Lin Fan, a modern office worker, dies from working overtime and transmigrates into the world of Journey to the West as Tang Sanzang’s shadow double. He is also bound to the Officialdom Through the Ages System, which lets him see the ranks and scandals of gods, Buddhas, and demons.
A pilgrimage that should have been all about calmly chanting sutras is completely turned upside down by his modern workplace mindset. Fighting monsters becomes a matter of filing complaints; magical duels turn into business negotiations. He strips bare the political spectacle of the struggle between Buddhism and Daoism behind the journey to the West. He brings the unruly Wukong to heel, talks the wily Bajie around, unlocks the mysterious Sha Seng, and even finds an unexpected romance with the Queen of the Kingdom of Women.
He takes on the unspoken rules of the Western Heaven and tears into the Celestial Court’s bureaucracy. Armed with a trove of scandals and workplace tactics, he overturns the old order of the Three Realms. In the end, he refuses to become a desireless Buddha, instead living as the Three Realms’ one and only “Pilgrimage KPI Enforcer,” and making fairness the new rule of the Three Realms!
