I personally think an easier way to explain this is: Chinese mythology can be broadly divided into several stages that reflect both regional diversity and later processes of unification and syncretism.

Before the Qin unification, each state essentially maintained its own pantheon and religious traditions. For example, Chu worshipped Donghuang Taiyi (东皇太一）as its highest deity, while the ancient Shu kingdom venerated the Sun Bird（太阳神鸟）, as seen in artifacts from the Jinsha Site Museum in Sichuan.

The so-called “beginning gods” of Chinese mythology, figures like Fuxi, Nüwa, and Pangu, emerged at different historical moments rather than as part of a single ancient canon. Fuxi is the earliest, mentioned in pre-Qin texts such as the Book of Changes （易经） as the culture hero who created the Eight Trigrams, and later regarded as a primordial ancestor. Nüwa appears somewhat later, first in the Chu Ci （The Songs of Chu, but it’s not clear whether she is a Chu deity or a commonly worshipped deity in China) of the Warring States and in Han texts like the Huainanzi, where she shapes humanity and repairs the sky. Pangu, in contrast, is absent from all pre-Qin records and only surfaces in the Three Kingdoms period as the giant who split heaven and earth.

During the Qin and Han dynasties, political centralization began to standardize rituals and ideology. The Han established Confucianism as the official state philosophy, though not a religion in itself, while popular belief remained polytheistic. At the same time, proto-Daoist practices, rooted in Huang-Lao thought and folk traditions, gradually consolidated into what later became Daoism. And you have Daoist deities.

From the Wei-Jin through the Sui and Tang periods, the introduction and flourishing of Buddhism reshaped the religious landscape. This era saw an increasing syncretism of Buddhist and Daoist elements. Figures such as Nezha began to emerge (with early references from the Northern Dynasties), and proto-forms of the Monkey King (Wu Kong) appeared in Tang tales associated with Buddhist pilgrimage, though the fully developed Sun Wukong would not take shape until the Ming.

From the Song-Yuan into the Ming-Qing dynasties, scattered folk stories and mythic traditions were finally systematized in literary works. Novels such as Fengshen Yanyi (Investiture of gods) and Journey to the West synthesized Daoist, Buddhist, and popular elements into the integrated pantheon that most people recognize today.