He transmigrates to Flower-Fruit Mountain, thinking that because he has read Journey to the West inside out and possesses God’s-eye knowledge, he can easily become a Buddha. But on his very first day at Flower-Fruit Mountain, he nearly starves to death. Every tree here belongs to someone!
After finally reaching Three Star Cave, Patriarch Bodhi says, “Wu Cheng’en was merely a court writer chosen by the immortals. He only wrote what the immortals wanted him to write. The immortals wanted to present a positive image to mortals.”
Sun Wukong says bitterly, “So mortals are just crops for the immortals to harvest!”
This Journey to the West is different from the original, yet somehow much the same.
This is a slow-burn novel: no invincibility, no mindless antics, no golden finger. An ordinary mortal muddles through Journey to the West, where even the gods are ordinary people.
The original Journey to the West is a fairy tale for adults, but this Journey to the West is real life.