Chapter 5 - BAJIE’S FEAST
The faceless monk led them through a staircase that descended while every step felt like climbing.
Mingkong stopped trying to understand direction.
The false Pure Land did not obey geography.
It obeyed concepts.
West meant completion.
Down meant submission.
Up meant authority.
Doors meant permission.
So Tang Sanzang’s path twisted through meanings instead.
The faceless monk never spoke.
Every time Mingkong asked a question, the blank face tilted.
Bajie found this offensive.
“I finally meet someone quieter than Wujing and somehow I like Wujing more.”
Wujing gave him a flat look.
“See? Personality.”
After an hour—or perhaps three breaths—they reached a banquet hall.
Bajie stopped.
“Oh no.”
Tables stretched into darkness.
Roasted meats.
Wine.
Steamed buns.
Melons.
Rice.
Peaches.
Dishes from dynasties long vanished.
The smell alone made Mingkong dizzy.
He had eaten dried roots for two days.
Bajie looked almost physically struck.
The faceless monk pointed toward a door on the far side.
To reach it, they had to walk between the tables.
Wukong said:
“Don’t eat.”
Bajie glared.
“Thank you for the insight.”
They entered.
The food steamed.
Wine poured itself.
Bajie walked with both hands clenched.
Mingkong watched him.
Once, stories made Bajie’s appetite comic.
A weakness played for laughter.
Here it became something crueler.
Every dish was attached to memory.
Bajie stopped beside a bowl of noodles.
His face changed.
“What?”
He did not answer.
The noodles were simple.
Scallions.
Broth.
One egg.
Bajie whispered:
“Gao Village.”
Wukong looked at him.
Bajie’s former mortal attachments.
Marriage.
Desire.
Shame.
A woman appeared seated at the table.
Gao Cuilan.
Young.
Alive.
She looked at Bajie.
“You came back.”
He could not move.
Mingkong had never seen him afraid of tenderness before.
Bajie whispered:
“You’re dead.”
“So are many promises.”
She smiled.
“Sit.”
He took one step.
Wukong slammed the staff into the table.
Everything jumped.
“Fake.”
Bajie rounded on him.
“I know.”
“Then move.”
“I know!”
He shouted so loudly the hall shook.
Wukong went silent.
Bajie looked at Cuilan.
“I know.”
His voice broke.
That was worse.
Knowing did not remove wanting.
Cuilan lifted the bowl.
“You were never allowed to keep anything.”
Bajie’s jaw tightened.
“First Heaven punished you.”
“Then Master disciplined you.”
“Then the journey used you.”
“Then they laughed at you for being hungry.”
Mingkong felt the trap sharpen.
The false Pure Land did not merely tempt with pleasure.
It reinterpreted every denied desire as injustice.
Some were.
That made it dangerous.
Cuilan continued:
“You did not fail because you wanted too much.”
Bajie’s eyes filled.
“You failed because they made wanting shameful.”
He looked at Wukong.
Old resentment surfaced.
How many times had Wukong mocked him?
Hit him?
Dragged him forward?
How many times had Tang Sanzang scolded him?
Bajie’s grip loosened on the rake.
Mingkong remembered the second prayer.
Let Bajie forgive himself for being afraid.
Not hungry.
Afraid.
He stepped closer.
“This isn’t about food.”
Bajie said:
“Stay out of it.”
“You didn’t sit on that demon-bone throne because you loved feasts.”
Bajie looked at him.
“You sat there because leaving meant failing again.”
The hall went quiet.
Cuilan’s smile vanished.
Mingkong continued:
“You built a kingdom where no one could ask you to save them.”
Bajie’s face hardened.
“You know nothing.”
“Probably.”
Good.
He had learned from Wujing.
Move before certainty.
“But you left it.”
Bajie’s eyes shifted.
“You stood up.”
Cuilan said:
“For guilt.”
Mingkong shook his head.
“For choice.”
Bajie looked at the bowl.
His hand reached.
Everyone tensed.
He picked it up.
Smelled it.
Then drank the entire broth.
Wukong shouted:
“Idiot!”
Bajie put the bowl down.
Nothing happened.
He chewed once.
Twice.
Looked offended.
“Tastes terrible.”
Cuilan’s face cracked.
Bajie smiled.
“You forgot something.”
The woman stared.
“My wife cooked badly.”
Mingkong blinked.
Bajie laughed.
“Beautiful woman. Kind when she wanted to be. Terrible noodles.”
The illusion tore.
Cuilan became a gray creature with a long tongue and a face made of teeth.
Bajie hit it with the rake.
The banquet hall erupted.
Every dish opened eyes.
Wine became blood.
Meat became hands.
Peaches screamed.
Bajie swung the rake in wide circles, smashing tables.
He laughed.
Actually laughed.
Not bitterly.
“Finally! A meal I’m allowed to insult!”
Wukong grinned.
“There’s my idiot.”
“Call me idiot again and I’ll season you.”
Wujing’s mouth twitched.
The faceless monk walked calmly through the chaos.
