It is said that the cycle of Heaven and Earth spans 129,600 years, a period known as one Yuan. This cycle is divided into twelve branches, following the zodiac from the hour of the Rat to the Pig. Since Pangu split the chaos, the Three Sovereigns ruled, and the Five Emperors established the social order, the world was partitioned into four great continents: Purva-Videha in the East, Aparagodaniya in the West, Jambudvipa in the South, and Uttarakuru in the North.

　　Our story focuses on the East Victory Divine Continent, which consists of four landmasses. To the far west lies the continent of Kyushu; to the south, Siguo; to the north, Ezo; and in the center, Honshu. In the south of the Kyushu continent, endless mountain ranges stretch into the horizon—dense with vegetation, prowled by wolves and tigers, and devoid of human footprints. To the north, the terrain levels out into three rival kingdoms. On the westernmost edge lies the Kingdom of Aolai, bordering the Great Ocean. Seven hundred miles southwest into the sea sits a magnificent island, home to a celestial peak named Mount Huaguo.

　　This mountain is the ancestral vein of the ten continents, the dragon-root of the three islands, formed when the clear and turbid energies first separated. As the ancient poems praise:

　　Its might awes the vast ocean; its majesty calms the jade seas. Tides surge like silver mountains into sea-caves; snowy waves overturn as monsters flee the abyss. Rising high from the eastern horizon, its peaks touch the heavens. There are jagged red cliffs and wondrous, sheer precipices. Atop the cliffs, colorful phoenixes sing in harmony; before the precipices, a lone qilin rests. Pheasants call from the heights, and dragons drift in and out of stone grottoes. In the woods dwell immortal deer and foxes; in the trees, spiritual birds and cranes. Immortal peaches bear fruit year-round, and emerald bamboos brush the passing clouds. It is the pillar of heaven where a hundred rivers meet, the root of the earth, unshaken through ten thousand kalpas.

　　On the very summit of Mount Huaguo stood a celestial stone—thirty-six feet, five inches high and twenty-four feet wide, riddled with nine apertures and eight holes. Since the dawn of creation, this stone had been nourished by the essence of Heaven and the beauty of Earth, absorbing the brilliance of the sun and the grace of the moon until a spiritual embryo quickened within.

　　One day, the embryo within the stone suddenly burst. The rock shattered, revealing a stone egg. Upon touching the wind, it transformed into a stone monkey. He stood less than four feet tall, with a hairy face, a "Thunder-God" beak-like mouth, a protruding forehead, and two yellow eyes flashing with predatory light. Two fangs glinted coldly outside his lips. As the monkey sat on the ground looking upward, a freakish mutation occurred: two golden beams of light shot from his eyes, piercing straight through the clouds into the celestial palace.

　　This cosmic anomaly startled the gods. The Supreme Jade Emperor, Ruler of the Heavens, hurried to the Lingxiao Palace and summoned his civil and military officials. Pointing at the shimmering golden rays, he commanded the generals Thousand-Mile Eye and Favorable-Wind Ear to investigate outside the Southern Heavenly Gate.

　　Moments later, the two generals returned and knelt in unison. "Your Majesty, we have traced the light to a large island in the sea west of the East Victory Divine Continent. On Mount Huaguo, a celestial stone gave birth to an egg, which transformed into a stone monkey. The monkey is sitting atop the peak looking at the sky; it is his gaze that has pierced the heavens. This is merely a natural phenomenon of a celestial birth. Please be patient, Sire; the light will soon fade."

　　The Jade Emperor nodded slightly, gazing at the dimming light with a cold glint in his eyes. He parted his crimson lips and whispered a single word: "Good." However, out of the corner of his eye, he kept a lingering, heavy stare on the official Taibai Jinxing.

　　Down below, the golden light in the monkey’s eyes vanished. His already unsettling face turned a deep, suffocating red, his features contorting into a knot. He suddenly clutched his head with both hands, rolling violently across the ground, letting out scream after hysterical scream. After about fifteen minutes of this agonizing struggle, the monkey’s eyes rolled back, and he fell into a dead faint.

　　A long time passed before the stone monkey slowly opened his eyes. His head spun. In a daze, he asked himself the three ultimate questions: Who the hell am I? Where the hell am I? And... wasn't I already dead?

