Chapter 10 - THE JOURNEY AFTER WEST
The red sky did not become blue.
That disappointed Bajie.
“I feel cheated.”
Mingkong looked upward.
The clouds were still red.
Less like blood now.
More like evening.
“Were you expecting paradise?”
“I was expecting at least better weather.”
Wukong hit him lightly with the staff.
Bajie complained for an hour.
The false Buddha collapsed across three mountain ranges.
Not as a corpse.
As architecture losing agreement.
Golden temples turned to abandoned caves.
Lotus bridges became old roads.
Heavenly statues returned to weathered stone.
The Black River thinned until ordinary muddy water appeared beneath it.
Some unborn gods dissolved.
Others remained.
Smaller.
Local.
No longer claiming cosmic authority.
Heaven opened seven gates.
Not all.
Registrar Wu sent a formal notice explaining that full reopening required twelve committees, four celestial risk reviews, and “a period of responsible metaphysical consultation.”
Wukong burned the notice.
Mingkong objected.
“Evidence.”
“I made a copy.”
“You did?”
“No.”
Bajie laughed.
The mortal world did not heal quickly.
Demons still ruled mountains.
Villages still starved.
Warlords still taxed wells.
Children still disappeared on roads.
Destroying a false heaven did not repair abandoned earth.
Tang Sanzang had warned them without saying it directly.
No final enemy meant no final victory.
Work remained.
Annoying work.
Bajie hated work.
He stayed anyway.
The four returned first to Luojing.
The City of Ten Thousand Vows had become chaotic.
Without the Listener, medicine supplies were running low.
Memories returned, but infrastructure did not.
Mingkong expected gratitude.
He received complaints.
“You broke the answer hall!”
“My husband remembered another wife!”
“The priests fled with the grain ledgers!”
“Who is responsible?”
Bajie looked delighted.
“Your new road works.”
Mingkong wanted to strangle him.
They spent three months in Luojing.
Wujing organized water channels.
Bajie discovered he was disturbingly good at ration distribution when forbidden from eating inventory.
Wukong rebuilt the city wall in one afternoon, then destroyed one section the next morning when residents tried to turn it into a gate tax.
Mingkong mediated until his voice failed.
No one called it enlightenment.
Good.
When they left, Luojing had no saint.
Only a council everyone disliked equally.
Bajie called that progress.
Next they went south to the black river villages.
Then east to demon territory.
Then north where Heaven’s bells had awakened old temple networks.
The new journey had no destination.
That caused arguments.
Bajie wanted maps.
Wujing wanted needs assessments.
Wukong wanted “the loudest problem.”
Mingkong wanted a method.
Eventually they developed one.
Every morning, ask three questions:
Who is in danger?
Who claims authority over them?
What happens if we leave?
Not sacred.
Useful.
Sometimes they fought demons.
Sometimes landlords.
Sometimes celestial officials.
Once, Wukong spent six days arguing with a rain deity who refused to work without incense quotas.
The argument caused more damage than the drought.
Mingkong learned to stop him earlier.
Months became years.
Stories spread.
Not Journey to the West.
People called them many things.
The Four Who Turned Back.
The Unfinished Pilgrims.
The Roadless Company.
The Monkey and His Problems.
Wukong preferred the last one.
Mingkong hated all titles.
He understood now why Tang Sanzang had feared narrative.
Stories simplified.
Simplification became expectation.
Expectation became role.
Role became cage.
So when villages asked for the “true story” of the false Buddha, Mingkong always began:
“There are several versions.”
Children hated that.
Adults hated it more.
Good.
He told them Heaven closed its gates in fear.
He told them Heaven later reopened some.
He told them demons exploited the silence.
He told them humans also harmed one another.
He told them Tang Sanzang chose to enter the false Buddha.
He told them that choice did not make his death meaningless or inevitable.
He told them Wukong could not save him.
He told them Wukong survived that truth.
He told them Bajie ran.
He told them Bajie came back.
He told them Wujing stayed silent too long.
He told them Wujing later spoke.
He told them Mingkong might have been created by the road itself.
That last part always made listeners uncomfortable.
“Does that mean you’re not human?” a child once asked.
Mingkong thought.
“I get hungry.”
Bajie shouted from across the fire:
“Not enough!”
Mingkong ignored him.
“I get afraid.”
Wujing nodded.
“I make bad decisions.”
Wukong said:
“Frequently.”
Mingkong glared.
Then told the child:
“So if I’m not human, I’ve learned the important inconveniences.”
Years later, Mingkong returned to Mount Huaguo.
Not alone.
Never alone now.
The mountain had begun to recover.
Small monkeys lived among the lower trees.
Peach saplings grew where burned trunks once stood.
Wukong stopped at the old summit.
The giant demon corpse was gone.
The Jingu Bang no longer pierced the cliff.
Bajie found fruit.
