The youth looked at the Crimson Pearl Immortal Grass, his expression distant, recalling events from a past kalpa.
...
In the past, during one kalpa.
Within a chaotic epoch.
Gonggong and Zhuanxu, two human leaders, vied for the imperial throne.
Both were at the peak of the Quasi-Saint cultivation, and during their struggle for the throne, Gonggong angrily struck Buzhou Mountain.
The pillar of heaven broke, and the earth's foundation snapped.
The heavens tilted northwest, and the sun, moon, and stars shifted.
The earth was not full in the southeast, thus water, floods, and dust flowed there.
The heavens were broken.
The laws of heaven and earth were in disarray, the sun, moon, and stars were unstable, and the Milky Way poured down, making the Primordial Continent seem like a world where the river of the Milky Way flowed.
There was a goddess, Nuwa, who saw the endless suffering of all living beings in the world, affected by the collapse of the heavenly pillar.
Her heart ached, and she wished to mend the heavens.
This mending of the heavens was not for merit, but for all living beings.
Goddess Nuwa, at Wuji Cliff on Great Desolate Mountain, refined three thousand six hundred and fifty-one stones, each twelve zhang high and twenty-four zhang wide.
They were called: "Heaven-Mending Stones" or "Five-Colored Stones."
Or "Wugao."
When mending the heavens, Nuwa only used three thousand six hundred and fifty stones. After the heavens were mended, one stone remained unused.
Nuwa gave it no further thought. Now that the heavens were mended, the Heaven-Mending Stone was naturally useless, so she cast it down beneath Qinggeng Peak on Great Desolate Mountain.
After countless years, this single Heaven-Mending Stone, which had not participated in mending the heavens, absorbed the essence of the sun and moon, transformed, and transcended its tribulation.
However, it was not Sun Wukong, but Jia Baoyu.
To be precise, it was the past life of Jia Baoyu, the root of the Heaven-Mending Stone.
In this kalpa, the remaining Heaven-Mending Stone was not on Flower-Fruit Mountain, but on Great Desolate Mountain.
There was no Sun Wukong, but there was Jia Baoyu.
After the Heaven-Mending Stone transformed, the Heavenly Realm's Thousand-Mile Eye and Wind-Following Ear were alerted.
In other chaotic epochs, after Sun Wukong transformed, two beams of radiant light from his eyes shot straight to the Heavenly Court, alerting the Thousand-Mile Eye and Wind-Following Ear, as well as the Jade Emperor.
Even the gods and Buddhas of the heavens paid attention to the protagonist of the Journey to the West tribulation.
They laid various schemes and plans.
But in this chaotic epoch, the Heaven-Mending Stone received less attention.
It was only brought into the Heavenly Realm by the Master of Lihang Heaven among the Thirty-Three Heavens, Fairy Huan, and became a mere attendant in the Scarlet Glaze Palace, one of the palaces within Lihang Heaven.
There are countless palaces in Lihang Heaven. To become an attendant in one palace shows how little attention the great powers of the Heavenly Realm paid to it.
After all, Nuwa used a great many Heaven-Mending Stones to mend the heavens, from tens of thousands to hundreds of millions. If a protagonist of a tribulation like Sun Wukong, formed from a single Heaven-Mending Stone, were not for his identity as one of the Four Mixed-World Monkeys, he would merely be an ordinary Heaven-Mending Stone, and his origins might not be so high, nor would he be so valued by the great powers.
Throughout many chaotic epochs, to explain why a mere Heaven-Mending Stone like Sun Wukong would receive such attention, and have origins beyond ordinary cultivators, most chaotic epochs adopted the explanation of the Chaotic Demon Ape.
That is, among the chaotic demon gods, a top-tier demon god, the Chaotic Demon Ape, was slain by Pangu, and its essence was divided into four parts.
Only when the essence of a top-tier chaotic demon god like the Chaotic Demon Ape, one-fourth of its being, was integrated into the Heaven-Mending Stone, could Sun Wukong become the protagonist of the tribulation, be noticed by many gods and Buddhas, and become the most important pawn for the great prosperity of Western Buddhism.
If an ordinary Heaven-Mending Stone could receive such treatment, would the tens of thousands of Heaven-Mending Stones used by Nuwa to mend the heavens not weep?