　　He shook his head hard and struggled to sit up, resting his forehead in his hand. He remembered his name was Li Lun. Male. Liked women. Han Chinese. Born in October 198X in the capital—a typical Libra. Li Lun’s looks were utterly mediocre: a square face, bushy eyebrows, slanted eyes, and a hooked nose. The only thing he had going for him was his 6'1" height. Thanks to his parents' connections, he’d managed to snag a decent job at a bank, where he spent his days as a humble "screw" in the corporate machine, tucked away in a cubicle.

　　His life had followed the script of any powerless NPC. After a decade of hard labor, middle age had arrived with no hope of promotion. Trapped at his desk, he had long since "laid flat," becoming a quintessential "corporate slave" who excelled only at slacking off. He had married his college sweetheart and had a daughter; his life was flat, flavorless, and entirely unremarkable.

　　Then came that one fateful day. During a department dinner, eager to show loyalty to his boss, Li Lun volunteered to do the rounds with the liquor bottle. After half a pint of heavy Chinese spirits, his vision was blurred and his footsteps were like jelly.

　　After the dinner, he scanned a shared bike. Drunk and muddled, he wobbled onto the road, recklessly "finding himself" in the motor vehicle lane. Naturally, the "inevitable accident" occurred. At a dim intersection near his home, Li Lun blew through a red light while riding against traffic and slammed head-on into a massive muck truck.

　　The last thing Li Lun remembered was a flash of white light. When he opened his eyes again, he had become a stone monkey.

　　Confusion and disbelief clouded the stone monkey’s eyes. He looked around in a lost, helpless panic, muttering under his breath, "I... I’m actually alive." He sat there like a wooden statue atop the peak, facing the vast ocean in a scene that should have been poetic—"warm spring breeze, flowers in bloom"—if not for the circle of shattered rock surrounding him. A sudden gust of sea wind whipped across his skin, sending a violent shiver through his body. Only then did it hit him: he was sitting there on the ground stark naked.

　　In a scramble, he looked down, and his heart nearly stopped. From his chest to his belly, and all the way down to his shins, he was covered in a thick layer of golden fur. Terrified and losing his mind, he let out an involuntary roar: "Holy shit!"

　　He jerked his right hand up to his face to inspect it. The back of the hand was matted with gold fur; the palm felt like a black, leathery pad, and his five fingers were short and spindly. He raised both hands to feel his face. His trademark square jaw was gone, replaced by a pointed, sunken face. Not only were his cheeks hollow, but his temples were thick with hair. Though he couldn't see his reflection yet, he knew one thing for sure: this "new look" of his was definitely one-of-a-kind—and probably a total train wreck.

　　The stone monkey let out a long, heavy sigh. He had a pretty good idea of what was going on. After all, he was a man who had gone head-to-head with a muck truck. His life as a corporate slave was clearly "Game Over." Looking at the situation, he’d likely been reincarnated. Maybe he had been a real jerk in his past life, because this time he’d been dumped into the Animal Realm. He just didn't know if he was locked in a zoo or back in the wild.

　　A wave of helplessness washed over him. He reached down between his legs to do a quick "equipment check." Fortunately, he was still a male. And just by the feel of it, his primary masculine endowment was significantly more impressive than it had been in his previous life. Li Lun allowed himself a bit of dark humor. "Well," he muttered to himself, "when God closes a door, He really does open a window. They say the perfect lover needs five things: looks, luck, money, time, and the 'equipment of a donkey.' In two lifetimes, I’ve finally nailed the donkey part."

　　With that, he hauled himself up and started trekking down the mountain.

　　By the time he reached the foothills, he started to smell a rat. If he really had been reincarnated as an animal, it made no sense for a newborn mammal to be this large. Not to mention, his "equipment" was already fully developed. It defied all logic. Plus, looking at his features, he was clearly some kind of primate, yet he could speak—and with a thick Beijing accent, no less. This was ridiculous.

　　"This doesn't feel like reincarnation. Did I... transmigrate?" He stopped in his tracks, scratching his head in frustration. Falling back on the tropes of the web novels he used to read, he started shouting at the sky:

　　"System? Activate System! System Open! Calling the System! Great System, you there? Let's chat! You stupid System, I’m calling you! Do you have the guts to answer me?"

