Among the myriad gods and Buddhas, there is a famous laughingstock of the Three Realms.

Legend has it that eight hundred years ago, in the heartland of China, there was an ancient country called Xianle.

Xianle, a land of abundance and harmony, boasted four treasures: countless beauties, magnificent music and dance, gold and jewels, and a renowned crown prince.

This crown prince, well, he was a peculiar man.

The King and Queen treated him as the apple of their eye, showering him with affection, often proudly declaring, “My son will surely become a wise ruler, his name echoing through the ages.”

However, the prince had absolutely no interest in worldly power and wealth.

His interest, as he often said to himself, was—

“I shall save all living beings!”

The prince dedicated himself to cultivation from a young age. During his training, two widely circulated anecdotes emerged.

The first story occurred when he was seventeen.

That year, Xianle held a grand Shangyuan Festival celestial procession.

Although this traditional ceremony had been abandoned for centuries, surviving texts and oral accounts still hinted at its magnificence.

On the auspicious Shangyuan night, along the Shenwu Street,

crowds thronged both sides. Nobles chatted merrily on the upper floors; royal guards marched majestically, their armor gleaming; maidens danced gracefully, their snow-white hands scattering a shower of flowers, blurring the line between the beauty of the flowers and the maidens; melodious music drifted from golden carriages, echoing throughout the imperial city. At the end of the procession, sixteen white horses with golden bridles pulled a magnificent platform.

Upon this elevated platform stood the much-anticipated Yue Shen Wu (the performer who pleases the gods).

During the celestial procession, the Yue Shen Wu would wear a golden mask, adorned in splendid attire, wielding a precious sword, portraying the legendary first warrior god, Junwu, who subdued demons and exorcised evil spirits.

Being selected as the Yue Shen Wu was the highest honor, hence the stringent selection process. That year, the chosen one was the crown prince. The entire nation believed he would deliver the most spectacular Yue Shen Wu performance in history.

However, an unexpected incident occurred that day.

During the procession’s third circuit around the city walls, they passed a city wall over ten zhang high.

At that moment, the warrior god on the platform was about to slay a demon with his sword.

This was the most thrilling part, and the crowds on both sides of the street erupted. People on the city walls surged forward, vying for a glimpse, jostling and pushing.

Suddenly, a small child fell from the city wall.

Screams filled the air. Just as people thought the child would be splattered on Shenwu Street, the prince slightly raised his head, leaped into the air, and caught him.

People only caught a glimpse of a swift, bird-like white figure soaring through the air before the prince landed safely with the child in his arms. The golden mask fell, revealing his young, handsome face.

The next moment, cheers erupted.

The citizens rejoiced, but the royal court’s masters were troubled.

They never expected such a mishap.

Ominous! Extremely ominous!

Each circuit of the platform around the imperial city symbolized a year of peace and prosperity for the nation. Now that it was interrupted, wouldn’t it invite disaster?

The masters were distraught, pondering the situation, and invited the prince, subtly suggesting that His Highness should spend a month in seclusion as a sign of repentance. They didn’t mean actual seclusion, just a symbolic gesture.

The prince smiled faintly, “No.”

He said, “Saving someone isn’t a bad thing. Why would Heaven punish me for doing something right?”

Uh… what if Heaven did punish him?

“Then Heaven is wrong. Why should the right apologize to the wrong?”

The masters were speechless.

That’s the kind of person the crown prince was.

He had never encountered anything he couldn’t do, nor anyone who didn’t love him. He was the righteous path of humanity, the center of the world.

So, although the masters suffered inwardly, “You don’t understand anything!”

They couldn’t say more, dared not say more. Anyway, the prince wouldn’t listen.

The second story also happened when the prince was seventeen.

Legend says that south of the Yellow River, there was a bridge called Yi Nian Qiao (One Thought Bridge), where a ghost had lingered for many years.

This ghost was terrifying: clad in tattered armor, treading on hellfire, its body covered in blood and wounds from swords and arrows, leaving a trail of blood and fire with each step. Every few years, it would suddenly appear at night, haunting the bridge, stopping passersby and asking three questions: “Where is this place?” “Who are you?” “What are you doing here?”

If the answers were wrong, the ghost would devour them. However, nobody knew the correct answers, so over the years, the ghost had devoured countless people.

The prince, while traveling, heard about this and found Yi Nian Qiao, guarding the bridge night after night. Finally, one night, he encountered the haunting ghost.

The ghost appeared, as terrifying as the rumors described. It asked the prince the first question, and the prince smiled and replied, “This is the human world.”

The ghost said, “This is the world of suffering.”

The first question was answered incorrectly.

The prince thought, since all three questions were going to be wrong anyway, why wait for him to finish asking? So he drew his weapon and attacked.

The battle raged fiercely. The prince was highly skilled in martial arts, and the ghost was equally fierce. The fight between man and ghost was so intense that it seemed the sun and moon were about to turn upside down. Finally, the ghost was defeated.

After the ghost disappeared, the prince planted a flowering tree at the bridge. At that moment, a Taoist priest passed by, saw him scattering a handful of earth as a farewell, and asked, “What are you doing?”

The prince uttered the famous eight words: “Though in suffering, my heart is in a peach blossom paradise.”

The Taoist priest smiled slightly, transforming into a white-armored god, riding a cloud, embracing the wind, and ascending into the heavens. The prince then realized he had encountered the God-Emperor Junwu, who had personally descended to subdue demons and exorcise evil spirits.

The celestial gods had noticed this exceptional Yue Shen Wu during his leap at the Shangyuan Festival procession. After witnessing the incident at Yi Nian Qiao, a celestial being asked the Emperor, “What do you think of this crown prince?”