His followers prepared food and offerings for him. Hare was embarrassed that all he had to offer the Buddha was his meager collection of herbs and grasses. As a reward, the hare was given the honor of adorning the moon because of his extreme reverence for the Buddha. Hare's lunar connection is that it takes 28 days, one lunar month, before newborn hares are ready to leave their mother. In Chinese mythology the moon is the dwelling place of the immortals and all myths associated with the moon relate to longevity.
Hares symbolize long life, as do cranes and turtles.
Hou Ki bravely shot down nine suns when ten suns rose one morning and blazed the sky. The ten suns burned so brightly that the existence of all living things on earth was threatened. As a reward for shooting down all but one sun, the Queen Mother of the West gave Hou Ki a magic elixir of life that would let him live forever. There are two versions of what happened after the nine suns were shot down. In one version, Hou Ki was a ruthless man.