The next morning, birdsong roused the four traveling companions from their sleep.
As usual, Sun Wukong climbed down from the tree. After stretching comfortably, he spotted Ye Chen in the distance, sitting cross-legged beside a small river, a faint Buddha Light coiling around him.
He must have stayed up all night.
Sun Wukong grew curious. Rather than disturb Ye Chen as he cultivated, he sat on a distant rock and quietly watched him.
"Ah, Monkey Brother, is Little Ye awake?" Zhu Bajie asked, fresh from sleep, yawning and wiping drool from his mouth.
"Look, isn't he right over there?" Sun Wukong pointed ahead with his chin.
Following Sun Wukong's gesture, Zhu Bajie also saw the golden light around Ye Chen. It was completely different from yesterday's Demonic Qi—a purity of Buddhist Dharma that seemed close to life itself.
Tang Sanzang, now awake, also noticed what was happening with Ye Chen.
"Amitabha. No wonder Ye Chen volunteered to accompany me on my pilgrimage. It turns out the Buddhist Dharma within him is unfathomably profound." The purity of Ye Chen's Buddha Light was already on par with that of anyone Tang Sanzang had ever encountered.
"Heh, Master, don't forget that yesterday Little Ye was surrounded by demonic light and shouting that he wanted to kill you," Zhu Bajie teased as he stepped forward.
"Perhaps Ye Chen was encountering Buddhist teachings for the first time, and hadn't yet fully grasped them. That may be why this happened," Tang Sanzang said with a smile, palms pressed together. He hadn't taken yesterday's events to heart at all.
But "he hadn't fully grasped them" was a pretty poor excuse.
Ye Chen had been covered in demonic light yesterday. That had nothing to do with whether he'd fully grasped anything.
With steady, rhythmic breaths, Ye Chen slowly