Six-Eared Macaque: A Life of Long Regrets, Like the Ever-Flowing River

What kind of ending could possibly be worthy of all the hardship and wandering along the way?

I became the disciple of Erlang, the True Lord Who Manifests as a Sage! I studied under Patriarch Bodhi!

I spent twenty-one years transformed into a tree! I fought the Great Sage Who Drives the Gods, the Monkey King!

I severed love and desire and finally became a god! I pacified the Great Sage Who Overturns the Seas of the Western Sea!

I ventured deep into the underworld and pardoned a million vengeful spirits! I battled the Great Sun Tathagata, my master, on Mount Ling!

Many years later,

when a certain earth god in Wojiang learned how the tale of the real and fake Monkey Kings ended,

he would surely remember that distant evening years before, when Jin Chanzi set out on the path to atone with the Six-Eared Macaque,

back when no one could have imagined that this little monkey would unleash a furious storm sweeping across the Three Realms.

[Journey to the West] [Overpowered protagonist] [No System] [A little angst] [Vivid, cinematic prose]