"Damn it!"
Could it be that I've encountered a ghost!
Sun Wukong was so startled that his scalp tingled, but upon closer inspection, he realized there was an old monkey with white whiskers sitting on the stone platform.
Dressed in a tattered Buddhist robe, his head bowed as he fingered the Buddha Beads, he exuded an aura of elderly decay.
"You must have all heard the stories about him..."
"Some say he helped Tang Sanzang obtain the true scriptures and was awarded the title 'Victorious Fighting Buddha'."
"From then on, he stayed in Spirit Mountain..."
"Others claim that the one who became a Buddha wasn't him at all, that the real him had died on the journey to the west long ago."
"There are also those who say the journey to the west never happened at all, that it was just a story made up by a storyteller... about a monkey!"
"Hmm... haha!"
As the old monkey sighed lightly, the breath echoed endlessly within the cavern. Sun Wukong felt a dizzy spell, and when he regained clarity, he found himself in the midst of a dilapidated temple.
Sun Wukong: ......
Golden Finger?
Old man?
System?
At this moment, the old monkey was sitting idly on a black rock, a beam of white light shining down upon his head. The white-whiskered bald monkey no longer looked decrepit.
However, he now hung his head low, his bald head swaying slightly, and his right hand, which had been twisting the Buddha Beads, was trembling somewhat.
"But the story I'm going to tell, you've definitely never heard before."
"This story has to start with a golden cicada..."
Boom!
As soon as the old monkey finished speaking, Sun Wukong's consciousness thundered, and countless memories flashed through his mind, dense and numerous: temple murals that were hard to make out, huge black and white statues of Guanyin, the dilapidated bell tower under the sunset, the fallen withered trees, and the upright stone steles in the Green Bamboo Forest amidst the flickering fireworks...
"Hmm... mm... hmm... hmm mm..."
It was the humming of the old monkey.
Pulling Sun Wukong back from his memories.
It was as though he was humming a pleasant ditty, yet it sounded incredibly lonely coming from him.
And there was an undeniable air of despair.
As if...
It was a swan song before death.
?????
Sun Wukong desperately opened his eyes, only to see the monk's figure fading away, with even the dilapidated temple behind him quickly dissipating.
He was dying!
Hey, hey, hey, if you've got something to say to me, make it clear, hey, it's hard to deal with things when they're so vague.
That was Sun Wukong's first reaction. For some unknown reason, there was an overwhelming sadness welling up inside him, and tears uncontrollably started streaming down, instantly wetting the golden monkey hair on his face.
"If you seek a reason, you must again tread the path to the west..."
This time it was the old monkey's voice, echoing in Sun Wukong's ears, igniting a powerful urge in him to retrace his journey to the west.
But just contemplating the dangers of the outside world was enough to suppress the impulse again. His body might be that of a monkey, but he harbored the soul of someone from a peaceful era, with an inherent fear of the unknown. Despite experiencing it countless times in dreams, he still refused to step forward.
"Forget it, forget it, I'll just lie low in this world until I have mastered Divine Skills, then it won't be too late to venture outside!"
Big guy, it's not that I don't want to go, it's that I don't have the strength to do so!
"I'm definitely not afraid to die."
Shaking his monkey head, Sun Wukong finally came to his senses and found that he was still inside the Water Curtain Cave, having not moved an inch.
"Quick, quick, quick, you two go check out that cave, maybe that spiritual treasure has appeared inside."
"Watch closely, if you dare miss anything, beware I'll strip off your demon hides."
"And you lot, go over there and look around..."
Outside the Water Curtain Cave was clamorous, with the sound of metal striking carrying through, clearly the creatures drawn by the Rat Demon's emanation of spiritual charm.
Trapped.
"Damn it, I missed the best chance to escape," Sun Wukong furrowed his brow, having assumed they wouldn't converge so swiftly. Yet in a mere moment of distraction, they had gathered.
It seemed their lairs were certainly not far, probably on the peaks close to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit.
Now that he was cornered in the cave, they could burst in at any moment, and without precautions, he feared he might fall into an ambush.
Reaching to touch his ear, Sun Wukong took out his iron staff and squatted beside the cave entrance, tilting his head to listen. The two demons just passed through the spring's eye and were peering into the cave, looking around left and right.
