The Most Human Days

At dinner time, Zhu Bajie made a pot of soup.

The ingredients were greens picked from the vegetable patch and mushrooms Sha Wujing had gathered in the mountains.

The soup was very light, but Goten drank two bowls.

It had been a long time since he had eaten a meal as peacefully as this—no battles, no pursuers, no sense of life-or-death urgency.

Zhu Bajie held his own bowl, squatted on the threshold, and took a sip of soup, letting out a satisfied sigh. "If every day were like this, who the hell would want to be Marshal Tianpeng?"

Sha Wujing sat in the corner, sipping his soup in small mouthfuls, saying nothing.

But there was a rare expression on his face—not calmness, but peace of mind.

Zhi Zun Bao sat at the table, poking at the vegetable leaves in his bowl with his chopsticks, having no appetite.

It wasn't that the soup didn't taste good; it was that he couldn't stop thinking about that incident.

He had shattered the Immortal-Trapping Array.

He had used a bamboo pole to shatter an Immortal-Trapping Array reinforced by the Jade Emperor. It wasn't luck, and it wasn't an accident—it was his body remembering something his mind did not.

"Hey," Zhi Zun Bao put down his chopsticks, "Goten, who do you think I really am?"

The air at the table went quiet for a moment.

Goten put down his bowl and thought about it seriously. "Who you are is something only you can decide."

"Bullshit."

"It's not bullshit," Goten said earnestly. "My dad used to say that it doesn't matter who others say you are; what matters is who you believe you are. If you think you're a bandit leader, then be a bandit leader. If you think you're the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, then go be that. No one says you can only pick one."

Zhi Zun Bao fell silent.

He picked up his bowl, finished the soup in big gulps, and then set the bowl down on the table with a crisp clatter. "Tomorrow, when you learn Immortal Art, can I come watch?"

Goten smiled.

That was the first time Zhi Zun Bao had taken the initiative to get close to what he was doing—not because he was forced to, but because he wanted to. "Of course."

Zhu Bajie leaned against the threshold, watching this scene, and narrowed his eyes.

He had lived for so many years and had seen too many partings and reunions, but he had never seen a group of people like this:

A boy from another world, a fairy wanted by the Heavenly Court, a bandit leader of unknown origin, a pig demon banished to the mortal realm, and a silent river demon—gathered together, they actually felt like a family.

He finished the soup in his bowl and smacked his lips, having to admit that this was the most human life he had lived since being cast down to the mortal realm.

At night, Goten sat alone under the old locust tree.

Moonlight filtered through the leaves, casting mottled shadows on the ground.

He closed his eyes, his hands pressed against the tree trunk, continuing to practice the day's lessons.

But there was something on his mind he couldn't let go of: what kind of Immortal Art was the "first move" Patriarch Bodhi had promised to teach him tomorrow?

He opened his eyes and saw someone standing opposite him.

Patriarch Bodhi.

When had he arrived? Goten hadn't sensed him at all.

Even though his sensory abilities were several times stronger than when he had first arrived, he still hadn't caught the aura of Patriarch Bodhi approaching.

"Can't sleep?"

Goten nodded honestly. "I was thinking about what I'm learning tomorrow."

Patriarch Bodhi walked over to his side and sat down as well—a gesture that slightly surprised Goten.

He had assumed Patriarch Bodhi would only sit in pavilions or caves, not on the dirt ground. "Do you want to see it in advance?"

Goten's eyes lit up. "Can I?"

A hint of a smile touched the corners of Patriarch Bodhi's mouth.

He extended a finger and tapped lightly on the air a yard in front of him. A ripple appeared in the air, as if a stone had been dropped into a calm pond.

The ripples spread outward, and then a door appeared. A door made of golden light hung in mid-air.

"This... what is this?"

"A Portal," Patriarch Bodhi's tone was as flat as if he were commenting on the weather. "Use your internal energy to mark a coordinate in space, and you can open a door to that place from anywhere. Sun Wukong's Somersault Cloud covers a hundred thousand miles in a single somersault; this is a bit slower than the Somersault Cloud, but it can take people with you."

Goten looked at the golden door, his heart racing.

This was even more miraculous than the Instant Transmission of the Dragon Ball World. Instant Transmission required sensing the other person's ki, but this did not.

As long as the coordinate was marked, it could be opened anytime, anywhere.

He reached out to touch the door, and the moment his fingertips brushed the golden light, a warm force pulled him inside.

The next second, he found himself standing in the pavilion at the top of the mountain.

He looked back, and the door behind him slowly vanished.

"Wow."

Patriarch Bodhi had appeared in the pavilion as well, though no one knew when. He hadn't used the door; he had simply walked over. "This move is called the 'Star Gate'."

"Star Gate..." Goten repeated the name, a spark igniting in his eyes. "How long will it take for me to learn it?"

"As your master has said—once the foundation is laid, it will come naturally." Patriarch Bodhi looked at him. "Do you believe your foundation is ready?"

Before dawn broke the next day, Goten was already up.

When he walked to the old locust tree from the day before, he saw that Zhi Zun Bao was already there.

Zhi Zun Bao sat on the ground, leaning against the trunk as if he had been waiting for a while.

He held a new bamboo pole in his hand—the sixth one—but he wasn't practicing; he was simply sitting there, watching the distant skyline and waiting for the day to break.

Goten sat down beside him.

The two of them didn't speak, watching together as the horizon slowly brightened—shifting from deep blue to gray-blue, from gray-blue to off-white, until the first ray of golden light pierced through the clouds.