Hòuyì 后羿 = a great archer
Cháng’é 嫦娥 = his wife
The Celestial Emperor
Hòuyì 后羿 was a great archer who served the mythical emperors Kù 喾 (reign 01a-6) and Yáo 尧 (reign 01a-8) [traditionally dated to about 2400s to 2200s BC]. Or perhaps he was himself a king. Or perhaps he was a great god sent down to save humanity, for at that time we were in danger of burning up. It was a long time ago.
At one time there were ten suns in the sky, and they made the world too hot, burning the vegetation, blinding men, and generally causing great suffering. At the command of Emperor Yáo, Hòuyì, using a mighty red bow and huge white arrows, shot nine of them out of the sky, leaving only one, which produced exactly the right amount of light and heat for the earth.
Hòuyì also saved the world from other disasters. It was he who shot the six kinds of terrifying monsters (wild boars, wild oxen, a nine-headed bird of prey, a great snake, a strange kind of tiger, and a predatory beast with a man’s face).
Unfortunately, the more Hòuyì saved the human race from various kinds of disasters, the more arrogant he became.
Another version recounts that Hòuyì was a god, skilled in archery, whom the Celestial Emperor (Tiāndì 天帝) armed with a red bow and white arrows and sent to earth to slay wild animals that were troubling humanity.
When he reached the realm of men, Hòuyì discovered that the real problem was that there were ten suns in the sky at once, which were driving the animals from the heat of the forests and the boiling waters, and causing both men and animals to perish of the heat.
He prepared to shoot the suns from the sky but was cautioned by an old man that they were in fact none other than the spoiled sons of the Celestial Emperor himself, who had turned to delinquency because they were not properly looked after by a father busy running the universe. Frustrated in his efforts to persuade them to turn to virtue and come into the sky only one at a time, he at last shot at them to frighten them. But they merely mocked him. In anger, he began shooting them, until he ran out of arrows when there was but one left.
When he reported to the Celestial Emperor that he had saved humanity, the Emperor was less pleased than Hòuyì anticipated, and banned him and his wifeCháng’é 嫦娥 from heaven, making them mere mortals.
Cháng’é was less than pleased and ended up on the moon, but how that happened is told in a different story.
Hòuyì appears to have made up withCháng’é eventually, but his career peaked early when he shot the suns from the sky, and thereafter, like a high school football star, one hears little more of him. (Rumor has it that he became a postman.)