Zhang Niuer, a vegetable-growing novice at Golden Mountain Temple, accidentally becomes the Pilgrim because Elder Faming has a lisp. The four disciples originally chosen for the journey also turn out to be one disaster after another.
The White Dragon Horse runs away on its own, so a little white horse takes a golden elixir and fills in. Sun Wukong has no fighting spirit at all, so he creates a Six-Eared Macaque to travel with him. Zhu Bajie is content with the status quo, so he has to pick a wild boar demon from among his men to make up the numbers. Sha Monk refuses to become a disciple and is accidentally beaten to death by the Six-Eared Macaque and the boar demon. Meanwhile, Jiang Liuer's birth mother, Yin Wenjiao, escapes with her life but has nowhere to go, so she can only head west with the group.
This pilgrimage team seems absurd, with not a single one of them being the real deal, yet someone has secretly arranged it all...