Everyone thinks the Journey to the West began when a monkey wreaked havoc in Heaven.
It didn’t.
It began one Friday night, when Wu Gang saw Marshal Tianpeng climbing out of Chang’e’s window beneath the osmanthus tree in the Moon Palace.
He didn’t charge in to fight. He just returned to the shadows and sharpened his axe.
From then on, the Three Realms began to crumble.
Sun Wukong wasn’t a stone monkey born of nature, but scrap from the project to mend the heavens, infused with the resentment of chaos. Zhu Bajie wasn’t comic relief, but a disgraced marshal turned into a pig who was determined to make the best of being one. Sha Wujing wasn’t a silent porter, but a keeper of history who swore to “back it up first, then verify.” And Tang Sanzang wasn’t a saintly pilgrim, but a Mount Ling project manager so sick of the world that he wanted to complete the 108,000-mile journey and then pass away.
The so-called eighty-one trials weren’t tests set by fate, but an audit of the Three Realms disguised as a pilgrimage.
The Daoists monopolized incense offerings, Heaven froze the rain, Mount Ling profited from suffering, demons were claimed by powerful backers, and all living beings were entered into ledgers of merit, then erased from history.
And what finally brought all of it crashing down was nothing more than a roasted sweet potato.
Because Wu Gang destroyed the Three Realms just to prove he was more deserving of love than Marshal Tianpeng.
But love isn’t a merit System.
The Three Realms can be overthrown, but the human heart cannot be tallied.
It's a good book that I can't bear to finish reading. It contains information about you, me and him. The new book is better.