Chapter 2 - THE CITY THAT ATE PRAYERS
The road west ended at a city called Luojing.
At least that was the old name.
The new name was carved into the gate with bones:
CITY OF TEN THOUSAND VOWS.
Bajie stopped outside.
“No.”
Mingkong looked at him.
“You said that about the monastery.”
“I was right about the monastery.”
Wujing studied the walls.
Thousands of prayer strips fluttered from towers.
White.
Yellow.
Red.
Every strip carried writing.
Names.
Requests.
Promises.
Mingkong moved closer.
Some were recent.
HELP MY SON.
MAKE THE FEVER STOP.
LET THE WELL FILL.
GIVE ME ONE MORE DAY.
I WILL SERVE.
I WILL PAY.
I WILL KNEEL.
Mingkong felt sick.
“What is this place?”
Wukong answered:
“A market.”
“For prayers?”
“For desperation.”
The gates opened.
No guards.
Inside, the city was alive.
That surprised Mingkong.
Markets crowded the streets.
People carried water.
Children ran between stalls.
Smoke rose from cookfires.
After weeks of bones and demons, it looked almost normal.
Too normal.
A smiling woman approached.
“Pilgrims?”
Wukong said:
“No.”
Bajie said:
“Yes.”
They glared at each other.
The woman did not seem bothered.
“Then you’ve come to trade.”
Mingkong asked:
“What do you sell?”
“Answers.”
Bajie muttered:
“Expensive?”
“Always.”
The woman led them to a public square.
At its center stood a bronze statue of a kneeling monk with no face.
Around it, people formed lines.
Each person carried something.
A finger bone.
A lock of hair.
A wedding ring.
A tooth.
A written vow.
At the front sat three robed figures wearing masks shaped like smiling Buddhas.
One petitioner knelt.
“My daughter has the red cough.”
A masked priest held out a bowl.
“What will you give?”
“My left eye.”
Mingkong stepped forward.
Bajie caught him.
“Wait.”
The petitioner produced a small knife.
Mingkong’s face hardened.
The priest stopped him.
“Not flesh.”
The man looked confused.
The priest tapped his own temple.
“Memory.”
The man went still.
“What memory?”
“The first time she called you Father.”
The man started crying.
“No.”
“Then leave.”
“My daughter will die.”
“Then choose.”
Mingkong’s stomach turned.
The man whispered:
“Take it.”
The priest placed two fingers against his forehead.
Golden light flashed.
The man collapsed.
When he woke, a small glass bead lay in the bowl.
Inside, a child’s laughter.
The priest handed him a packet of medicine.
The man looked at it.
Then at the bead.
He frowned.
“Whose voice is that?”
Mingkong looked away.
The woman who brought them said:
“Fair trade.”
Wukong’s hand tightened on the staff.
Mingkong whispered:
“This is evil.”
Wukong replied:
“No.”
Mingkong stared.
Wukong continued:
“Evil is easier.”
He pointed at the man leaving with medicine.
“That works.”
Mingkong hated him for being right.
The city traded memory for survival.
Water for years of childhood.
Medicine for dead relatives’ faces.
Food for names.
Protection for grief.
People came because the bargains were real.
Bajie looked around.
“Who runs it?”
The woman smiled.
“The Listener.”
“Demon?”
“Saint.”
Wukong snorted.
The woman looked at him for the first time with interest.
“Monkey King.”
The square went quiet.
Wukong sighed.
“I hate fame.”
Every masked priest turned.
The woman bowed.
“The Listener has waited.”
Wukong’s staff expanded one inch.
“I haven’t.”
The bronze kneeling monk statue cracked.
A voice came from inside.
“Sun Wukong.”
Mingkong felt pressure in the air.
Not like the giant hand.
Softer.
Intimate.
The statue split down the middle.
Inside sat a child.
Maybe eight years old.
Shaved head.
Golden robe.
Eyes sewn shut with red thread.
Bajie recoiled.
Wujing raised his weapon.
The child smiled.
“Eldest Brother.”
Wukong went rigid.
Mingkong looked at him.
The title.
Only one person had used it with that exact gentleness.
Tang Sanzang.
The child turned toward Bajie.
“Second Brother.”
Bajie’s face collapsed.
Then Wujing.
“Wujing.”
The river demon shut his eyes.
Mingkong understood.
The Listener did not imitate voices.
It pulled them from memory.
The child spoke:
“You came too late.”
Wukong’s knuckles whitened around the staff.
“Where is Master?”
“Which answer will you pay for?”
Wukong took one step.
“Ask again and I’ll pay with your spine.”
The child laughed.
Tang Sanzang’s laugh.
Bajie looked sick.
The Listener said:
“Violence. Still your favorite currency.”
Wukong stopped.
The child’s sewn eyes turned toward Mingkong.
“Fourth pilgrim.”
Mingkong held the torn kasaya tighter.
“What are you?”
“A clerk.”
“Of what?”
“Petition.”
The answer sounded absurd.
The child continued:
“When Heaven sealed its gates, prayers had nowhere to go.”
The strips across the city began fluttering though no wind blew.
“They accumulated.”
Mingkong looked around.
Millions of requests.
Centuries.
“Prayer has weight when unanswered.”
The Listener smiled.
“It sinks.”
