At the summit of Flower-Fruit Mountain in the East Sea, there stood an immortal stone.
The stone was three zhang, six chi, and five cun tall, and two zhang, four chi in circumference. It bore nine openings, gathering the spiritual grace of Heaven and Earth and the essence of sun and moon. Spiritual awareness gestated within it. With a bang, it split open, and a stone egg burst forth.
Upon meeting the wind, it transformed into a stone monkey with all five features and four complete limbs.
The stone monkey possessed spirit. The moment it was born, it learned to crawl and walk. It bowed in all directions, then sent two beams of golden light shooting from its eyes, piercing the Dipper Mansions and flashing all the way to the Jade Emperor in the Ninth Heaven.
That was how it had originally gone, yes—but this monkey was not that monkey. Thanks to his black-hearted superior, he was a player forced into a second playthrough. Those two beams of golden light had little to do with his Heaven-born, Earth-nurtured origins; they were tied to his Golden Immortal-level cultivation.
Once the Buddha kindly persuaded him and switched off his Golden Immortal setting, those two beams would cease to shine.
Also, the Jade Emperor was not in the Ninth Heaven. Great Luo Heaven was covering his shift, miserably toiling away like a workhorse!
None of that mattered. After the monkey wreaked havoc in Heaven, learned scholars would naturally step forth to argue the scriptures on his behalf, detailing the heavenly and earthly omens from the day of his birth to show that this monkey had been extraordinary from the start—and conveniently fill in this blank.
A minor issue. It did not matter!
According to the original plan, the Heaven-born stone monkey, blessed with