When heaven and earth had just been created, the gods had not yet learned how to properly control water, and it flooded the entire earth.
The Supreme Lord called the giant Pufu and his wife, who were very fat, lazy and clumsy, and ordered:
- Go to land and calm the flooded waters.
The fat giants descended to the ground and looked at the peak where the Supreme Lord sat. He was busy with other things and did not even look in the direction of Pufu and his wife. Therefore, they began to do the work without any diligence, just to finish as quickly as possible and lie down to rest. The river beds they laid were dug too deep in some places, too shallow in others. In some places they were too lazy to remove the garbage and left rocky thresholds in the path of the water, and in some places they blocked the path of the water with dams, and waterfalls formed. It was impossible to navigate such rivers not only on sailing junks, but even on small boats.
And the Jade Emperor, of course, remembered the order he gave to the giants. He glanced at the ground, saw somehow laid channels, and on the shore there were huge round bellies of resting giants. He immediately realized that he would have to send another, hardworking master to earth to correct the shortcomings of the lazy ones.
The Supreme Lord decided to punish Pufu and his wife approximately. He stripped the giants of all their clothes, drove them into the vast southeastern desert and placed them nearby. Neither in the cold nor in the heat did they drink or eat; they quenched their hunger and thirst only with dew.
“You will return to your duties when the waters of the Yellow River become clear,” said the Supreme Overlord.
But the Yellow River will never become transparent, because it constantly washes away clay from its banks. This means that Poof and his wife will have to pay for their laziness forever.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru