an amazing scene seen. Suddenly, the beautiful Goddess Yao Ji appeared in front of him and said, “You have great merits in eliminating the flood, but you also have to know the changing principles of things in heaven and on the earth.” She gave him a book about flood elimination. 

Although the great flood was over, Goddess Yao Ji was still standing on the top of Wushan Mountain. She would still guide to ships and boats, keep fierce animals away, give rains to farmlands and provide medicine to heal illnesses. Year after year, she has already forgotten the Western Heaven, even herself. She became the Goddess Peak, which is loved by all. Her servants also became peaks, like barriers or guards, defending her forever.

It has a true and interesting story behind Baidi town, near Qutang Gorge of the Three Gorges. In 25 AD, China was in the age of political chaos. Peasant army overthrew the Western Han Dynasty, but a new regime had not been established yet. A local military general, Gongsun Shu (公孙述) sundered some part of southwest China, waiting for political situation change. 

It was said that one night Gongsun had a dream, a man told him “You can be an emperor reigning for twelve years”. When he woke up, he felt very mysterious. While he was walking in his courtyard in the morning on the following day, he saw white smoke wafted from the well. It looked like a flying dragon that flied up in the sky. Gongsun Shu thought that it was a good omen for him to be an emperor. Therefore, Gongsun held a ceremony, enthroned himself the emperor and called Baidi, literally “White Emperor”. He christened city established at the mouth of Qutang Gorge “Baidi City” and deployed troops. 

One of the good friends of Gongsun Shu, Ma Yuan, was a man of great ability. He heard about the good news of Gongsun, he hurried from far away to visit and wanted to aid him. By Ma’s surprise, Gongsun deliberately displayed arrogant attitude to his long time friend. He ordered subordinates to make civilian costume for him to attend a ceremony, which was grandiose with royal guards and imperial officials would cheer. Ma would be honored marquis by the emperor and commanded the army of the country. The guests who accompanied Ma Yuan were so happy and wanted to stay with him, but he said, “Now the world is very chaotic and who will be unifying the state has not been decided yet. Gongsun Shu does not know how to welcome talents humbly but just pay a lot of attention to tedious ceremonial details. He is a giant puppet indeed. How can he preserve true heroes besides him?” He made up his mind to leave. 

Meanwhile, Liu Xiu had established the Eastern Han Dynasty in Luoyang of central China to unify the state. He wrote a letter to Gongsun Shu, told him to analyze the political situation and surrender. However, Gongsun Shu thought that he was the emperor that he could not surrender. He refused the advice from Liu. In 37 AD, Liu Xiu sent troops to attack Gongsun, who died during the fighting. 

Gongsun Shu had been emperor for twelve years and eventually killed. However, before he enthroned, he had already ruled China’s southwest region for about 16 years. During his rule, it was quite stable and not affected by the fierce wars fought in middle China. When Gongsun Shu was an emperor, he developed agriculture and water conservancy, which were benefit to his subjects. Therefore, in memory of Gongsun, local people built Baidi Temple in Baidi City.