On the day when Lingshan was overturned, everyone in the three worlds thought it was Patriarch Bodhi avenging his disciples.
Everyone believed it - Tathagata replaced Sun Wukong with a six-eared macaque, so that the fake one became a Buddha and the real one was imprisoned in the underground palace. Bodhi split the mountain with one hand and rescued the monkey who could not see the light of day.
The three realms were shaken, and heaven was in panic.
But no one knows the truth.
The one rescued from the underground palace was not Wukong, but Liu Er. It was the "victim" who really set up the trap - he saw through Tathagata's cage before the journey to the west was completed. Becoming a Buddha is not a reward, it is a seal. Destiny is not glory, but shackles. He doesn't want to be a pawn.
So he found Liu Er. In the scene with the real and fake Monkey King, it was never about Liu Er pretending to be Goku. It was Wukong who asked Liu Er to sit on the lotus platform for him.
Then he left.
It's not an escape, it's a retreat. In a small town in the world, open a blacksmith shop, make kitchen knives and hoes, and repair pruning knives for widows. People in Lingshan are looking for him, and people in heaven are testing him. He squatted by the fire every day, hammering up and down, as if nothing had happened.
The master asked him: What are you waiting for.
He said: Wait for them to figure it out for themselves.
It's been a long wait. Finally someone figured it out. What came was not a heavenly soldier, but an Erlang Shen who had taken off his armor. He leaned the three-pointed two-edged knife against the door, sat down, and watched the fire go out.
The wind outside the door was very light, blowing the leaves of the old locust tree at the city gate. Like the moonlight in Huaguo Mountain many years ago.
