Three Paths Unbalanced

Wang Mang had no idea how long he had walked.

When his shoes wore through, he wrapped his feet in tree bark.

When his dry rations ran out, he picked wild fruit and dug up grass roots.

He crossed steep ridges capped in year-round snow, waded through swamps thick with poisonous miasma, hid in wastelands where demonic beasts prowled on every side, and stood lost before mirage-like illusions.

For direction, he had only the point of Sun Wukong's finger, and an ember of longing in his heart that refused to go out.

He had long since forgotten that he had once been "the New Emperor, Wang Mang." He only remembered that he was a beggar searching for a mountain.

That day, utterly exhausted, he collapsed outside an unnamed bamboo grove.

Waves of bamboo rustled, sobbing and murmuring like grief.

In a daze, he saw a flash of clear light deep within the grove, and the outline of a simple mountain gate appeared and vanished in the mist. There seemed to be words on the lintel.

Using the last of his strength, he crawled toward it on hands and feet.

The mountain gate grew clear.

On the left was carved "Slanting Moon and Three Stars Cave," on the right "Fengling Yueying Sect," and across the top, "Outer-Heaven Immortal Sect."

Wang Mang lay sprawled on the ground, staring at that couplet, his mouth open. After a long while, a sound came from him that might have been crying or laughter.

"Outer-Heaven Immortal Sect..." he murmured over and over, tears running down with the mud.

I'm here. I finally found it!

He struggled to sit up and wanted to knock, but his hand had no strength to lift.

In the end, he merely touched his forehead lightly to the cold stone step.

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