Kong, Complete

Lu Li, a modern-day punk, dies unexpectedly.

When he wakes up, he discovers that he has become Sun Wukong and is pinned beneath Five Elements Mountain.

Guanyin holds out the tightening fillet. “You’re guilty. Escort Tang Sanzang on his pilgrimage, and when it’s done, Heaven will give you an official post.”

Sun Wukong laughs. “Sister, don’t make me promises you can’t keep. I saw plenty of that in my day, and I’m not falling for it.”

The pilgrimage team is quite something:

Tang Sanzang: He’s recited scriptures his whole life, but not a single line is his own.

Bajie: After being banished to the mortal world, he learned to protect himself by acting stupid and lecherous.

Sha Wujing: After a flying sword pierced his chest for breaking a glazed cup, he learned to say only, “All right.”

The White Dragon Horse: A dragon whose horns were sawed off and scales stripped away, he’s forgotten that he can fly.

Four people who’ve lost their souls and one madman make up the pilgrimage team.

Along the Journey to the West, Sun Wukong discovers that Mount Flaming is a man-made disaster created by the Buddha and the Old Lord of the Skies working together.

The White Bone Demon isn’t a monster. She’s the embodiment of misery.

…

The Heavenly Laws aren’t there to be obeyed. They’re a means of eliminating dissent.

The so-called Journey to the West is nothing more than a scripted play, designed to make all living beings believe that this cage is the whole world.

If the laws of Heaven, ruled jointly by Buddha, Dao, and the immortals, show no concern for the people,

then what if I, Old Sun, use the golden cudgel in my hand to punch a hole in the sky?

When the tightening fillet can no longer restrain me, when Five Elements Mountain can no longer pin me down, when the gods and Buddhas can no longer stop me…

I, Old Sun, will show the world:

True emptiness isn’t nothingness.

It is everything.

True heavenly law isn’t a shackle, but acceptance.