Yi Yi

also known as Archer Lord, Shen I, or Divine Archer, Yi Yi was a Spirit of Archery, said to be one of the first protégés of Dragon, but who later angered Dragon and was turned into a man. As a man, Yi Yi was a great hero of the Empire.

In the beginning of time, there were ten Suns, two for each element, one Yang and one Yin, who lived together in a mulberry tree in the World Above. Each day one of the suns would drive a chariot out of the World Above, across the sky from east to west, and then back into the World Above.

After many years, the Suns decided that they were tired of only getting to ride their chariot once every ten days, and that they would henceforth all go at the same time every day. They enjoyed this so much that they also did not go back into the World Above at the end of the day, but just kept riding around the sky.

This caused a terrible chaos in the world. Trees and plants grew so fast you could see them moving, but then would burst into flame. The earth flooded and drowned many people, and metal would melt. Monsters and wild beasts fled the burning forests and began to kill and eat people. There was a huge snake that ate entire villages, and a bird so large the beating of its wings created thunderstorms.

The Dragon ordered nine of the Suns to return to their home in the World Above, but the Suns refused. So the Dragon instructed the Heavenly Archer Spirit Yi Yi to scare the Suns back to their mulberry tree. The Dragon gave Yi Yi a Vermilion Bow and a quiver of White Spiritkiller Arrows, telling him to frighten the Suns, and then to shoot the monsters that were eating the Dragon's people.

Yi Yi took the Vermilion Bow and White Arrows, but he decided that the only way to stop the Suns was to shoot them out of the sky. He nocked the first White Arrow, and shot it at the Yin Water Sun, and struck it dead. As it fell from the sky, it turned into a three-legged raven. He then proceeded to shoot each of the other Suns out of the sky, and as each fell it turned into a three-legged raven. Each Sun begged for mercy, but Yi Yi was unmoved by their pleas.

When he got to the final Sun, the Yang Fire Sun, the last remaining Sun entreated Yi Yi to spare it. He told Yi Yi that if all ten Suns were killed, the world would be forever cold and dark. The Yang Fire Sun promised Yi Yi that if spared, he would faithfully come out each morning and drive his chariot across the sky and return to the mulberry tree every night.

Yi Yi was so touched by the last Sun's sincerity that he spared the Yang Fire Sun, and went on to kill the huge snake and the enormous bird and the various other inconveniently sized monsters.

When the Heavenly Archer Spirit returned to the Dragon, the Dragon was furious that Yi Yi had disobeyed him and murdered nine of the Suns with the Spiritkiller Arrows. The Dragon transformed Yi Yi into a human, condemning him to live as a mortal. Because he had saved the world, Dragon allowed Yi Yi to retain all of his archery skill that he might continue to protect the world.

In the world of mortals, Yi Yi realized that he would one day die, and that the skill of archery would be lost forever. So he took two students, Ming Beng and Ming Lieren, to pass on his knowledge of archery and hunting. Eventually the competitive and jealous natures of Ming Beng and Ming Lieren got the better of them, and in his frustration at Yi Yi's superior abilities, Ming Beng killed Yi Yi by uprooting a peach tree and clubbing him in the head with it.

Some stories tell of Yi Yi's mortal wife, Yi Zhang, who journeyed through the Gate into the World Above, and retrieved an elixir that could restore her husband to spirithood, or if split two ways, could allow both Yi Yi and Yi Zhang to live immortally but confined to the mortal world. But Yi Zhang decided to keep the elixir for herself, to turn herself into a spirit. She drank it all, and became a spirit, but she became a striped toad spirit, which was not quite what she was looking for.