　　After about fifteen minutes, he gave up on his futile attempts. Under the scorching sun, he felt irritable and parched. He swallowed hard, picked a random direction, and started walking. He hadn't gone three miles when his ears twitched. He heard the faint, rhythmic bubbling of running water. His heart leaped. He followed the sound, breaking into a full sprint.

　　Another two miles in, a small river appeared before him. He scrambled to the bank, knelt down, and scooped up the clear, sweet water with both hands, gulping it down greedily. After a few deep breaths of satisfaction, he stood up and leaned over the water's surface.

　　The reflection staring back was unmistakable: a hairy face with a beak-like "Thunder God" mouth, sunken cheeks, ears that stuck out, a broad forehead, and fangs protruding from his lips. He was less than four feet tall. He wasn't just a monkey; he was an oversized macaque.

　　The stone monkey stared blankly at the river for a long time. Finally, he smoothed the downy fur on his forehead with his hand and let out a melancholy sigh. "Actually, being a monkey isn't so bad. At least in this life, I’ll never have to worry about a receding hairline again."

　　He knew deep down that with a mug like his, he’d feel insecure even in a zoo’s monkey exhibit; any female monkey would probably find him "repulsive" at first sight. His eyes dimmed at the thought. Listlessly, he began to trek upstream along the riverbank. After a few steps, a sudden jolt of information flooded his brain, causing him to stop dead in his tracks, lost in thought.

　　The information lodged in his mind was a divine innate ability called the Mind-Ape Pupil Technique. This technique was categorized by color: White, Blue, Red, Gold, and Purple. In layman’s terms, the stone monkey’s eyes had become high-definition, uncensored cameras with auto-focus and night vision. Looking at things far away, they functioned like a telescope; looking at things up close, they were like a microscope, revealing the tiniest details.

　　Beyond these passive effects, the technique offered active skills. Currently at the "White Pupil" level, he could trigger an "Aura-Observation" effect. To put it bluntly, it was like thermal imaging. Not only could he see through disguises, but he could also gauge the strength of an opponent's power by reading their aura.

　　Li Lun spent a moment digesting this. He didn’t think much of it at first; after all, chameleons change color, archerfish shoot water, and pangolins have armor—to him, this was just animal instinct. Still skeptical, he looked around. To his shock, everything within his field of vision, near or far, was crystal clear. With a flick of his mind, he drew a sliver of Qi from his Dantian and guided it into the Jingming points beside his nose.

　　A flash of white light flickered in his eyes. He looked toward a distant forest and saw many white orbs of gas, varying in size and density, hidden deep within the trees. Scanning further upstream, he spotted a cluster of about a hundred white gas clouds huddling together some five miles away. It was an eye-catching sight. He furrowed his brow. Since he had nothing better to do, he decided to head up there and see what those hundred-odd "gas clouds" actually were.

　　Under the sweltering, bone-dry heat, a large troop of about a hundred monkeys was cooling off in the woods by the riverbank. Some were weaving grass hats from vines; others were picking, biting, and squashing lice. Some groomed their fur or cleaned their nails, while others skipped stones or splashed in the water. A few even sat in solemn prayer to the heavens or the Buddha. They huddled together, shoving, rubbing, and pulling at one another in a chaotic mess of play. As the saying goes: Under the green pines they frolic at will; by the emerald stream they wash as they please. They were having the time of their lives, and not a single one noticed a pair of yellow eyes watching them from a branch five miles away.

　　The stone monkey silently observed their every move, calculating his next step. As the old proverb goes, "When on a mountain, sing the mountain’s song." Since he was a monkey now, he had to follow the local customs and live like one. If he could integrate into a troop, he could leverage the social nature of primates to maximize his survival in the wild. He would have to cast aside his human dignity and fight like a beast just to stay alive. That, he realized, was the only "righteous path."

　　After much hesitation, he finally made his move, intending to have a "Close Encounter of the Third Kind" with the wild troop. He hopped down from the branch and approached the riverbank.

　　He walked up cautiously, plastering what he thought was a "harmless and friendly" expression on his face. He began waving his arms theatrically and howling at the top of his lungs: "Oooh! Oooh! Ooh-ooh-ooh!"

