Five Finger Mountain

At dusk, Zixia found Goten.

"You've been training all day—take a break."

Goten lowered his hand. His fingers trembled slightly—not from exhaustion, but from the aftereffects of compressing Origin Energy.

"I can't stop. The Golden Cudgel is calling me."

Zixia said nothing. She sat beside him and drew the Violet-Azure Treasure Sword, laying it across her knees. Its blade shimmered with a faint purple light in the sunset.

"Do you know why the Violet-Azure Treasure Sword is sentient?"

Goten shook his head.

"Because it wasn't forged. It was a piece of meteoric iron. When it fell to earth, it absorbed the spiritual energy of the plants and trees within a hundred li. Then an old blacksmith found it and spent three years forging it into a sword."

Zixia stroked the blade, her gaze growing distant. "Sun Wukong once asked me the same thing. I didn't answer him then, because I was afraid he'd laugh at me for treating a sword as if it were alive."

"Did he laugh at you?"

The corners of Zixia's mouth lifted slightly. "He said, 'The Golden Cudgel of Old Sun can talk too. You just can't understand it.'"

Goten froze, then let out a soft laugh.

"So your sword and the Golden Cudgel can both talk. They're just speaking a language we can't understand."

"Mm."

Zixia turned to look at him. "You said the Golden Cudgel was calling you. What did you hear?"

Goten closed his eyes, recalling that call. "It wasn't a sound. It was a feeling—like someone far away calling your name. You can't hear it, but somehow you know."

Zixia was silent for a while, then asked Goten a question. "Do you think Sun Wukong is doing well over there?"

"You mean... after he died?"

"Mm."

Goten thought carefully. "I don't think he's the kind of person who could lie down and rest easy. I think he's waiting for something."

Zixia didn't reply. She knew Goten was right. Someone like Sun Wukong wouldn't lie still in peace, even after death. He must be waiting somewhere for something—for someone, for an event, for an outcome that should have come five hundred years ago.

After the sun had completely sunk, night fell over Fangcun Mountain. Goten sat beneath the Old Locust Tree instead of returning to his room. He closed his eyes and felt the rhythm of the two forces flowing through his meridians. He noticed something he'd never paid attention to before: the paths followed by Origin Energy and Saiyan ki didn't completely overlap. They shared some routes, but at certain forks, they went in different directions. This gave him an idea. If he could let Origin Energy follow its own path and Saiyan ki follow its own, then bring them together in his fist, would that work better than forcibly fusing them?

He opened his eyes and decided to try it tomorrow.

## Five-Thousand-Year-Old Locust Tree

Late at night, Goten couldn't sleep. He left his room and went to the Old Locust Tree. There, he saw someone already sitting beneath it. It wasn't Patriarch Bodhi, but Zhi Zun Bao.

Zhi Zun Bao leaned against the trunk, gazing up at the night sky. He wasn't holding his bamboo staff; he was just sitting there quietly. Goten sat down beside him. The two sat in silence for a while.

"Today, Patriarch Bodhi showed me some things," Zhi Zun Bao said first. "I'm Sun Wukong's reincarnation. In my previous life, I was the last person Sun Wukong met before setting off to fetch the scriptures."

Goten turned to look at him. Zhi Zun Bao continued, "Before he left, he sat by my bed all night."

Zhi Zun Bao's voice was calm, but Goten could hear what he was forcing himself to hold back beneath that calm.

"How many years does it take someone to learn not to let others down?"

Goten thought for a moment. "My dad spent his whole life learning."

Zhi Zun Bao gave a bitter smile. "And you?"

"I..." Goten gazed at the night sky. "I don't know."

Zhi Zun Bao fell silent for a long time.

Then he stood up and patted Goten on the shoulder. "Thank you for letting me see that a person can live without running away."

He left. Goten remained alone beneath the Old Locust Tree.

The night deepened. In the distance, from the direction of Five Finger Mountain, came a faint, low rumble, as if someone who had slept for five hundred years were turning over.

Goten heard it. He didn't tell anyone, but he knew he would be heading that way soon.

He closed his eyes.

The Golden Cudgel's call was a little clearer than yesterday.

And he would be heading that way soon.

He didn't know what he would find there, but he knew that whatever it was, he would face it.

Five Finger Mountain was waiting for him...