Five hundred years: the time it takes moss to cover the cracks in stone, the thickness of memories ground down into a bronze mirror, the opening act of a grand deception. Wearing the golden headband, Sun Wukong has forgotten how he once vowed to "shatter the heavens." Now all he remembers is protecting a monk on the journey west. The pain of the headband tightening has become more vivid to him than the fire from five hundred years ago.
The Golden Cicada, cast back into the cycle of reincarnation, becomes Xuanzang and travels through mortal life in monk's robes. He says he seeks the true scriptures, yet whenever he lifts his eyes, he finds himself asking the world: Where, in this cycle of rebirth, is the "equality" I once clung to?
Marshal Tianpeng has become a pig demon, and weeping at the moon has become a habit. He refuses to forget the cassia tree in the Moon Palace, or the words he never managed to say. Even with a pig's face, he clings to clarity in his pain, remembering who he is and what he has lost.
The Curtain-Raising General has spent five hundred years picking up fragments in the Flowing Sands River. He thought that if he pieced the crystal goblet back together, he could return to his old place behind the Jade Emperor. But the more fragments he gathers, the heavier they become, until one day he realizes that he was never the one who broke the goblet.
They journey west, believing they are searching for their ideals, redemption, and a way home. They do not know the destination was set from the very beginning. Every demon and monster that blocks their way, every struggle and outburst of rage, is merely a footnote in a script. The five hundred years are false, their memories are full of holes, and even the true scriptures in the Western Heaven may be another set of shackles.
Still, they have to keep going. On this cycle of reincarnation called "Journey to the West," they carry their wounds and obsessions, asking the same question: In this empty span of time...
