Beneath Five Finger Mountain

Goten woke before dawn the next day.

It wasn't the light that woke him—it was the tremor beneath his feet.

The vibration was faint, so faint that he wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't already formed a connection with the Golden Cudgel. It was like a heart beating deep beneath his feet.

He sat up and found that Zhi Zun Bao was already awake, too.

Zhi Zun Bao sat beside the dying embers, gripping the wooden staff in his hand as he watched the distance. Following his gaze, Goten saw Five Finger Mountain emerge in its entirety in the morning light.

Five enormous stone fingers rose from the earth and pierced the clouds.

The joints were distinct, even their creases clearly visible. It wasn't a natural mountain. It was the mark left by Tathagata's palm striking down.

Goten got to his feet, slung the Violet-Azure Treasure Sword over his back, and started toward the mountain.

No one spoke. The mountain itself left them speechless.

After about an hour of walking, the path grew steeper and steeper—not because it had formed naturally, but because it had been shattered.

The ground was covered in fissures, as if something had repeatedly battered it from below. Goten crouched and touched one of the cracks. It was deep—so deep he couldn't see the bottom.

"Sun Wukong did this," Zixia's voice came from behind him. "When he was trapped beneath the mountain, he kept trying to push it open."

Goten pressed his hand to the edge of the crack. The marks left by five hundred years of struggle showed that Sun Wukong had never given up. He stood and continued onward, walking a little faster than before.

Five Finger Mountain was far larger up close than it had seemed from a distance.

Only when they neared it did they see that each stone finger stood hundreds of zhang tall. The mountainside was covered in dark red runes—the Seal placed by Tathagata.

The runes glimmered faintly in the sunlight, breathing like living things.

Goten stood at the foot of the mountain and looked up at the runes. He could feel the Seal's power, vast and cold, like an entire ocean compressed into a thin film covering the mountain.

Zhi Zun Bao stopped in front of a protruding rock at the foot of the mountain.

A faint handprint marked its surface, about the size of an adult's palm. As if possessed, he placed his own hand against it. It fit perfectly.

"This was left by your previous life," Zixia answered for him. "You and he said goodbye here. You put your hand on this rock and said, 'I'll wait for you to come back.'"

Zhi Zun Bao lowered his head and stared at the handprint. Five hundred years ago, he had waited here for someone to return.

That person had never come back. He withdrew his hand and gently brushed away the dirt around the print—not to erase it, but to make it clearer.

Goten walked up to the mountainside, pressed both hands against the stone, and closed his eyes.

First, he sensed the runes: a cold, unyielding power, like countless chains wrapped around the entire mountain.

Then he pierced through the runes and sensed what lay within. The Golden Cudgel was there.

He could hear its voice now—not a heartbeat, but a breath. The Golden Cudgel was breathing in the same rhythm as he was. It was a trust that transcended life and death.

He opened his eyes and lowered his hands. "It's inside, but the Seal has wrapped around it."

He pressed his hands against the mountain again. This time, instead of sensing, he infused it with Origin Energy.

His Origin Energy seeped through the runes and into the mountain, advancing toward the Golden Cudgel at an extremely slow pace. The runes repelled his energy, like a living barrier that had recognized an intruder. A force struck back and sent him stumbling three or four steps.

"Something's blocking me."

Zhu Bajie crouched behind a rock, drawing circles in the dirt with his rake.

Sha Wujing stood nearby, watching him draw for a long while before finally asking, "What are you thinking about?"

"I'm wondering... does Tathagata know we're here?"

"He knows." Zixia's voice came from nearby. She walked up to the mountainside and looked up at the runes. "Not only does he know—he may have been waiting for us to come."

After Sun Wukong died, Tathagata seemed to have won, but he lost his absolute control over the Three Realms.

The Heavenly Court began to doubt him, the Underworld started distancing itself from him, and even within the Buddhist order, some took issue with his actions.

He needed a reason to prove that "what he did was right," and Goten's arrival was that reason.

"If Goten can pull out the Golden Cudgel, it will prove that Sun Wukong made the right choice. If he can't, it will prove that Sun Wukong was wrong."

Zhi Zun Bao fell silent.

He looked up at the five enormous stone fingers. Tathagata's Seal wasn't just there to hold down the Golden Cudgel. It was a test.

Goten stood before the mountainside with his eyes closed, his Origin Energy fighting against the final layer of runes.

Then he discovered it: a crack inside the runes.

He hadn't made it. It had been left by Sun Wukong, who had struck at the Seal with sheer determination, day after day, five hundred years ago. The hair-thin fissure was a remnant of a will that had endured for five hundred years. That crack was the answer.

Goten opened his eyes and withdrew his hands. "It'll take time, but I know what to do now."

He walked over to the rock with the handprint and sat down—not giving up, just trying a different approach.

He stopped using his Origin Energy to force its way through the runes. Instead, he began wrapping his energy around the crack Sun Wukong had left, slowly widening it, like water wearing away at a fissure in stone.

Watching him, Zixia suddenly felt a sense of familiarity. Sun Wukong had done the same thing back then.

If brute force didn't work, he tried gentleness; if one way didn't work, he tried the opposite. Those who called him reckless didn't understand him at all.

Zhu Bajie stopped drawing circles, stood, and crouched beside Goten. "Kid, I'll tell you a secret."

Goten didn't open his eyes, but he didn't stop. "Before I was banished to the mortal realm, I saw a door at the bottom of the Heavenly River. It's directly beneath this mountain."

Goten opened his eyes.

"You mean..."

"Five Finger Mountain isn't just a place that suppresses the Golden Cudgel. It's a lock. It locks away the door at the bottom of the Heavenly River."

"Who locked it?"

Zhu Bajie was silent for a long time. "Tathagata."

Everyone fell silent. A mountain locked a door. And beyond that door lay something outside the Three Realms.

Goten closed his eyes again. His Origin Energy scoured the crack twice as fast as before.

By dusk, Five Finger Mountain's shadow covered the entire Gobi Desert.

Goten was still scouring the crack. Fine beads of sweat dotted his forehead, but his hands remained steady.

Zhi Zun Bao walked up to the mountainside and pressed his hand against the stone.

He wasn't trying to help open the Seal. He wanted to form a connection with the mountain, to find out what the man who shared his name had been thinking when he was trapped here five hundred years ago.

He pressed his forehead against the stone and closed his eyes. After a very long time, he heard it.

It wasn't a sound, but a feeling—the man's loneliness. Every day and every night, the enormous rock pressed down on him. He couldn't move, walk, or look up. All he had was that small patch of sky above him.

No one had come to save him. Five hundred years.

He spoke, his voice so low that only the stone could hear. "He didn't forget you. He came to see you before he left." A faint, deep hum came from within the mountain, as if in reply.

In the distance, the setting sun stained the five stone fingers dark red. Goten was still scouring the crack.

When night fell, Goten opened his eyes and looked at his hands. His fingertips glimmered faintly. A genuine breakthrough was taking place.

The crack was just a hair wider than it had been when he first found it that morning.

And deep inside Five Finger Mountain, something that had been asleep slowly opened its eyes in the darkness.

Zhi Zun Bao still stood before the mountainside, his hand still pressed against the stone.

He felt something deep within the mountain tremble, in sync with his own heartbeat.

He didn't know what it was, but he didn't think it was rejection. It felt more like a test.

As if something were asking him, Are you ready? He didn't know whether he was ready, but he didn't move his hand.

Five Finger Mountain glowed dark red beneath the moonlight, as if something deep within the mountain were slowly opening its eyes...