Taotie and the Lotus: Bajie's Confession

“They say that consuming every offering under heaven will make you a Buddha, but my gut has long been filled with regret.”

Told from the perspective of Zhu Bajie from Journey to the West, this novel reconstructs the pilgrimage epic through the lens of absurdist realism. From court intrigues in Heaven to the humiliations of being born a pig, from the entanglements of desire in Gao Village to the collapse of faith at the consecration of the gods on Mount Ling, his first-person confessional monologue lays bare the most naked truths of human nature beneath the order imposed by gods and Buddhas.