The legend of PAS

Five thousand years ago, the people never knew rice, wheat, soybean and others which usually grew beside weed. They could not recognize the crops are eatable or not. Because application of these crops is not clear, they just lived by hunting. Hunting cannot have a result every time, and is very dangerous. The absence of food got the people hungry, even dead. One of them felt sad for witnessing the people’s pain because of starvation. Therefore, he determined he must find a way to change this situation. How can I remove the pain of people from starvation?

After much deliberation over three days and nights, he finally went out for solution. On the fourth day, he left his homeland together with some people. They walked to a place after a long distance on the 49th day. The terrain was rugged there, and there were many mountains and canyons where is full of strange flours and plants. They smelled the fragrance of flowers. When they walked ahead, wolves, tigers and lions appeared in all directions and surrounded them. When these beasts were jumping on them, they immediately used the whip, knife and fork to drive. Some of them were defeated, and another came. After a long-time battle, the beasts have driven away. At this moment, the people said: “It is dangerous here. Let’s go back.” But he shook his head decidedly, “We cannot go back. So many people are starving there. We cannot see them dying. There must be away!”

Then, he led the people to climb to the top of a mountain. They were surprised by the flowers and plants, colorful, beautiful and frondent. He reminded the people to be on guard against the beasts, and he picked the flowers and plants into his mouth for tasting.

In the daytime, he led the people to the mountain top for tasting, and in the nighttime, he recorded the details he obtained in the daytime: which is bitter, which is sweet, which is cold and which is eatable. Records were detailed.

He had tasted many kinds of flowers and plants in the mountain. Eighty days went by, he found that rice, wheat, soybean, sorghum and so on are eatable. Then they brought the seeds back and planted these seeds. They were happy about this.

The people started farming and sprinkled with seeds. They worked hard every day, hoping for a good harvest freeing them from starvation. He led the people kneeling to god to pray for good weather for the crops and good harvest. Touched by their sincerity to him, God decided to help them. A snail in a blue shell that rode on colored clouds appeared in the sky, surrounded by golden light. A shiny bead dropped slowly from height onto his hand.

He placed this magical bead by the river. Moistened by river water, rice, wheat, soybean, sorghum and so on grew lushly, saving the lives of thousands of people. Afterward, for memorizing his contribution to create wonderful lives for people, he was respectfully named as “Patron of Agriculture”, and also called “Yan Emperor”. He is the ancestor of agriculture and the first emperor of Chinese nation. His mind was passed down, became the intellectual impetus of Chinese nation for solidarity and struggle, and the magical medicine brought crops back to life and made them vigorous, which is granted by snail in blue shell was called “PAS” by posterity.

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