According to the Chinese legend, there was nothing in the universe except a formless chaos. Nevertheless, this chaos coalesced into a cosmic egg for about 18,000 years. The perfectly opposed principles of Yin and Yang found the balanced inside the egg and therefore Pangu emerged from the egg.
Pangu is usually depicted as a primitive, hairy giant with horns on his head and clad in furs. He found a way to create the world. He separated Yin from Yang with a swing of his giant axe, creating the Earth (murky Yin) and the Sky (clear Yang). In order to keep them separated, Pangu stood between them, stepping on the Earth and pushing up the Sky. This task took 18,000 years, with each day the sky growing ten feet (3 meters) higher, the Earth ten feet wider, and Pangu ten feet taller. Another version of the story, Pangu was aided in this task by four most prominent beasts, namely the Turtle, the Qilin,the Phoenix, and the Dragon.

After those 18,000 years, Pangu laid down to rest. His breath became the wind, his voice the thunder, left eye the sun and right eye the moon, his body the mountains and extremes of the world, his blood the rivers, his muscles the fertile lands, his facial hair the stars and milky way, his fur the bushes and forests, his bones the valuable minerals, his bone marrows sacred diamonds, his sweat the rain, and the fleas on his fur carried by the wind became the fish and animals throughout the land.The first writer to record the myth of Pangu was Xu Zheng (徐整) during the Three Kingdoms (三国) period. Pangu is worshipped by a number of shrines in China today. In these shrines, Pangu is usually depicted in stereotypical "caveman" regalia, with leopard-skin tunics and long hair. Taoist symbols, such as the Bagua, are associated with Pangu in these shrines. The Pangu King Temple built in 1809 is located in Guangdong Province at the foot of the Pangu King Mountain.

The Chinese legend shows that Nüwa was the creator of human beings.  In the remote ancient time, the earth was a beautiful place with blossoming trees and flowers, and full of animals, birds, fish and all living creatures. However, Nüwa still felt lonely everyday and she then decided to create humans.

Nüwa then bent down and took up a handful of earth, mixed it with water and molded a figure in her likeness. She was so pleased with her creation that she went on making more figures both men and women. These humans were very smart since they were individually crafted. Nüwa then became bored of individually making every human, so she started putting a rope in the water bed and letting the drops of mud that fell from it become new humans. These small drops became new humans, but they were not as smart as the previous creation.Another legend tells how she patched up the sky, which is better known among Chinese people. Gong Gong was the God of Water, while Zhu Rong was the God of Fire were in battle. They fought all the way from heaven to earth, causing turmoil everywhere. Eventually, the God of Fire won, and in anger the God of Water struck his head against Buzhou Mountain (a mythical peak supposed to be northwest of the Kunlun range in southern Xinjiang). The mountain collapsed and down came the big pillar that held heaven from earth. Half the sky fell in, leaving a big black hole. The earth cracked open, forests went up in flames, floodwaters sprouted from beneath the earth and dragons, snakes and fierce animals leaped out at the people. Many people were drowned and more were burned or devoured. It was an unprecedented disaster.

Nüwa felt painful for the sufferings of human-kind. In order to end the disaster, she decided to mend the sky and end this catastrophe. She melted together various kinds of colored stones and with the molten mixture patched up the sky.  She then killed a giant turtle and used its four legs as four pillars to support the fallen part of the sky. She killed the dragon and thus the other beasts were scared away.

She gathered and burned a huge quantity of reeds and with the ashes stopped the flood from spreading. Finally, people gain happy lives again. The only trace left of the disaster, according to the legend, was that the sky slanted to the northwest and the earth to the southeast, and so, since then, the sun, the moon and all the stars turn towards the west and all the rivers run southeast.