Mingkong followed.
They reached the far door.
Then the hall changed tactics.
The food vanished.
In its place stood demons kneeling before Bajie.
The ruined city he had ruled.
His throne of bones.
One lesser demon raised its head.
“King.”
Bajie stopped.
“Come back.”
Others joined.
“King.”
“You protected us.”
“Humans hunted us.”
“You gave us law.”
“You gave us food.”
Mingkong looked at Bajie.
This temptation was stronger.
Not indulgence.
Purpose.
Bajie had not merely hidden in that city.
He had ruled it.
Maybe well in some ways.
The demons continued:
“Why follow a dead monk’s road?”
“Why serve Wukong again?”
“Why obey a child?”
Mingkong flinched.
Fair question.
Bajie looked at him.
Then Wukong.
Then Wujing.
He rested the rake on his shoulder.
“I’m not obeying the kid.”
Mingkong opened his mouth.
Bajie continued:
“I’m obeying my own terrible judgment.”
The demons hissed.
Bajie smiled.
“Which, unfortunately, says I want to know who killed Master.”
He walked past them.
One demon shouted:
“Your people need you!”
Bajie stopped.
People.
Not subjects.
He looked back.
For a moment Mingkong thought he would stay.
Then Bajie removed a ring from his finger.
A black iron seal.
Symbol of his demon city.
He tossed it to the kneeling figure.
“Then choose another king.”
The hall shook.
The kneeling demons began to dissolve.
Bajie looked at Mingkong.
“That hurt.”
Mingkong nodded.
“Good.”
Bajie stared.
Mingkong clarified:
“I mean—”
“I know what you mean.”
Before they crossed, Mingkong looked back at the demons from Bajie’s ruined city.
One remained longer than the others.
A small fox demon with one torn ear.
“King,” it said.
Bajie stopped.
The fox did not ask him to stay.
Instead:
“Were we only hiding with you?”
Bajie’s face changed.
Mingkong realized this question mattered more than the throne.
Bajie had gathered demons nobody wanted—weak ones, disgraced ones, creatures driven from mountains by stronger lords.
His city had been indulgent, corrupt, drunken.
It had also been shelter.
“Some of you were hiding,” Bajie said.
The fox lowered its head.
“So were you?”
Bajie looked at the abandoned throne.
“Yes.”
The answer cost him.
The fox asked:
“Then was it false?”
Bajie tightened both hands around the rake.
“No.”
He looked at Mingkong, as if annoyed to find himself thinking carefully.
“A bad reason to start something does not make every good thing inside it fake.”
Mingkong nodded.
Bajie continued:
“If the city survives without me, maybe it was more real than my crown.”
The fox smiled.
Then vanished with the rest.
Wukong said:
“That was almost wise.”
Bajie pointed the rake at him.
“I can undo it.”
They crossed the door.
Behind them, the Feast Hall collapsed.
Ahead stood a narrow bridge over an endless pit.
At the center sat Tang Sanzang.
Alive.
Bound.
Head lowered.
Wukong moved.
The faceless monk blocked him.
Wukong’s staff snapped forward.
The monk did not move.
Tang Sanzang raised his head.
His face was older.
Tired.
Real.
“Wukong.”
The monkey froze.
Tang Sanzang looked at Bajie.
“Bajie.”
Then Wujing.
“My disciple.”
Finally Mingkong.
His eyes filled with sorrow.
“And you.”
Mingkong whispered:
“Master?”
Tang Sanzang shook his head.
“No.”
Wukong’s expression shattered.
Tang Sanzang looked toward something beneath the bridge.
“I am the part of him that could not escape.”
The pit opened an eye.
And the entire Pure Land began to breathe.
As they walked toward the bridge, Bajie became quieter.
Mingkong finally asked:
“Do you regret leaving the city?”
“Yes.”
The answer surprised him.
Bajie continued:
“I also regret staying so long.”
“Both?”
“That is usually how regret works.”
He looked back at the collapsing feast hall.
“I wanted a place where nobody could call me coward again. So I built one where everyone called me king.”
Mingkong listened.
“It worked.”
“For a while.”
“Was that bad?”
“Not all of it.”
Bajie sighed.
“That is the annoying part. If everything were bad, leaving would be easy.”
Mingkong thought of Luojing.
The Listener gave medicine.
The false Pure Land gave comfort.
Heaven’s closed gates had protected some celestial beings.
Every horror on the road survived by attaching itself to something useful.
Bajie said:
“Remember this, little monk. Pure evil is lazy storytelling.”
Mingkong raised an eyebrow.
“You are giving literary advice now?”
“I contain multitudes.”
“You contain lunch.”
“Also true.”
They walked.
A moment later Bajie added:
“And fear is not proof you should stay away. Sometimes fear is proof you finally understand the price.”
Mingkong looked at him.
Tang Sanzang’s second prayer echoed in memory:
Let Bajie forgive himself for being afraid.
Not become fearless.
Forgive fear.
That difference mattered.
May you like
Mingkong nodded.
Bajie pretended not to notice.