Immediately.
Wujing sat beside a stream.
Mingkong climbed to the highest stone.
The burned prayer beads hung around his neck now.
Wukong had given them to him after one year.
No ceremony.
“Master would hate you losing these,” Wukong had said.
Mingkong asked:
“Why me?”
“Because I’m tired of carrying dead people.”
Harsh.
Healthy.
Maybe both.
At sunset, a bell rang from the east.
Not celestial.
Mortal.
A village warning bell.
Three quick strikes.
Pause.
Three again.
Wujing stood.
“Fire?”
Bajie listened.
“No. Raid signal.”
Wukong sighed dramatically.
Mingkong smiled.
“Someone is waiting.”
They started down the mountain.
Then the sky changed.
Only slightly.
A shadow crossed the red clouds.
All four stopped.
Far above, beyond the opened celestial gates, something enormous moved.
Not Buddha-shaped.
No face.
No doctrine.
Just scale.
Mingkong felt the old instinct to name it.
Demon.
God.
Enemy.
He stopped.
Wukong looked at him.
“Well?”
“I don’t know what it is.”
“Good.”
Bajie squinted.
“Can we eat first?”
Wujing said:
“The village.”
Bajie sighed.
“Every road leads away from dinner.”
They descended.
Behind them, the shadow remained in the sky.
Maybe threat.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe something that would matter later.
No prophecy appeared.
No scripture burned.
No voice commanded them West.
The road forked at the base of Mount Huaguo.
One path toward the village bell.
One toward a dry valley.
One toward an abandoned temple.
Mingkong chose the village.
Not because fate pointed.
Because someone had rung for help.
They walked.
At the first hill, Mingkong noticed a small roadside shrine.
White stone.
Fresh incense.
A statue inside.
Tang Sanzang.
Someone had already made him a saint.
Mingkong stopped.
Wukong stared.
Bajie groaned.
Wujing closed his eyes.
The statue showed Tang Sanzang kneeling peacefully beneath a halo.
Inscription:
THE HOLY MASTER WHO SACRIFICED HIMSELF TO SAVE ALL BEINGS.
Wukong’s eye twitched.
“That’s not what happened.”
Mingkong read the offering notes.
People had begun praying to Tang Sanzang for safe travel.
The cycle.
Story becoming function.
Function becoming worship.
Worship becoming expectation.
Bajie looked at Mingkong.
“What do we do?”
Destroying the shrine would be easy.
Wukong could flatten it with one finger.
Mingkong thought of the false Buddha.
Then Tang Sanzang’s tired human face.
Do not make grief into temple.
He took a piece of charcoal.
Under the holy inscription, he wrote:
HE ALSO GOT LOST.
HE WAS SOMETIMES WRONG.
HE LOVED HIS DISCIPLES BADLY AND WELL.
HE CHOSE SOMETHING DIFFICULT.
DO NOT ASK HIM TO WALK FOR YOU.
Wukong read it.
Then added:
HE COULD NOT COOK.
Bajie protested.
“Neither can you!”
Wujing took the charcoal and wrote:
IF YOU PRAY HERE, STAND UP BEFORE YOU LEAVE.
Mingkong smiled.
They did not destroy the shrine.
They complicated it.
Perhaps that was another kind of protection.
The village bell rang again.
They ran.
Years later, scholars would argue about whether the second journey truly happened.
Some said Mingkong was Tang Sanzang reincarnated.
Wrong.
Some said he was a demon created by false Heaven.
Maybe partly.
Some said Sun Wukong killed the false Buddha in a battle that lasted ninety-nine days.
Definitely wrong.
Some said Heaven saved the mortal world.
Wukong laughed for three days when he heard that one.
The oldest surviving account was not a scripture.
It was a scrap of cloth found in a roadside inn.
Four lines:
GO WHERE SOMEONE IS STILL WAITING FOR HELP.
TURN BACK WHEN THE ROAD DEMANDS WORSHIP.
SPEAK BEFORE SILENCE BECOMES CONSENT.
EAT BEFORE MAKING MORAL DECISIONS.
The last line had been crossed out twice.
Then written again larger.
No signature.
No destination.
No promise of enlightenment.
Only a road that remained unfinished on purpose.
And on certain evenings, when the sky still turned red, travelers claimed they could see four figures walking where no official road existed.
A young monk.
A gray-furred monkey carrying an iron staff.
A broad pig-faced warrior arguing about dinner.
A silent river demon who was no longer quite so silent.
They were not going West.
They were not going East.
They were going wherever someone had rung a bell.
And if, somewhere beyond the clouds, another false heaven was listening—
it would have to learn a new kind of fear.
Not fear of rebellion.
Not fear of weapons.
Not even fear of gods.
May you like
Fear of people who could survive a broken story without demanding a perfect ending.
END OF TEN-CHAPTER CONTINUATION
