Five hundred years after the journey to the West ended, Bajie died at Spirit Mountain. He had spent five hundred years scouring the Three Realms in search of his brother Monkey, but found nothing. At last, he stormed Spirit Mountain alone, defeating the Five Hundred Arhats and three thousand Buddhas. Yet even after giving everything he had, he couldn’t withstand a single palm strike from the Tathagata. With his dying breath, he roared words that shocked the Three Realms: “In this life, I acknowledge only the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. What Western Heaven, what Victorious Fighting Buddha!” Back on the journey to obtain the scriptures, everyone had thought that the Tathagata had struck the real Wukong dead, leaving the Six-Eared Macaque in his place. But on the night Wukong returned, Tang Sanzang secretly recited the headband spell, and the Sun Wukong before him didn’t react at all. With his last trace of true essence, Bajie escaped as a spirit and found his master, Patriarch Bodhi. Using the Heaven-Mending Stone, they restored his true body, and Patriarch Bodhi took Sun Wukong to Spirit Mountain to settle the score with the Tathagata...
