Lin Xiu opened his eyes and found himself turned into a green snake.
His whole body hurt as if someone had taken him apart and put him back together. He had no hands, no feet, and his belly was pressed to the ground. Scales ran from his neck to the tip of his tail. The Quitters System in his mind brought up its main quest: persuade Sun Wukong to rebel.
Three hundred paces away, at the foot of Five Elements Mountain, a furry shadow lay pinned beneath it. A pair of eyes peered at him from behind a wild tangle of hair, and the first words they spoke were, “Little snake, crawl over here.”
A snake, a monkey who had been trapped for five hundred years, and a Journey to the West story no one had ever written.
Lin Xiu asked the monkey, “What’s the golden headband for? Do you really know?”
The monkey knew. But he wanted to get out. He wanted to go home. He wanted to know if Flower-Fruit Mountain was still there. Lin Xiu told him the headband wasn’t there to control him. It was there to drain his essence. Five hundred years’ worth had been stored inside it. Once he completed the pilgrimage and his merits were fulfilled, the day the headband came off, his essence would belong to Spirit Mountain. He would have been trapped for nothing, endured everything for nothing, trained for nothing.
The monkey was silent for a long time, then clenched his fist. “First, I have to get out. Then I have to endure it. I’ll make it all the way to the final day and take back what’s inside the headband.”
“And then?” Lin Xiu asked.
“Then I turn on them.”
In the moonlight, a little green snake coiled on the rocky ground, watching the first spark of light appear in those eyes that had been trapped for five hundred years. The progress bar on the Quitters System ticked forward. The Heavenly Dao’s correction countdown had forty-eight hours to go.
The Journey to the West Quitters’ Club begins with a snake.
Very nice, hope to update
Not bad. Quite interesting.