The Great Sage’s Sole Favorite: The Three Realms Are Nothing Compared to Your Glance

Lin Daiyu suffers a great calamity in the world of Dream of the Red Chamber. Her soul, or perhaps her body, is swept into a temporal rift, leaving her gravely wounded and unconscious as she falls near Flower-Fruit Mountain. The unique aura of her Crimson Pearl Immortal Grass origins, along with the fluctuations of her tearful soul, catches the attention of Sun Wukong, who is drinking alone in the Water Curtain Cave. When Sun Wukong finds her, he initially thinks she is a strange and fragile little immortal, or perhaps a demon. But his fiery golden eyes see the purity of her soul, and her bone-deep sorrow and proud aloofness move him. He takes her back to the Water Curtain Cave. Sun Wukong knows nothing about medicine, but he uses his instincts and magic to heal Daiyu, seeking help from or threatening Laozi and Guanyin along the way. The process leads to plenty of mishaps, such as feeding her immortal pills like candy and nearly giving her too much, or trying to dry her clothes with magic and almost setting the cave ablaze. When Daiyu wakes, she is frightened and bewildered by her unfamiliar surroundings and the monkey with a “furry face and thunder-god’s mouth.” Daiyu’s talent, like composing poetry beneath the moon, her fussy nature, like criticizing Flower-Fruit Mountain’s fruit, and the vulnerability she occasionally reveals when she cries from longing or pain, all strike Sun Wukong as both amusing and heartbreaking. He knows nothing about poetry, but thinks her voice is lovelier than the music of the Heavenly Court. When she cries, his heart tightens for no reason he can explain.