Three hundred years after attaining Buddhahood, Sun Wukong had become one of the Buddhas of Mount Ling, doing nothing but meditate.
Day after day, the bells rang and the golden lotus flowers remained cold. He lived in a numb daze, long since stripped of the spirit he had possessed as the Great Sage Equal to Heaven.
While chasing a demon into the mortal realm one day, he met a human woman at a teahouse beneath Mount Ling.
She didn't know who he was. She called him a “bitter melon monk,” yet gave him hot tea and noodles, offering him a warmth from the human world he had not felt in three hundred years.
Wukong fell in love, but this triggered Tathagata's prohibition: if he gave in to his feelings, his soul would be annihilated.
A love between immortal and mortal was forbidden by all three realms.
On one side was an empty title as a Buddha; on the other was the person who had made him feel alive again.
He took off his kasaya and put his battle armor back on.
Five hundred years ago, he defied Heaven for freedom. This time, he would bring down Mount Ling for the sake of one mortal.
“I will no longer be a Buddha. My heart beats only for you.”
