When Sun Wukong sprang from a stone, he feared nothing, but he had no idea where to go.
He crossed mountains and waded through streams, picking wild fruit when hungry and sleeping in tree hollows when tired. He trudged along, caked in dust and mud, until he got stuck between a pile of rocks and couldn’t pull himself free. As luck would have it, Patriarch Bodhi was passing by on his travels that day. He looked down, saw the little furry ball that couldn’t get itself unstuck, bent down, and scooped it up.
From then on, Mount Lingtai Fangcun had a new youngest junior disciple.
He arrived later than everyone else and was smaller than them all. He tripped when he walked, couldn’t reach the dining table, and couldn’t bite through the skin of a date. But he had six senior disciples: the eldest taught him to read the stars and understand the Dao, the second taught him to move rocks, the third combed his fur every day, the fourth taught him transformations, the fifth practiced swordsmanship with him, and the sixth came up with all sorts of ways to slip him pills.
He grew up slowly among every leaf and dewdrop on Mount Fangcun. He planted date pits in the earth, talked to saplings, trained his tail to become a second hand, and spent summer with the fireflies. From a little furry ball who couldn’t do anything at all, he grew into the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, fearing nothing, yet always knowing someone was waiting for him to come home.
Fate would eventually lead him onto the road west, but this time would be different. Behind him stood a mountain, and on that mountain were six people. When they called him Tang Sanzang, their voices were calm and casual, but when they called him “little junior brother,” their voices were full of warmth.