　　He had no choice—he had no clue how monkeys actually communicated, so he just screamed his head off, hoping to grab their attention. The tactic worked instantly. Seven or eight monkeys immediately surrounded him.

　　"Hey, Big Brother, why is that monkey just screaming at us? Does he not know how to talk?" a small monkey asked, poking the larger one beside him, his eyes full of confusion.

　　"Right? This guy’s brain must be fried," the large monkey replied, eyeing the stone monkey up and down with a meaningful look. Then, he asked quietly, "Hey, you. Do you actually know how to talk?"

　　Before the large monkey even finished, the others started pointing and whispering, their voices rising in a chorus. "He looks like a total stranger. Ask him where he’s from." "Yeah, find out his story!" "But he can’t even talk. How are we supposed to ask?" "I guess we’ll have to use sign language and try to gesture at him."

　　Surrounded by seven or eight monkeys jabbering away, Li Lun stood frozen, his jaw on the floor. His face flushed from red to white and back again as he stood there, "mentally disordered in the wind." Who could have predicted that his carefully planned "Close Encounter of the Third Kind" would turn into an epic, high-scale "social death"? It was beyond awkward—it was the mother of all cringe. Li Lun wished the ground would just open up and swallow him whole. Here he was, being mocked by a pack of primates. He was, quite literally, a disgrace to the human race.

　　It took him a good while to gather his shattered wits. Finally, with a strained, awkward smile, he stammered, "You... you guys... you can all speak human?"

　　"It’s not just us," a young monkey chirped with a snicker, firing off a dismissive retort. "Any beast in these mountains that has 'refined its transverse bone' can naturally speak. And if you’ve truly opened your spiritual wisdom, you can even walk on two legs! Honestly, is your brain actually broken? How do you not know the basics?"

　　The larger monkey gave the youngster a subtle tug, stepping forward with a half-smile. "You're a new face around here. Where exactly do you come from?"

　　"Uh... I... I came from that mountain over there," Li Lun replied, pointing vaguely behind him.

　　"And why have you come looking for us?"

　　Li Lun scratched the back of his head, let out a couple of forced chuckles, and started hemming and hawing. "Well, you see, the thing is... uh... I got separated from my old troop. Now I’m all on my own. When I saw you guys, I thought... well, I was wondering if I could join you. Basically, I want to hang with your crew from now on. You get what I’m saying, right?"

　　The large monkey stared intently at Li Lun, a sharp glint flickering briefly in his eyes. Suddenly, his expression softened into a friendly grin. He nodded repeatedly. "I follow you. But I can't make that call myself. You’ll have to ask the Four Elders. Come with me." With that, he led Li Lun deeper into the heart of the troop.

　　Li Lun—the future Monkey King, though he didn't feel like one—followed silently. He tried to look poised under the mixed gazes of the crowd, but he couldn't help instinctively squeezing his legs together. There were dozens of female monkeys staring at him with wide, curious eyes. Even though he knew wild animals were naturally uninhibited and had no taboos, he couldn't get over his human psychological hurdle. He felt like his "manly assets" were being gawked at for free, and frankly, it felt like a raw deal.

　　After a short walk, the large monkey brought him before four elderly apes. "Reporting to the Four Elders," he said respectfully. "We met this monkey by the river. He's asking to join our troop. I’ll leave the decision to you."

　　The Four Elders were a distinct group: two were Horse-Monkeys with black fur, blue faces, and bright red rumps; the other two were old Gibbons with gray fur, white faces, and arms that reached past their knees. Li Lun locked eyes with them for a moment, then gave a slight bow with his hands clasped.

　　"Honored Elders," he began, his voice trembling as he forced out a few tears for dramatic effect. "I was separated from my family and have been wandering the wilderness alone. I have no food, no shelter, and every day is a struggle just to survive. I beg for your mercy. Please, take me in. I will never forget this kindness as long as I live, and I promise to repay you in the future."

　　The four elders exchanged a series of knowing glances. One of the Horse-Monkeys nodded slightly, stepped forward, and said with a smile, "Very well. In that case, young man, you may stay. From this day forward, we are family."

　　Overjoyed, Li Lun gave them a deep, sweeping bow, remaining doubled over in gratitude for a long, long time.