In the middle of the Gobi desert grew a tree. The tree was many kilometers in diameter, and stretched high into the sky as far as the eye could see. Those that attempted climbing to the top of the tree that made it back alive said that there was no end to it. Most that attempted the climb were never seen again. Driving people to make the dangerous climb was a legend that at the top of the tree existed a mythical creature many times greater than any creature known to man, a legend that was borne of the enormous shadows that passed over the land on cloudless days. The tree couldn't be climbed with any kind of equipment, the bark of the tree was impenetrably hard and had to be climbed unaided by relying on the grooves in the bark.

When Hong Xiu began his ascent of the tree he was 35 years old. He left behind a wife, five children and the farm that had been in their family for generations to make the 3000 mile trip to Mongolia from southern China. He felt compelled to undertake the climb, having excreted a golden egg and later that night having a dream in which a talking goose told him to go to the tree and climb it. Hong lost all sense of time while climbing tree. On the way up he passed the skeletons of those that had attempted the climb. All that was left of some of them was just a few bones, the rest having turned to dust and blown away. Bizarrely, he never got hungry or thirsty, and his body never lost any of the initial vigor with which he had begun his ascent of the tree. His hair kept growing though, and that's how Hong knew that it had been years since he'd started climbing. He didn't know how much longer he was going to have to climb to get to the top of the tree, he only knew that turning around and climbing down to the bottom was not an option. Thinking about his family and how they were doing brought him sadness but it also motivated him; the sooner he got to the top the sooner he could climb down and return to them.

By the time Hong reached the top of the tree twenty years had passed. He was so high up that he could see the curvature of the Earth. He had no problems with his breathing, the tree produced so much oxygen that Hong didn't have any problems with thin air during the final part of his climb. An enormous birds nest at the top of the tree confirmed the legends about a giant mythical creature making its home at the top of the tree. Inside the nest were four chicks, each one big enough to pick Hong up and swallow him whole without any difficulty. To be safe Hong sat on the edge of a branch far away the nest to wait for the chicks' parent to return. The size of the bird that returned to the nest was beyond Hong's wildest imaginations, even after seeing the size of the nest and the chicks. It flew up the side of the tree trailed by a gust of wind so strong Hong had to wrap himself around the branch he was sitting on to avoid being blown off the tree. The bird, which looked like a giant white and gold eagle, fluttered down into the nest and opened its mouth to regurgitate food for the chicks. What came out of its mouth was a whale, a fully grown, undigested blue whale. The chicks began tearing flesh from the whale, and with its children taken care of the bird turned its attention to Hong.

"Finally, someone made it," the bird said to him in a feminine voice, in perfect Mandarin.

Hong was too shocked to speak, he stood on the branch looking at the bird, which was now surrounded by a golden glow, in a state of all-consuming awe.

"Do you not understand me? Is my Mandarin incorrect?"

"I understood you," Hong answered tremulously.

"You spoke with the goose?"

"He spoke to me, in a dream."

"He must be busy; anyway, you're the one he's chosen, so I must give you what he's sent you here for, open your hands."

Hong did so, and the bird lowered its head and opened its beak and from its beak deposited a golden egg in his hand that was larger than the one he had excreted.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

"The goose will provide you with the rest of the details, my job was simply to wait for you and keep the egg safe, as soon as my children are capable of flying we'll be leaving this place and this tree will wither and die."

"Where am I supposed to find this goose?"

"The goose will find you, he's probably waiting for you at the base of the tree."

"It took me years to climb this tree, is it really going to wait that long for me to climb down?"

"Getting to the bottom of the tree won't take quite as long as getting here to the top did."

"What do you mean?"

The bird flapped its wings and blew Hong off the branch with a powerful gust of wind. Hong fell to the ground in a ball of fire, losing consciousness halfway down. He woke up days later in the centre of a deep and wide crater, and the first thing he saw when he opened the eyes was the goose, who told him that he was going to go with him back home to see his family after which the two of them would be setting off on a pilgrimage. Thus the egg came down to Earth.