Chapter Summaries

Tang Sanzang swallowed Lin Zhu’s Pillar Pill, which unlocked his eligibility for body-refinement training but showed no immediate effects. He and Sun Wukong left Eagle Stream Ravine, and two months later Tang Sanzang had begun fighting beasts himself as they traveled west.

• Guanyin inspected Lin Zhu’s Pillar Pill, found nothing suspicious, and watched Tang Sanzang swallow it, but saw no change in him.
• Lin Zhu explained that the pill had opened the path to body refinement and urged Tang Sanzang to train and fight demons himself.
• Tang Sanzang thanked Lin Zhu, then left with Sun Wukong and the healed White Dragon Horse while Guanyin remained troubled by the pill’s lack of visible effects.
• Over the next two months, Tang Sanzang followed Lin Zhu’s advice and fought wild animals instead of calling on Sun Wukong to rescue him.

Over two months, Tang Sanzang embraced hunting and an intense training regimen, becoming a massively muscular monk while Guanyin accepted his violence as a way to vent lingering Demonic Qi. Lin Zhu monitored the journey from a pine-tree nest as his Merit barely increased, while news arrived that Ninth Heaven Prison’s Enforcement Hall was nearly complete.

• Tang Sanzang killed tigers and a black bear, and Guanyin stopped trying to restrain him because she believed the violence would safely release his lingering Demonic Qi.
• Tang Sanzang followed a demanding daily exercise routine, carrying White Dragon Horse during squats and running through the mountains while Sun Wukong watched.
• After two months, Tang Sanzang had developed eight-pack abs and extraordinary strength, which he attributed to the effects of the Pillar Pill.
• Guanyin decided to let Tang Sanzang continue his journey and avoided confronting Lin Zhu about the pill.
• Lin Zhu watched Tang Sanzang from his pine-tree nest, gained only a few dozen Merit points, and received Tian Peng’s report that the Enforcement Hall in Ninth Heaven Prison was nearly complete.

Lin Zhu worried that the Ninth Heaven Prison lacked the resources to expand, while Tang Sanzang’s group continued their journey toward a distant temple. The chapter ended with Tang Sanzang carrying the White Dragon Horse over his head and racing through a narrow mountain pass, leaving Sun Wukong stunned.

• Lin Zhu calculated the Ninth Heaven Prison’s expenses and worried that he lacked the treasures and resources needed to recruit and support more officers.
• Lin Zhu remembered his helpful friend and wondered when they would meet again.
• After two months of traveling, Tang Sanzang and Sun Wukong spotted a temple among the mountains and headed toward it for lodging.
• Tang Sanzang ate dried tiger meat as the group approached a narrow, rugged mountain pass.
• When Sun Wukong suggested the White Dragon Horse transform to get through the pass, Tang Sanzang lifted the horse and luggage overhead and ran ahead.
• Sun Wukong watched Tang Sanzang disappear into the forest carrying the horse and stared in astonishment.

Tang Sanzang, Sun Wukong, and the White Dragon Horse reached Guanyin Zen Monastery, where Tang Sanzang accidentally blasted the doors apart with a gentle knock. The monks revealed themselves as armed bandits demanding payment, and Tang Sanzang recognized that they had entered a bandits’ den.

• Tang Sanzang gently knocked on Guanyin Zen Monastery’s doors, but the doors exploded inward, leaving him embarrassed as Sun Wukong teased him.
• More than thirty armed monks rushed into the courtyard and eyed Tang Sanzang warily after seeing the shattered doors.
• Guangzhi challenged Tang Sanzang, then grew cautious when a fat monk warned him about Tang Sanzang’s strength.
• Tang Sanzang introduced himself as a monk from the Great Tang seeking scriptures at Spirit Mountain and requested lodging.
• Sun Wukong pointed out signs that the monks were fighters, and Tang Sanzang noticed their weapon calluses and scars.
• Guangzhi admitted the monks guarded the road and collected money from passersby, prompting Tang Sanzang to realize they were bandits.

Tang Sanzang exposed Guanyin Zen Monastery as a bandits’ den and overwhelmed its armed monks with terrifying strength. He left more than twenty monks defeated, while Guangzhi and the survivors cowered against the Spirit Wall.

