Five hundred years after the successful pilgrimage, Bajie discovers something strange
The Victorious Fighting Buddha at Spirit Mountain has never changed the rhythm with which he moves his prayer beads in five hundred years. The folds in his kasaya have never changed. The shadows cast by his eyelashes as he chants have never changed.
He tentatively calls out, “Brother Monkey, do you remember Gao Village?”
The figure on the lotus throne doesn’t even turn his head. “Altar-Cleaning Envoy, that’s all in the past.”
That isn’t Brother Monkey. The real Brother Monkey died at the foot of Spirit Mountain five hundred years ago.
Bajie opens his diary from five hundred years ago. The last page reads: Brother Monkey tugged my ears three times and called me a fool five times. Everything after that page is blank.
He hefts his rake and decides to find out what really happened at Spirit Mountain on that day five hundred years ago.
