Journey to the West: You Were Only Supposed to Manage Flower-Fruit Mountain, So How Did Everyone Become a Saint?

Han Xuan was reborn as a tattoo artist in the world of Journey to the West. It was just before Sun Wukong went to Heaven to oversee the Peach Garden and cause Havoc in Heaven. The monkey demons of Flower-Fruit Mountain were doomed to be slaughtered to the last by the Heavenly Court. Sun Wukong gathered the monkey demons and appointed Han Xuan to manage Flower-Fruit Mountain while he was away. As it turned out, Han Xuan had once tattooed Sun Wukong with the Seventy-Two Transformations, granting him unprecedented power. And so, with the tattoo craze Han Xuan brought to Flower-Fruit Mountain, the place became something entirely different. Ma Liu, the Red-Rumped Horse Monkey: “I’m really only an Earth Immortal. Erlang Shen Yang Jian is all flash and no substance.” Beng Ba, the Long-Armed Ape: “You bald donkeys of the Buddhist sect! Starting today, you’ll have to complete eighty-one steps of preparation every day before you can eat!” The Six-Eared Macaque: “Tathagata, tell me who put you in charge of arranging the Journey to the West, and I’ll let you out from under Leifeng Pagoda!” Two months later, Sun Wukong returned to Flower-Fruit Mountain and was instantly stunned. “I asked you to manage Flower-Fruit Mountain, and you turned every monkey on the mountain into a sage?”