The chains revealed themselves.
Packed thick and dense.
Blanketing the sky.
They extended from the Vermilion Lacquer Cabinet like countless black venomous snakes, winding through the skies above the Chechi Kingdom.
One end connected to the three royal preceptors.
The other connected to the monks imprisoned far away.
Between them stood the cabinet.
The evidence stood like an unshakable mountain.
Everyone fell silent.
The people craned their heads, gazing at the densely packed chains in the sky.
Shock was written all over their faces.
So was fear.
So was disbelief.
Only moments earlier, they had still been hurling curses.
Still denouncing Sun Wukong.
Still saying the Preaching Squad could not bear to lose.
Still saying the royal preceptors represented Daoist orthodoxy.
But now, the chains hung right above their heads.
Plain to see.
Undeniably real.
Connected to the royal preceptors.
Connected to the cabinet.
Connected to the monks the royal preceptors had ordered oppressed.
They wanted to speak.
Their mouths opened.
But not a single word came out.
All their earlier righteous declarations now lodged in their throats.
They could not swallow them.
They could not spit them out.
All color drained from the king's face.
He sat upon his dragon throne.
Both hands clamped tightly around the armrests.
His knuckles turned white.
He stared at the chains.
Scenes from the past several decades surfaced in his mind.
The three royal preceptors arriving at court.
Their successful prayers for rain.
Their appointment as royal preceptors.
Their promotion of the Daoist School.
Their oppression of the monks.
Their imprisonment of the monks.
Their enslavement of the monks.
He had witnessed every last bit of it.
He had thought the royal preceptors were governing the country.
He had thought those monks deserved their punishment.
He had thought himself a wise ruler.
But