The Great Xiye Kingdom had, since ancient times, been known as the "Kingdom of the Snowlands."
The terrain here was high in the northwest and low in the southeast, with an extremely high elevation and plateaus as its dominant landscape. Throughout the western regions, the most common sight was an endless chain of snow-capped mountains. These peaks were majestic and spectacular, grand beyond measure, their vistas ever-changing—and they had also shaped this region's uniquely frigid climate.
The "Kingdom of the Snowlands" had worshipped Buddhism for generations, regarding it as the state religion for thousands of years. After the imperial clan of the Great Xiye Kingdom, bearing the "bloodline of heavenly beings," conquered the eastern, southern, western, and northern domains of Great Xiye and established their capital in Eastern Prosperity City, an undying, imperishable Buddhist flame was kindled atop Niechi Zanpu Divine Peak near Eastern Prosperity City. It symbolized that this Buddhist kingdom, like that sacred flame, would endure forever.
Though the snowlands had been unified under the Great Xiye royal family, various tribes still existed within them, much as the Great You Dynasty had its Yue and Qiang peoples. The Great Xiye Kingdom, too, was a nation of many ethnic tribes.
Within this Buddhist kingdom were peoples who had dwelled in the mountains for generations, peoples who lived by herding, and great tribes that made their homes in fortified cities upon the plateau.
As for the origins of Great Xiye's various tribes, all agreed that their ancestor had been a macaque endowed with Buddhist nature and wisdom. This divine monkey was said to have been a Bodhisattva of profound cultivation in its previous life, practicing for many years within a cave.
One day, a rakshasa woman came to seduce it and obstruct its path to enlightenment. Yet the divine monkey