I Am a Squirrel in Journey to the West, Mastering Every Law to Protect Wukong

After working myself to death in a 996 job, I transmigrated into Journey to the West and became an inconspicuous little gray squirrel beneath the Five Elements Mountain.

For five hundred years, I kept the Great Sage Equal to Heaven company as he sat beneath the mountain, listening to him curse the Celestial Court and Spirit Mountain, and uncovering the astonishing conspiracy that had been hidden behind the pilgrimage to the West for millennia!

I have a heaven-defying talent: by touching anything, I can copy all its supernatural abilities and read every secret memory.

Touch Sun Wukong, and I master the Seventy-Two Transformations and the Somersault Cloud. Touch the Black Bear Spirit, and I uncover the dark truth behind the demon clan’s spirit-locking marks. As I touch gods, Buddhas, demons, and monsters along the way, I learn every secret the Three Realms have to hide!

This story turns all the usual tropes on their heads: no secrets kept, no misunderstandings, and no ridiculous internal drama. Brother Monkey knows all my secrets from day one, and we trust each other completely, with perfect teamwork!

I disguise myself as a docile pet and hide on the Great Sage’s shoulder. The gods and Buddhas of the Three Realms all look down on me, and even the Heavenly Dao automatically screens out anything unusual about me. No one ever thinks to watch out for a tiny squirrel.

But no one knows that this so-called pilgrimage to the West is nothing more than a massive workplace scam cooked up by the Celestial Court and Spirit Mountain:

The spirit-locking seal is the demon clan’s layoff system; the gods’ mounts are sent down to earn a shiny résumé; all eighty-one tribulations are prewritten public-relations scripts; and Tang Sanzang’s ten lifetimes of reincarnation have made him a pawn in a power game from beginning to end!

Throughout the journey west, I help Brother Monkey plot in secret: turning the Black Bear Spirit to our side and building an underground network for the demon clan, exposing the truth behind the White Bone Demon’s three tragic deaths, winning over the Bull Demon King and the other demon kings, exposing the conspiracy behind the fake and real Monkey Kings, and confronting Spirit Mountain’s most disgraceful secrets at Lion Camel Ridge!

Everyone believes the pilgrimage team is following Heaven’s will, slaying demons and vanquishing evil. Little do they know that the one truly stirring up the game is a little squirrel hidden in the shadows, quietly turning everyone against the powers that be.

The Great Sage gave me five hundred years of peace. I helped him tear away the gods’ and Buddhas’ hypocritical masks.