• Guangzhi threatened Tang Sanzang and surrounded him with armed monks and crossbowmen after Tang called the monastery a bandits’ den.
• Tang Sanzang tore off his robe, revealed his powerful physique, and declared that he had encountered beasts rather than people.
• Tang Sanzang smashed a Qi Refining monk’s Refined Copper Staff with one punch and sent the man crashing into the Spirit Wall.
• Guangzhi ordered the crossbowmen to fire, but Tang Sanzang shattered their bolts with a sweep of his arm.
• Tang Sanzang charged through the monks, broke their weapons, and knocked more than twenty of them down in less than half an incense stick.
• Guangzhi and the remaining monks cowered against the Spirit Wall as Tang Sanzang stood victorious in the courtyard.

Lin Zhu arrived at Guanyin Zen Monastery during Tang Sanzang’s brutal attack on the bandits posing as monks and decided the system’s mission required him to guide Tang Sanzang to make them repent before killing them. He warned Tang Sanzang that killing them while they remained resentful would send their souls to hell, leaving the proper method of salvation unresolved.

• Tang Sanzang defeated the monks of Guanyin Zen Monastery, calling his plan to kill them a way of saving them from their lives as bandits.
• Lin Zhu identified the situation as the eighteenth Journey to the West trial and received a mission to guide Tang Sanzang in the correct way to save the murderous bandits.
• Lin Zhu reasoned that the bandits needed to recognize their sins and repent before death so their souls could be redeemed and Tang Sanzang could avoid accumulating more killing karma.
• Lin Zhu interrupted Tang Sanzang as he choked Guangzhi, and Tang Sanzang released the monk and greeted Lin Zhu with joy.
• Lin Zhu noticed Demonic Qi still influencing Tang Sanzang’s temperament and warned that killing the bandits without changing their hearts would leave them to suffer in hell and return to evil after reincarnation.

After Tang Sanzang slaughtered a bandit monk with one punch, Lin Zhu taught him to make his victims confess and repent before delivering them from suffering. Tang Sanzang followed the advice and killed the repentant monks one by one, leaving Lin Zhu satisfied with his growing Merit and the chapter ending with the courtyard quiet after their deaths.

• Tang Sanzang killed the brawny monk with one punch, terrifying the remaining monks and Guangzhi.
• Lin Zhu told Tang Sanzang that killing without repentance would stain the victims’ souls and burden his Buddha heart with killing karma.
• Tang Sanzang made Guangzhi confess his crimes and reveal the other monks’ offenses, then questioned each injured monk and delivered them from suffering after they repented.
• Tang Sanzang asked Guangzhi whether he admitted his crimes and repented, then tapped his brow and killed him after answering his questions about hell.
• Tang Sanzang chanted the Rebirth Mantra over the corpses, and Lin Zhu praised him as the courtyard settled into an unusual tranquility.

Tang Sanzang tried to make the remaining bandits repent before he killed them, while Lin Zhu realized his method lacked scripture-backed salvation and searched for a shorter ritual. Guanyin Bodhisattva erased Tang Sanzang’s slight killing karma, but the courtyard confrontation continued as Guangzhi challenged whether the muscular monk was really a monk.

• Tang Sanzang condemned the monks for robbery and murder and offered to save them, while Lin Zhu saw that the system mission remained incomplete.
• Lin Zhu determined that true salvation required scripture vow power to cleanse the dead monks’ remaining Karmic Force and began devising a shortened rite.
• Guanyin Bodhisattva saw the corpses and Tang Sanzang’s killing intent, judged his violence to be self-defense, and erased his faint killing karma.
• Tang Sanzang offered to save the remaining monks, but they all backed away rather than volunteer as the first.
• Guangzhi stepped forward and asked whether Tang Sanzang was truly a monk, prompting Tang Sanzang to insist that his shaved head and ordination marks proved it.

Tang Sanzang subdued the monks of Guanyin Zen Monastery and accepted their invitation to tea, while Lin Zhu and Guanyin Bodhisattva watched from afar. As Tang Sanzang questioned the monastery’s wealth and residents, its lavishly dressed abbot arrived.

• The monks apologized to Tang Sanzang for mistaking him for a bandit, and he warned them that their past killings would still need to be answered for.
• Tang Sanzang and Sun Wukong followed Guangzhi into the monastery, while Sun Wukong warned the monks that he would have preferred to kill them.
• Lin Zhu saw Buddha Light in the northwest and recognized Guanyin Bodhisattva watching through her Wisdom Eye; Guanyin worried that the monks’ crimes would count against her.
• Guangzhi served Tang Sanzang Osmanthus Tea, and Tang Sanzang noticed the monastery’s expensive furnishings and asked how many monks lived there.
• A novice announced that the abbot had awakened, and the old monk entered with two children, wearing a jeweled Vairocana Hat and a gold-trimmed Brocade Velvet Monk Robe.