Huaxu conceived Fuxi and Nüwa after stepping in the footprint of the thunder god at the marsh of Leihua, a miraculous conception linking the primordial sibling-spouses to divine origins.
Fuxi and Nüwa are the primordial sibling-spouses of Chinese mythology, depicted as intertwined serpent-tailed beings who repopulated the world after the Great Flood.
⚠ Early sources (Shanhai Jing, Chu Ci) treat Fuxi and Nüwa as separate figures; the sibling-spouse tradition develops in Han dynasty texts like the Duyizhi and Fengsu Tongyi, suggesting a gradual fusion of originally distinct mythological cycles.
When a dragon-horse rose from the Yellow River bearing a pattern of cosmic dots on its back, Fuxi read the Hétú and derived from it the Bāguà — eight trigrams encoding the fundamental forces of heaven and earth that became the foundation of Chinese divination.
The Three Sovereigns comprise Fuxi, Nüwa, and Shennong, the primordial sage-rulers who established the foundations of Chinese civilization in the mythical age before recorded history.
⚠ Sources disagree on the composition: Fengsu Tongyi names Fuxi, Nüwa, and Shennong; Shangshu Dazhuan substitutes Suiren for Nüwa; Baihutong offers Fuxi, Shennong, and Zhurong; other traditions include the Yellow Emperor.
Lóngmǎ rose from the Yellow River bearing the Hétú on its back, a cosmic pattern of dots that Fuxi studied to derive the Eight Trigrams — the moment when the hidden order of the universe first passed from heaven to human understanding.
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