Journey to the West: Starting with a Mess of Bad Debts

You think Journey to the West is about subduing demons and achieving perfection? Wrong! It's actually an elaborate financial audit orchestrated by Heaven and the Buddhist sect! And the Great Sage Equal to Heaven you know so well is nothing more than the fall guy pushed to the forefront of this world-shaking conspiracy!

When Sun Wukong is recruited into Heaven, he thinks he will earn a place among the immortals. Instead, he discovers that Heaven is no holy land, but a corrupt bureaucracy gilded on the outside and rotten within. From the fake and falsified accounts of the Imperial Stables to the resource monopoly in the Peach Garden, what he sees is not an air of immortal grace, but the arrogance of power and bottomless greed. The so-called Havoc in Heaven was actually a scheme devised by the Jade Emperor to cover up a treasury shortfall and divert attention. For five hundred years beneath Five Elements Mountain, he bears the curse of being a "mischievous demon monkey," when in truth he is the scapegoat for the entire immortal realm's financial crisis.

After breaking free, Sun Wukong is forced to embark on the journey to obtain the scriptures. Only then does he gradually realize that this westward journey is no simple quest for Buddhist teachings. The Eighty-One Tribulations along the way are merely a smokescreen for Heaven and the Buddhist sect to "balance the books."

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.