Even for Yun Jieshi's keen sense, it was difficult to tell whether the chilly wind was being sucked into the pit or if the pit was the one expelling it. (It was both, of course.)
The latter seemed more likely to him, but only because he thought that was the only way the sweet smell he detected could have been spread through the air.
But then again, this was a place where a world-sized bird ate the world to bring forth the night.
Yun Jieshi kneeled close to the edge of the pit and looked down. His curious, keen eyes peered through the darkness which grew bolder with the depth, and spotted the origin of the sweet fragrance: fruits.
They grew on frail, withered shrubs that stuck out from the walls of the pit; they barely had any vibrance to them, save for their strange fruit, and they had taken leave of most of their leaves. The fruits that grew on them were finger-sized and finger-shaped, with royal blue skins that spotted pearl-like droplets of moisture.
Yun Jieshi's stomach made angry demands for sustenance right then.
'Ah, right. I'm a newborn,' he remembered. His stomach growled.
It decided exactly what it wanted as a first course. Yun Jieshi himself wasn't against the idea. The fruits looked delicious, and even if he did find the strength to resist their allure, he didn't think he would have bothered to.
The sole challenge to the endeavor he so desired to pursue was how exactly he would get the fruits. The only shrubs that bore them were nearly two hundred meters deep into the pit. The deeper the depths, the more there were; some also grew larger, nearing the size of the average banana.
Yun Jieshi would have used his ruan as a ladder – after dropping it in and enlarging it – but the black void beyond what his sharp eyes could see seemed to tease that this pit had no end. If he extended his ruan down, it was not likely to find a bottom, and he might lose it.
'Is that my only option though? Think, think, think,' Yun Jieshi commanded himself. The power of hunger compelled him.
He was afraid to climb down with his hands and feet because of the lack of shrubs in the upper portions. Some of them were strong enough to hold his weight, he saw, given that he was rather small. Using them was much better than finding out in real time if he was ever meant to climb by fighting nooks and crannies with his appendages.
After almost five minutes of thought, Yun Jieshi had an idea. Admittedly, it was prompted by the insufferable growl of his stomach again. It might have been digesting itself.
'Alright, alright!' he thought, mustering some optimism. 'I can extend my ruan that far. Yes, yes, and it's pretty sturdy. It knocked into that peach-shaped rock and it's not even dented.'
But the little monkey still had his doubts. He tested the size-shifting properties of his ruan again, just to be safe. He somehow had a dark vision of the ruan suddenly failing to enlarge when he needed it to, but he rebuked it.
He shrank the ruan down to the size of a pencil, then to the size of a tree.
'Good. Good.'
Another shuddering growl finally made Yun Jieshi stop hesitating. He leaped into the pit while holding up his ruan by the neck.
He was almost three hundred meters deep when he willed his ruan to engorge. At the same time, he switched from gripping its neck to squeezing the dear life out of one of its ebony strings. And then, in a blink, the ruan engorged. Its head struck one wall of the pit and the end of its belly smashed into the other.
As the pit groaned, an echo traveled deep and far. Snow and ice fell into the dark, disrupted by the violence. The ruan was stuck in the pit, lateral as a plank, just as the little monkey had intended.
The string Yun Jieshi was holding was now larger than the size of his arm. His grip on it was fittingly… a monkey grip. The ruan beckoned his touch like a magnet, after all. His heart was beating fast, and he was sweating. He took in deep breaths. Step one was complete. Now, it was time for the fruits.
There were in abundance around him, gleaming as the shallow light from above – further limited by the shadow of the ruan – reflected against the droplets on them. Using both hands to travel along the ebony string, Yun Jieshi drew closer to his prize. A copious amount of saliva swam in his mouth. If the taste of these fruits was half as good as their divine smell, he would possibly have found a reason to live longer in this bizarre world.
Yun Jieshi reached one of the shrubs slightly livelier than others, and grabbed for one of the finger-shaped fruits. As soon as he touched it, the old, sagely voice spoke:
"A Shuang Finger. One of the selective delights for the enlightened; good for Bonding Touch."
"Shuang Finger?" Even as he repeated the name, Yun Jieshi was licking his lips. He had plopped the Shuang Finger in his hand before he could stop himself.
At first, it was like eating a wad of toothpaste. Yun Jieshi sucked in a deep breath, irritated by the bitterness and shocking cold, but then, as though it had been a lie, a taste akin to melon and apple and vanilla flooded his tongue. It threaded through his flesh with the cold, but not unpleasantly. Yun Jieshi was forced into a little dance by the chill.
'That's delicious!' he thought, and he gobbled seven more Shuang Fingers. They didn't have pits and thus were easy to eat. At some point, Yun Jieshi forgot to chew. The only sensation that could rival the taste of the Fingers was the satisfaction of ridding himself of the hunger. Reddish golden juices slipped from the edges of Yun Jieshi's lips, and his cheeks thickened. He might have been a squirrel, harvesting acorns for the winter.
The little monkey had almost exhausted the Shuang Fingers around him when a ticklish sensation coursing through his hands stopped him. It was especially prominent in his right hand, which was holding the ruan string tight. A little alarmed, Yun Jieshi turned to it.
He almost choked on the Fingers when he saw a layer of ice covering his own fingers and a portion of the ruan string.
'Oh!' Thankfully, his craze over the Fingers hadn't addled his thinking. 'Bonding Touch. That's what it means?' He looked at his other hand. A layer of ice wasn't growing on it, but a cold vapor hissed from the fingertips.
The little monkey, hesitantly at first, went to grab another Shuang Finger. The instant, he touched it, it was encased in ice, quite like his fingers.
'The ice only appears when I touch something,' Yun Jieshi observed. It was curious but fascinating!
With a little difficulty, Yun Jieshi broke the ice connecting his fingers and the Shuang delicacy, and grabbed the string. Just like his right hand, his left froze the string. It took a hard pull with all his might for Yun Jieshi to break his right hand free.
'This Bonding Touch is pretty strong,' he thought, somewhat nervously. But then he beamed. 'I could use this to collect more fruits, rather than to hang like this!'
It almost felt like enlightenment. With great difficulty, Yun Jieshi got to the end of the ruan string and reached for the wall of the pit with his right hand. Once his little hand stuck to it with the tough ice, Yun Jieshi compelled his ruan to shrink.
It was going to be a challenge to carry it around while gathering the Fingers, Yun Jieshi found. Unlike the wineskin, it didn't have a strap. Thus, the little monkey had to get creative again. A part of him, ever defiant about the notion that he wasn't, in fact, the Handsome Monkey King, wanted to shrink the ruan to the size of a needle and fit it inside his ear.
Yun Jieshi shuddered. He had to be more practical. With all his hanging and swaying, he was likely to drop the ruan that way. Thus, he shrank it to the size of a needle… and hid it under his tongue.
While this all but guaranteed that he wouldn't be eating more Shuang Fingers until he got out of the pit, it gave him most reassurance for keeping his prized ruan.
Soon, the little monkey was scrolling around the pit walls, collecting as many Fingers as he could. He couldn't hold many of them with his small hands, so he opted to uproot the shrubs whole and stuff them in the spot between his back and the wineskin strap.
It was only when Yun Jieshi had gathered so many of them that he almost began to look like a giant shrub himself that he decided to stop and head back up.
This, it appeared, also required some degree of creativity.