Chapter Two Hundred Twenty-Six: Worshipping Pangu — Primitive Faith

Volume Six: Spirit-Life in Dahuang — Dao Grace Everlasting

That twilight, an aging ape walked alone to the summit of a mountain.

It stood at the peak for a long time, gazing at the distant sky. The sun was sinking in the west.

Its lips moved, forming blurred syllables. Those syllables had no defined meaning — only formless sounds. But its eyes held a focused light, as though it were speaking to some presence that could not be seen.

High above, Xiwei watched. A strange intuition stirred in her — this aging ape was praying.

It did not know to whom it prayed. There was no name for it, no image. But it sensed the existence of something greater than itself — not the sun, not the moon, not the mountain.

Among the ape troop, that first creation story was changing into more complex forms. The tale the old ape had told was becoming a fixed narrative. Each time, the teller would use the same sequence of syllables, the same rhythm. The repetition lent its words a ritual quality — the other apes would fall silent as it spoke, gathering around the fire.

The most primitive faith was thus born.

But that gesture — kneeling — had not yet been made.

That day, an ancient ape walked out of the cave alone.

It was very old. Its hair was white and sparse; most of its teeth had fallen out; its joints ached on damp, cold days. It no longer had any duty of foraging or guard within the troop. By day, it usually sat on the rock at the mouth of the cave, sunning itself, watching its young kin bustling back and forth. It ate very little and slept a great deal.

That afternoon, it rose abruptly. It began walking toward the mountain that faced the cave. The mountain was not high, but its slopes were steep and littered with broken stone. It climbed very slowly, stopping every few paces to catch its breath. The other apes watched its receding figure, not understanding where it was going.

It climbed the entire afternoon through.

When at last it reached the summit, the sun had just begun its descent in the west.

The old ape stood on the summit, facing that boundless sky. The wind blew in from far away, stirring its sparse fur. It watched the sun sink slowly toward the horizon, watched the sky shift from blue to orange-red to deep violet, watched the first star kindle in the dusk.

It did not know what it was looking at. But it felt something — something more ancient than itself, vaster, more eternal. Not the mountain forest, not the river, not the sky itself. The creative power hidden behind all of these, invisible.

It was from the creation story that it had sensed this presence — the tale told again and again beside the fire: Heaven and Earth were once Chaos; a giant parted them; he transformed his own body into the Myriad Things. It could not grasp the whole of the story, but it understood one part: before this world was made, there was a being.

It slowly bent its knees.

First one leg, then the other. Its knees struck the rock with a dull sound. It knelt.

It lowered its head and pressed its forehead to the cold stone. Its lips moved, producing blurred, meaningless sounds. This was not language, not a prayer — yet it was doing exactly what prayer does. It was giving itself, wholly, without reservation, to that invisible presence.

The last ray of the setting sun fell upon its bowed back. Its shadow stretched long, long across the stone.

Down below, in the troop, a few apes had noticed the movement on the summit. They saw the old ape kneeling there, motionless. They did not know what it was doing, but something in that posture stirred them.

A young female was the first to imitate the gesture. She knelt on the open ground before the cave, lowering her head as the old ape had, pressing her forehead to the earth. The other apes gathered around her, watching in confusion. A young one scampered up and tugged at her hair with its paws; she did not move.

Then another ape knelt. Then another.

That night, the moon was full. Silvery light flooded the entire valley.

The old female of the troop — the one who had once tended the wounded young ape — walked out from the cave. She stood a moment in the moonlight, then raised her head toward the moon and let out a strange call. It was no ordinary cry — not a warning, not a mating call. The call was drawn out, rising and falling with a melody, like some primal chant.

The apes in the cave, hearing that sound, filed out one after another. They formed a circle around the old female. She chanted and slowly turned her body. Her movements were clumsy yet solemn; each gesture carried some meaning not yet fully formed.

She turned three full circles. Then she stopped, facing the direction of the summit — toward the spot where the old ape had knelt that afternoon. She bent at the waist in a motion close to a bow.

The other apes imitated her.

In the moonlight, a circle of apes around the fire, facing the mountain, bowed as one. No one had told them to do this. No one had explained what it meant. Yet something — something embedded in the instinct of life itself — drove them to make that gesture.

It was the first collective ritual upon this land.

The old ape knelt on the summit the entire night through. When Xiwei's radiance touched its face the next morning, it slowly lifted its head. Its knees had gone numb; fine grains of sand clung to its forehead. Its eyes were bloodshot, yet their gaze was clear — a clarity never seen before.

It rose slowly, bracing itself against the rock to stand. It looked back once at the path it had taken, then walked slowly down the mountainside.

When it returned to the cave, the apes of the troop looked at it with gazes different from before. The old female walked up to it, extended a bony hand, and gently brushed the grains of sand from its forehead. The two old apes looked at each other for a long time, saying nothing — they could not speak in any case — but in that gaze, something beyond words passed between them.

From that day on, whenever the moon was full, the troop would gather in the moonlight and form a circle. The old female would chant at its center; the others would bow. That posture was transmitted from generation to generation, like the song of creation, never once broken.

The most primitive faith — not worship of any specific image, not obedience to any doctrine, but a dim perception and simple reverence for the power of creation — thus took root upon this land. It needed no explanation, needed no reason. It was as natural as a seed falling into soil.

And on the rock where the old ape had knelt, a shallow hollow had been left. It was the mark worn by knees in countless acts of kneeling. In the long ages to come, that hollow would be deepened and polished by the knees of generation after generation of worshippers, until at last it became a sacred site.

The old ape died quietly on the seventh night after that first kneeling. It was sleeping beside the fire; its face was peaceful. Its body was carried by the troop to the summit — they did not know why they did this; they only felt it was right. They laid it beside the rock where it had once knelt and covered its body with stones. It was the first grave upon this land.