[Journey to the West] The Scholar of Pansi Cave

[An ambitious project! I think I want to use the setting of Journey to the West to reflect the modern academic world. The overall tone will be witty and humorous. I really, really, really want to write this! But it's a genre crossover, after all. If any interested darlings could bookmark it and give me some confidence, I'd be so grateful X﹏X]

The academic big shot Si Qingluo was just holding forth in her lab one moment. The next, she was handed a Journey to the West script and reborn as a Spider Demon destined to be beaten to death by the Great Sage's staff.

To stay alive, Si Qingluo decided to return to her old line of work: build an academic empire in Pansi Cave!

She immediately gave her six Spider Demon sisters a heartfelt sales pitch: Trust me, researching science is better than eating Tang Monk's flesh.

And so, group meetings of every size got underway, weekly and monthly reports were written, and everyone worked themselves to the bone, knowing that those who failed to get promoted would be pushed out.

And what was the most important way to stay alive in the world of Journey to the West?

It wasn't improving your fighting skills. It was clinging to powerful allies!

She presented Taishang Laojun with a method for purifying high-purity immortal pills. From then on, Pansi Cave was officially renamed the "Taishang Laojun Laboratory, Western Ox Continent Branch." Its main research areas were advanced spider-silk materials and the development of the earth veins beneath Zhuogou Spring. It rolled out best-selling products like ultrathin, ultra-strong spider-silk condoms and spiritual-spring spa and cosmetic treatments, building a GDP miracle in the world of Journey to the West.

With official positions and funding secured, the next step was to exploit... ahem, recruit research talent, fair and square.

With the major project "Journey to the West" about to open for bids, Pansi Cave worked through the night to draft a proposal. Approved by Guanyin Bodhisattva, it became a pilot site for "vocational retraining for demons," giving it official grounds to recruit all kinds of strange and monstrous beings and expand its research empire.

Once their results were in and their web of connections firmly spun, who would still dare treat the seven sisters of Pansi Cave like a bunch of Spider Demons they could casually wipe out?

Taibai Jinxing, watching the Journey to the West plot veer completely off course and pulling his hair out: "I worked so hard to arrange the Eighty-One Tribulations. Could you at least follow the process and cooperate?!"

Later, Pansi Cave became the most mysterious stronghold in the Three Realms.

There were rumors that it held the ultimate secret formula for immortality;

Rumors that a single sheet of draft paper from there could spark a storm that shook the Three Realms;

Rumors that the gods and Buddhas of the Three Realms fought furiously over a joint training position at Pansi Cave;

Rumors that... she had imprisoned the one person least likely to be tamed, the True Lord Erlang.

[Note]

1. A fan-fiction derivative of Wu Cheng'en's original Journey to the West.

2. Tentatively, this is a career-focused wish-fulfillment story with a highly intelligent and socially adept heroine who is useless in combat. The focus is on her frantically conducting research and networking to survive, with the workaholic persona of someone who pushes herself to the limit.

3. The academic parts should have very few bugs, and... there will be plenty of academic hell jokes...

Theme: When power and order operate in the name of destiny, people can still rewrite their fate through expertise and courage, and find love and freedom as they help one another succeed.