Bajie whispered:
“And you collect it.”
“I process it.”
Wukong spat.
“Parasite.”
“Bureaucrat.”
That made Bajie bark one surprised laugh.
The child raised one hand.
A wall of glass beads rose from beneath the square.
Millions.
Memories.
Every answer granted.
Every price paid.
Mingkong realized the city did not feed on prayer exactly.
It monetized abandonment.
Heaven stopped answering.
Something else opened a counter.
“What do you know about Tang Sanzang?” Mingkong asked.
The Listener tilted its head.
“Everything he prayed in his final seven days.”
Wukong moved so fast the square cracked.
The Jingu Bang stopped one hair from the child’s skull.
“Speak.”
The Listener did not flinch.
“Payment.”
Wukong’s eyes burned red.
“What?”
“One memory.”
“No.”
“One.”
Wukong’s face changed.
Bajie said:
“Take mine.”
Wujing:
“Mine.”
The Listener smiled wider.
“Not yours.”
It pointed at Wukong.
“His.”
Wukong’s voice was low.
“Which?”
“The first time your master called you disciple.”
Silence swallowed the city.
Mingkong saw Wukong’s rage become something else.
Fear.
That memory mattered.
Maybe more than heaven.
The Listener held out a bowl.
“One memory for seven final prayers.”
Wukong stared.
Mingkong stepped between them.
“No.”
Wukong looked at him.
“Move.”
“No.”
“You don’t decide.”
“No. But Tang Sanzang left a warning about kneeling and a cloth with your names. He expected us to reach places like this.”
Wukong’s face hardened.
Mingkong continued:
“If you trade away the beginning, maybe you won’t know what the end means.”
Bajie whispered:
“The little monk has teeth.”
Wukong ignored him.
The Listener said:
“Then no answer.”
Mingkong looked at the millions of prayer strips.
“What happens if we take the memories back?”
The city went silent.
Every priest stopped moving.
The Listener’s smile disappeared.
Wukong noticed.
“Oh.”
Bajie grinned.
“That sounded useful.”
Mingkong pointed at the wall of glass beads.
“These belong to people.”
“Payment completed.”
“Under coercion.”
“Need is not coercion.”
Mingkong felt anger.
“That sentence belongs in Hell.”
The Listener stood.
The child’s body unfolded taller.
Red threads snapped from its eyes.
There were no eyes underneath.
Only mouths.
Rows of tiny mouths whispering prayers.
“Contracts are sacred.”
Wukong smiled.
“No.”
He raised the staff.
“Sacred things break beautifully.”
The square erupted.
Masked priests rushed them.
Bajie swung his rake and sent six through a tea stall.
Wujing spun the crescent spade and cut prayer strips from the air as they hardened into blades.
Mingkong ran toward the glass wall.
The Listener screamed:
“DO NOT TOUCH THE ACCOUNTS!”
Exactly the wrong thing to say.
Mingkong struck the glass with Tang Sanzang’s burned prayer beads.
The wall shattered.
Millions of memories exploded into the city.
Not light.
Life.
A woman screamed as she remembered her son’s face.
An old man fell to his knees laughing at a wedding forty years gone.
A child remembered her own name.
The Listener convulsed.
Answers reversed.
The material bargains remained.
Only ownership broke.
Mingkong understood.
The Listener had lied.
It did not need the memories as payment.
It needed them as collateral.
People without precious memories became easier to govern.
Wukong grabbed the child-creature by the throat.
“Master’s prayers.”
The Listener’s mouths whispered all at once.
“Gone.”
Wukong squeezed.
“Wrong answer.”
“Released.”
“When?”
The creature looked at Mingkong.
“When he broke the account.”
Mingkong froze.
“Tang Sanzang came here?”
The Listener smiled weakly.
“He destroyed seven million contracts.”
Bajie stared.
“That sounds like him.”
Wujing’s voice shook.
“What did he pray?”
The Listener’s many mouths spoke.
First:
“Let Wukong stop believing strength could have changed what happened.”
Second:
“Let Bajie forgive himself for being afraid.”
Third:
“Let Wujing speak before silence becomes worship.”
The disciples went still.
Fourth:
“Let no heaven use my death to command them.”
Wukong’s grip loosened.
Fifth:
“Let the next pilgrim refuse the road if the road demands obedience.”
Mingkong felt cold.
Sixth:
“Let them know I chose.”
Wukong whispered:
“Chose what?”
The Listener opened every mouth.
The seventh prayer came in Tang Sanzang’s own voice.
“Let me enter the false Buddha’s mouth before it learns my disciples’ names.”
The city bells began ringing.
Every prayer strip ignited.
The Listener collapsed into ash.
Wukong stood frozen.
Mingkong understood the new truth.
Tang Sanzang had not been killed on the road.
He had gone willingly into something.
Something pretending to be Buddha.
To keep it from learning Wukong, Bajie, and Wujing.
Bajie whispered:
“Master walked into it.”
Wujing looked west.
“Western Heaven.”
Wukong picked up the burned kasaya.
His face had become unreadable.
“No.”
They looked at him.
“He walked into a mouth.”
The red sky above Luojing split.
Far west, behind the clouds, the rotting Buddha face appeared again.
May you like
This time its lips moved.
And Tang Sanzang screamed from inside them.
