Quit It Up There, Wukong Just Wants to Lie Flat

Sun Wukong discovered something strange: The Heavenly Court's "performance reviews" required it to handle three thousand prayer requests a year; Western counterparts handled thirty cases annually and still had time to slack off and sip tea. Demons in Hell spent every day thinking up ways to shirk their work; The angels in Heaven's greatest worry was getting caught dating demons. Then he took a trip to "the West Beyond the Western Sea." There, the remains of alien gods had been nailed to pillars of shame, the echoes of entire civilizations had been erased, and a silent river turned everything it touched into "nothing." He brought back a report. After reading it, the Jade Emperor fell silent for a long time, then gave him a new title: "Three Realms Stability Consultant." From then on, Wukong's work list grew to include a few new tasks: checking whether Nezha's elder brother's soul had recovered, going to Guanjiangkou to stop Yang Jian from letting his pursuit of love interfere with work, answering Guanyin's hotline to optimize the pilgrimage team's lineup, growing "flat peach bonsai" as part of the "guide the heart with peaches" pilot program... Cradling a peach sapling, he asked: "Do you think gods can die?" "They can," the Queen Mother said. "When no one tells their stories anymore." This is a story about stories. When mythology itself becomes a battlefield, that monkey is still planting trees. [Reading Guide] ✓ Everyday life in the celestial workplace × an underlying plot about the survival of civilizations ✓ A lively ensemble cast, including the secondary couples Jianxin and Zhaping ✓ Not an overpowered-protagonist story: the main character wins through understanding rules and taking a cultural perspective ✗ Extensive original worldbuilding; readers who demand strict adherence to canon, beware