He didn't get discouraged and continued to traverse across several mountains in a row. The continuous movement against gravity on the steep slopes and endless disappointment had made even Zhang Jian tired.
It was only after he had come a long way, did he find a tree at the very top of the mountain that had born a single fruit that looked like an apple from afar.
Although he wasn't sure what kind of fruit it was, Zhang Jian determined that its appearance was quite close to that of an apple and decided to call her so, but unlike the apples that he knew of, this was a deeper shade of red. It would have been more appropriate to call it a blood colored apple.
Another thing that caused him to doubt that it was an apple was that its shape wasn't a perfect apple but had a joint or depression in the middle like that in an apricot or peach. Zhang Jian dismissed it as being a rare variety of apples and broke the branch on which the fruit had previously been hanging.