The giant turtle Ao Bixi lived in the South China Sea at the creation of the world, son of the Dragon King and Lord of the Sea Ao Guang. He helped his father to cause chaos in the waters in order to inspire offerings from their fearful worshipers. This ended when the god Gong Gong lost his fight for the throne of heaven and in a fit of rage smashed his head against the mountain Buzhou, which held up the sky, and broke it. Catastrophic floods and quakes ensued across the world as the world shifted out of alignment, and the task was left to the goddess Nü wa to right the Earth. She cut off the massive legs of Ao Bixi, and braced them against the sky to hold it up again. The turtle was then assigned the task of holding up the islands of the Eight Immortals in the Bohai Sea. He appears in art from the Han Dynasty onward, and these Bixi carvings invariably depict him bearing heavy burdens, holding up many stelae for tombs and monuments across Southeast Asia.