"This is what you brought upon yourselves, you can't blame me!"
Sun Wukong's eyes turned abruptly cold, and he swung his staff down, instantly smashing the heads of the two minor demons like watermelons bursting open, spilling white and yellow contents which smeared the section of his staff.
The action was clean and efficient, without alarming the other demons.
Feeling somewhat nauseated, Sun Wukong's complexion turned ugly as he shook off the blood from his staff and stepped over the demon corpses to the waterfall.
Narrowing his eyes to look, he saw numerous small demons searching below by the pool. One of the cow-headed demons was sitting against a large boulder, cursing loudly, occasionally throwing a stone and causing the smaller demons to cry out, thus searching even more vigorously.
"I think every single one of you needs a beating, or you won't know how to give it your all."
"And remember the scent of that magical treasure precisely, report immediately if you find anything, hear me!"
"..."
The small demons, upon hearing this, quickened their movements, obviously terrified of the cow demon.
As everyone knows, the larger demons have a habit of devouring the smaller ones, and as soon as they are deemed worthless, their ends are exceptionally tragic.
Thus, they had no choice but to fight with all their might.
Soon, a rat demon that had not fully transformed found a half-eaten peach pit. It sniffed with its nose and found that the scent was completely in line with its memory, which invigorated its spirit. It quickly shouted to the cow demon, "Great King, I've found a peach pit touched by the magical treasure. Its scent is still strong."
"Great King, over here I've also found urine touched by the magical treasure. The scent is quite strong as well."
"And over here, the scent on the banana tree is even stronger; the magical treasure must have stayed here..."
The small demons successively discovered scents, drawing great attention from the cow demon, who finally stood up from the boulder and moved to another location.
Behind the waterfall.
Sun Wukong stripped off a small demon's clothes, hastily tied them on, then smeared mud all over his body to cover up the conspicuous golden hair.
"Amitabha, may the immortals protect me, I must not be discovered!"
Sun Wukong observed closely and noticed that the cow demon had walked far away. Now was the best chance to escape from the cave. He contained his breath and then suddenly burst out from behind the waterfall, plunging into the deep pool with a "plash".
During the descent, Sun Wukong's heart violently trembled.
Life and death hung in the balance in that instant.
Luckily, the incident was sudden, and the nearby small demons were merely startled, not bothering to investigate, and resumed their respective tasks.
Seeing this, Sun Wukong felt relieved and silently approached the edge of the pool.
But the cow demon was cautious. Upon hearing the noise, it turned to walk back towards the pool. Fortunately, Sun Wukong had already reached the edge of the pool and, with gathered strength, leaped. The small demons saw only a flash of golden light as he bounded away, quickly disappearing into the treetops.
The demons' movements froze, and they stood there dumbfounded.
"Trash, a bunch of trash..."
"What are you still standing there for, chase after him!"
The cow demon was infuriated, kicking several small demons before resuming its original form, turning into a gargantuan green bull, and chased in Sun Wukong's direction.
The surrounding small demons, as if waking from a dream, panicked and transformed, turning into demon beasts pursuing the green bull.
At this time.
At the very front of the pursuit.
Through the jungle, a golden figure was desperately sprinting, its nimble body already drenched in cold sweat, movements no longer as agile.
And behind him, a huge green bull was in relentless pursuit, its heavy breathing sounding like drumbeats, its sharp horns glowing with an alarming, heart-palpitating light.
"Huff... huff huff!"
While running, Sun Wukong breathed heavily, and then felt a dizzying thump in his head, knowing that his demon body had reached its limits.
Seeing the cow demon drawing closer and closer, Sun Wukong couldn't help but feel a wave of despair—he was just too weak to outrun it.
Thump... thump thump...
It was the sound of hooves.
The cow demon was drawing nearer.
Nearer.
Even nearer!
The green bull charged wildly, and it was about to collide with him.
Feeling the cold wind on his back, Sun Wukong closed his eyes in despair.
"Goodbye..."
But just then, the landscape ahead vanished abruptly as he reached the edge of a cliff.
Sun Wukong felt the ground disappear beneath his feet as he and the cow demon plunged off the cliff face, falling towards the sea beneath the cliff.