After Becoming Great Sage Equal to Heaven
When the crushing weight of Five Elements Mountain lifted, the first thing my fingertips felt wasn't the wind. It was a warmth, alive with the smells of daily life.
Five hundred years is enough for stone to weather, for seas to turn to dust, enough for that proud demon of old to rub the patterns on his golden cudgel smooth beneath a mountain where no sunlight reached. Guanyin said there were scriptures in the Western Heaven that could put an end to countless tribulations. When Tang Seng's monk's staff touched my shoulder, I heard the soul of Jin Chanzi sigh softly within his flesh and blood. It was just like that wisp of smoke escaping the Supreme Lord Lao's alchemy furnace at the Peach Banquet all those years ago.
I didn't say it, but I was no longer the monkey who had once wreaked havoc in the Heavenly Palace.
Beneath Five Elements Mountain, I watched spring grass climb the cliffs, a hunter's child grow into a white-haired old man, and the waters of the Flowing Sands River rise and fall, then rise and fall again. Through all those years, I stopped thinking of myself as the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. I only wanted to know why the Jade Emperor could sit on his dragon throne in Lingxiao Palace and look upon all living beings as ants.
The pilgrimage was long. Bajie was still greedy, Sha Seng was still silent, and Tang Seng's headband incantation still gave me a headache. But I no longer swung my cudgel and struck like I had back then. The White Bone Demon transformed three times. I saw through her demonic aura at a glance, but when Tang Seng chanted the spell, I forced myself to lower my golden cudgel. I saw the resentment in her eyes. It reminded me of Flower-Fruit Mountain, trampled by heavenly soldiers, and the blood of those monkeys staining the stones of the Water Curtain Cave.
When we passed through Flaming Mountain, Princess Iron Fan's plantain fan sent crimson flames billowing across the sky. She hated me for bringing harm to Red Boy. I stood in the sea of fire and watched her eyes reddened from crying. Suddenly, I thought of the old monkeys on Flower-Fruit Mountain, and of the year I broke into the Dragon Palace to seize its treasures. When I returned to the mountain, the monkeys in the cave had surrounded me, shouting, "Great King!" I lowered my hand and said,