Clearly, they were all Heaven-Mending Stones, merely materials and tools used to mend the heavens. Why should you, Sun Wukong, receive the attention of countless gods and Buddhas, while we, these tens of thousands of Heaven-Mending Stones, forever block the holes in the sky?
This is unfair!
Returning to the topic.
Shenying Shizhe, the attendant in the Scarlet Glaze Palace, when he had nothing to do in the Heavenly Realm, would go to the Milky Way to admire its beauty.
Along the way, he saw a Crimson Pearl Immortal Grass. Sensing it with his magic power, he found that this Crimson Pearl Immortal Grass had already developed sentience, it was not an unthinking thing.
This surprised him greatly.
In the Heavenly Realm, there are famous flowers that bloom for thousands of years and auspicious grasses that remain evergreen for tens of thousands of years. After all, it is a sacred land of immortals, and heavenly treasures are naturally abundant.
Cultivation resources are everywhere, but more than ninety-nine percent of them are without sentience.
It is extremely rare for creatures to develop sentience under the illumination of immortal light, yet here he encountered an immortal grass that had developed sentience.
Shenying Shizhe knew that in the Heavenly Realm, sentient demon races were generally not used as cultivation resources. This was because most of the beings on the Investiture of the Gods were demon races from the Jie Sect who became gods. In this regard, heavenly officials and immortals mostly avoided discussing it.
After all, there were so many demon races who became gods in the Heavenly Court. If they randomly took sentient demon races as cultivation resources, it might not only anger the myriad demons of the Jie Sect but also chill the hearts of other demon races who had become immortals. If it were to deal with evil demons in the lower realms, it would be fine, but to randomly take demon races as cultivation resources in the Heavenly Court, how could one know if this demon race was not related to the Jie Sect in the Heavenly Court, or even their friends and relatives.
However, the myriad demons of the Jie Sect were almost all transformed animals, and very few were plants that had become demons.
Therefore, when dealing with plant-type demon races that could not move but possessed sentience, heavenly officials and immortals did not avoid it.
When the good corpse of the Grand Pure One, Lord Laozi, refined elixirs, he did not care whether the spiritual herbs he needed had sentience or not; they were all going into the alchemy furnace anyway.
Even Buddhism, which advocated non-killing, only referred to animal-type demon races. Plant-type demon races were also delicious for Buddhas to eat.
Various vegetarian dishes and vegetarian meals were developed by Buddhas, Arhats, and monks in the mortal world to make them more delicious.
Compared to animal-type demon races, plant-type demon races like the Crimson Pearl Immortal Grass, before they transformed, had a very awkward status. Heavenly officials taking them to refine elixirs would not violate public morality.
When Shenying Shizhe knew that the Crimson Pearl Immortal Grass had developed sentience and its situation was dangerous, he felt a hidden intention.
He irrigated it with sweet dew and the water of the Heavenly River day and night, and also passed on cultivation methods to it, hoping it would transform soon and shed its plant form to become human.
As long as the cultivation of plant-type demon races was sufficient to transform into human form, immortal officials in the Immortal Realm would naturally not take them for medicine refining, let alone send them to Lord Laozi's alchemy room.
After all, there was a layer of public morality in the Heavenly Realm.
After days and nights of irrigation, and absorbing the essence of heaven and earth, day after day, year after year, the Crimson Pearl Immortal Grass finally shed its plant nature, transcended the six-nine heavenly tribulation of transformation, and cultivated into a female form.
She roamed outside Lihang Heaven all day, eating honey-green fruits for sustenance when hungry, and drinking the water of Guichou Sea for soup when thirsty. This was because she had not yet repaid the kindness of irrigation, so a feeling of unspeakable sorrow was accumulated within her.
It so happened that Shenying Shizhe's mortal heart stirred, and taking advantage of the current peaceful era in the mortal world, he wished to descend to the mortal realm for reincarnation and experience illusory fate.
This matter had already been registered with Fairy Huan, the Master of Lihang Heaven.
Fairy Huan was the master of one of the Thirty-Three Heavens. Although her reputation was not prominent, she was still a Great Luo Golden Immortal and had considerable research into the Way of Karma.