Descending the Mountain

In the early morning, Fangcun Mountain was blanketed in a thin mist. Sunlight filtered through it, bathing the training ground in a hazy gold.

Goten stood in the middle of the field, with nine stones floating in a row before him. He had been practicing the Object Manipulation Art for twelve days. From a single leaf to nine stones suspended at once, his progress had been so swift that even he was amazed.

But he knew he was still a ways from mastering the Star Gate, and the call of the Golden Cudgel grew clearer by the day. He had to speed up.

He closed his eyes, and all nine stones fell to the ground.

Then he extended his right hand. Origin Energy reached out from his palm and locked onto the Old Locust Tree twenty zhang away.

He searched for the patterns in space—the areas where Origin Energy flowed faster and could be folded more easily. Today, he found four. He pressed all four folding points at once. The scene before him warped, and he appeared beneath the Old Locust Tree, faster and steadier than yesterday.

Just as he was about to try again, he saw Patriarch Bodhi standing by the mountain gate, a bundle in his hands.

Inside was a neatly folded orange Taoist robe. The fabric was ordinary, and the collar was slightly worn.

Goten recognized the marks of wear. They were the traces left by wearing the same garment for a long time. "This was left behind by Sun Wukong," Patriarch Bodhi said. "He didn't take it with him when he left."

Goten unfolded the robe and put it on. It fit perfectly, as though someone had taken his measurements.

He looked down at the robe he was wearing and suddenly understood. It hadn't been kept as a memento.

It had been left for the next person to wear it.

He looked up and saw a faint glimmer in Patriarch Bodhi's eyes. It wasn't a tear, but a kind of relief after waiting far too long.

At breakfast, Zhu Bajie came out carrying a huge pot of herbal porridge.

That was his regular job at Fangcun Mountain: getting up early every day to cook a pot of medicinal porridge.

He had picked up the skill during the years he spent as a son-in-law at Gao Village.

Goten took a sip. A warm current rose from his stomach and quickly spread through his limbs. The blocked meridians in his body felt much clearer after the bowl of porridge.

Zhi Zun Bao took a bite of scallion pancake, then stopped.

He chewed for a long time without speaking. It wasn't bad. It was too good.

After so many years of eating dry rations and roasted scorpion meat in the Axe Gang, he had never known breakfast could make someone want to cry.

Sha Wujing sat in a corner, silently eating a piece of pancake as well. He chewed slowly, as if savoring what the pancake held inside—something he couldn't put into words, but understood in his heart.

Zixia sat beside Goten with a bowl in her hands. Today, she had changed into ordinary cloth clothes and tied her hair loosely behind her head. She no longer looked like a fairy, but like a traveler who had journeyed a long way and finally sat down to catch her breath.

Patriarch Bodhi waited for him on the training ground, dressed in a clean blue cloth robe.

His white hair was tied back, and he carried neither tea nor a horsetail whisk. He had dressed like a master about to teach his final secret art. "You already know the principles of the Star Gate. But do you know why it's called the Star Gate?"

Goten shook his head.

"Because the other side of the gate isn't necessarily in this world."

Patriarch Bodhi raised a finger and lightly traced a line through the air. Golden light flowed from his fingertip, drawing the outline of a gate.

Its edges quivered faintly in the air, like a living thing. "The highest level of the Star Gate isn't opening a gate on the ground. It's opening a gate anywhere, leading anywhere. But there's one requirement: you must have seen that place with your own eyes. Your Origin Energy remembers the coordinates of every place you've seen. Only then can you open a gate there."

Goten froze. "So I can't open a gate to a place I've never been?"

"You can't."

He fell silent for a moment, then asked a question that quieted everyone. "Have you seen Five Finger Mountain?"

"I have."

"Then you—"

"I can't lend you the coordinates." Patriarch Bodhi's voice was low. "I can take you there, but you must open the gate yourself."

Goten clenched his fists, then relaxed them.

He returned to the Old Locust Tree, sat cross-legged beneath it, and closed his eyes. Since he couldn't open a gate yet, he would first memorize Fangcun Mountain.

His Origin Energy spread out from him like a web, covering the entire mountain. He memorized every tree, every stone, every path.

He sat there for the whole morning.

When he opened his eyes, he realized that the two forces within him had settled into a true breakthrough after his focus throughout the morning. It wasn't a quantitative change. They had merged and entered a new stage. A new power awakened within him—

Zhi Zun Bao spent the entire afternoon practicing with the staff.

He gripped the wooden staff carved with "Son Goku" and repeated the same simple movement over and over: raise the staff, bring it down, pull it back.

He had done it thousands of times, each repetition more focused than the last.

He was searching for the feeling he'd had when that afterimage appeared yesterday. It wasn't about strength. It was about relaxing—the kind of physical relaxation that came from letting go of even his will.

His wrist relaxed. The way he held the staff changed. Instead of gripping it with his palm, he pinched it between his fingertips.

The staff turned in his hand, and then he swung it.

A golden arc remained in the air. It wasn't an afterimage, but a golden trail clearer than the one from yesterday. It lingered for two breaths before fading. He had done it.

He looked down at his hand. A faint golden glow was fading from his palm.

He didn't know how he'd done it, but that light was his own.

It wasn't something Sun Wukong had left him. It was something he had built up, step by step, through thousands of repetitions. In that moment, he suddenly understood: he didn't need to become Sun Wukong. He only needed to become the best version of himself.

And the best version of himself was emerging, little by little.

The evening sunset bathed Fangcun Mountain in a warm red glow.

Goten stood beneath the Old Locust Tree in the orange robe, while Zixia watched him from a short distance away. She suddenly felt that what she had waited five hundred years for wasn't someone's return, but someone else's departure.

Goten walked over and sat beside Patriarch Bodhi. The two of them watched the sunset together, silent for a long time. "Old Master, I want to go down the mountain tomorrow."

Patriarch Bodhi didn't try to stop him. He was silent for a very long time, so long that Goten thought he wouldn't answer.

Then he spoke, his voice very soft. "That robe was meant for you all along. It wasn't kept for him. It was kept for you. When he left back then, I knew the one who wore it would come."

Goten didn't turn to look at him, but he heard him.

In the old man's voice was something Goten had never heard before. It wasn't sorrow, but something deeper, like the feeling of someone who had waited five hundred years and could finally pass the torch.

The sun sank completely, and the sky changed from red to deep blue. The first star appeared.

"Tomorrow morning, I'll see you off."

Goten stood and nodded. He didn't say thank you, but Patriarch Bodhi knew he had said it in his heart.

Zhu Bajie squatted by the kitchen doorway and finished the porridge in his bowl.

He licked the bowl clean. It was a habit he had picked up during the years he spent wandering; he couldn't leave anything behind in the bowl.

He stood up to wash it, then stopped.

He saw everyone in the courtyard: Goten sat beneath the Old Locust Tree in that robe, Zhi Zun Bao practiced with the staff, Zixia polished her sword, and Sha Wujing chopped wood. Moonlight fell on them all as they went about their own tasks in silence.

But something flowed through the quiet air. It wasn't immortal energy or demonic energy. It was the warmth of ordinary people.

He lowered his head and looked at the clean, empty bowl in his hands. Suddenly, he felt this might be even better than when he had been a marshal on the Heavenly River.

In the direction of Five Finger Mountain, the Golden Cudgel gave a faint tremor, as if saying, "I see you."

Goten changed into the old Taoist robe. Tomorrow, he would descend the mountain. And Five Finger Mountain was waiting for him...