Meanwhile.
Standing invisibly in the void, the Five Directions Ksitigarbha watched the overjoyed Sun Wukong, then looked at the mist-shrouded paradise of Immortals, and all of them secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
"This plague-ridden monkey!"
"We finally got him where he needed to go..."
"We may not be major Immortals, but we are still gods of some standing. Yet we had to serve as laborers for this monkey, and do it in secret at that. What a disgrace... If not for orders from above, I'd really like to teach this monkey a proper lesson!"
One of them could not help grumbling.
As they spoke, Golden Head Ksitigarbha suddenly cried out, instantly drawing everyone's attention back.
"Huh, where's the monkey?"
They had clearly watched him run up the mountain.
How had he vanished in the blink of an eye?
They hurriedly looked into the mountain, searching left and right, but could not find any trace of Sun Wukong. After a moment, Silver Head Ksitigarbha hesitantly said,
"Could he have already gone to take a master?"
"Our cultivation is too shallow. How could we possibly see through a paradise like this? It would be normal enough if we couldn't find that monkey..."
At those words,
everyone nodded in agreement.
Yet Golden Head Ksitigarbha remained puzzled.
"That's not right. The woodcutter hasn't even appeared yet... Did this monkey just go straight in to take a master? The process is all wrong!"
Though they still had doubts, they did not dare go up the mountain to investigate directly. They could only console one another.
"Ah, it's fine..."
"That monkey must have gone up the mountain already!"
"He may have even taken a master by now... He has come this far. What could possibly go wrong?"
After muttering among themselves for a while, they