In the very beginning, before there was anything in the world, it was a stone that fell from the sky and landed here.

It is deeply embedded in this hard land.

After a long, indistinguishable period of time, it slowly bid farewell to a part of itself with the sound of the first raindrop.

Part of the stone's outer layer peeled off, eroded into fragments by the flowing water, and left it.

But they are still connected to it.

Subsequently, most of the stone became intimately mixed with the water.

The stones became soil.

Then the first blade of grass and the first flower sprouted from the soil.

And all life growing on it is closely connected to it.

It heard human voices, so it imitated their voices, learning their pronunciation and intonation.

A group of women discovered it.

They regarded the stone with its peculiar patterns as a deity.

They built their homes around it.

It was given the name of "god", but for the time being it is just a stone.

It wants to do something for these people.

So it tried to be a blade of grass.

Being grass is a difficult thing. Grass grows from grass seeds, and if the seeds don't fall in the right place, they won't grow.

Fortunately, the stone can do something for "it" that becomes a grass seed.

It spread the soil that was once its own on the spot where the grass seed landed.

The past helps the present to take root and sprout.

This blade of grass struggles to take root. It grows on the same land as other grasses, and they seem to be close together, swaying in the same breeze; but their roots are intertwined, desperately trying to catch a single drop of rain from the sky.

It strives to extend its roots as far as possible.

It grows long enough to reach deeper into the soil and obtain more nutrients.

It strives to spread its leaves wider and larger.

It is wide enough to block out the sunlight from competitors, and large enough to kill the seeds of competitors before they even sprout.

By the time it realized it no longer needed to fight, it had already become a tree.

Its roots, uprooted from beneath the soil, intertwined to form its new trunk; its gaze rose from the low grass, almost touching the clouds. It looked with wonder at the place it had come from—the land beneath its feet.

The grass around it had all died due to lack of sunlight and water.

It also looked towards its final resting place.

But where does it belong?

It lived for many years in the desolate wilderness, and then slowly died there. This wilderness was so desolate that no human would ever venture there.

Its long life came to an end.

Its massive body crashed to the ground.

It could feel its remaining energy flowing out. Sap oozed from its wounds, attracting small animals.

These vibrant, energetic little animals are full of hope for the future.

It wants to be like them.

So it placed a part of itself on one of them.

It was a tiny bird that hadn't yet learned to fly.

The little bird's beak was covered in the tree's sap. It hopped and skipped about the tree, flapping its wings from branch to branch, completely unaware that a seed belonging to the tree had been planted inside its body.

The little bird finally learned to fly before winter arrived.

The bird flew to another warm land and laid a nest of eggs there.

It became an egg laid by a little bird. It rejoiced at gaining new life, but it was too weak, still just a fledgling that had not yet hatched. So, just like when it was still a blade of grass, it tried its best to absorb the nutrients from the eggshell until its body was squeezed by the egg.

It thought: It wants to go out.

The instinct for survival drove it. How wondrous, a stone came to life—it used its tiny beak to peck at the eggshell, just as a tiny bird used its beak to pluck sap from a tree.

The darkness receded.

It opened its eyes.

It saw the world for the first time with its own eyes.

It saw the red eggshell it had pecked open; it saw the mother bird carrying bright red food back to the nest; it saw its kind hatching after it, opening their mouths wide toward their mother.

If it were still a blade of grass, it would have to compete with the grass around it to get more nutrients so that it could survive.

It is now a chick, so it has to compete with the other chicks around it to get more attention from the mother bird so that it can survive.

The things it does are no different now than they were in the past.

It succeeded.

It was the loudest chick in the nest. Every time the tired mother bird returned to the nest, she would feed this chick, who was always at the front.

It grew the fastest and the biggest. Soon, it would be bigger than its mother.

On this day, it still opened its beak and called to the mother bird returning to the nest.

But the mother bird did not feed it.

The mother bird led them out of their warm, comfortable nest. The chicks of different sizes followed behind their mother, forming a row of swaying dots.

The mother bird kicked them off the branch one by one.

It was the heaviest, and the one that landed closest. It stood under the tree—it only now realized it was another tree—watching a particularly thin fledgling twist its neck.

The fledgling struggled on the ground. A liquid, resembling tree sap but appearing exceptionally bright red, oozed from its neck.

It hesitated before stepping forward and gently pecking at the red liquid.

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