The Road to the Flowing Sand River

The road to the Flowing Sand River was more difficult than they had imagined.

There were no roads or water sources in the Gobi Desert—only endless gravel and bizarre rocks carved away by the wind.

The sunlight was scorching, and every breath felt like swallowing fire.

Zhu Bajie began panting after walking for two hours—but he did not stop to complain.

It was not that he was no longer tired—it was that he felt an indescribable oppression near the Flowing Sand River.

Sha Wujing walked at the very back of the group. There was no visible change in his expression, but his steps were steady.

Every step fell into the same rhythm—as if he had long been accustomed to this land.

Goten walked at the front, clutching that fragment of the Golden Cudgel. It gave off a faint heat like a compass, continuously pointing northwest.

He had been walking all day, yet the fragment's warmth had not diminished. Instead, it grew stronger and stronger, proving they were headed in the right direction.

At dusk, they stopped for the night in a weathered rock cave.

The moment Zhu Bajie plopped down on the ground, he began shouting, "I'm starving, I'm starving! Who's cooking today? Let me make this clear first—this old pig doesn't eat vegetables."

He pulled a small iron pot from his robes, though no one knew when he had hidden it there.

Goten's eyes widened. "When did you hide a pot?"

"That's what you call professionalism!!!"

He lit a fire with dry kindling, then dug dried meat and roots out of his bundle, chopped them up, and tossed them into the pot to stew.

The aroma drifted out, and Zhi Zun Bao's stomach growled.

Sha Wujing silently handed over a handful of wild scallions he had picked from who knew where.

Zixia sat off to the side. Watching the group seriously debate how much salt to add while Heavenly Court pursuers could appear at any moment, she shook her head, though the corner of her lips lifted slightly.

That night was the first hot meal Goten had eaten since crossing over.

Zhu Bajie's pot of stewed meat, with a pinch of wild scallions and a handful of coarse salt—Zhi Zun Bao wolfed down three bowls in a row.

Zhi Zun Bao lit a fire at the cave entrance. Firelight reflected off everyone's faces—no one spoke.

Zixia stared into the flames, her fingers unconsciously brushing the empty sword sheath at her waist.

Sha Wujing sat in the darkest corner, watching the night outside. His gaze was more complicated than it had been during the day, as though he had remembered something he did not wish to recall.

Zhu Bajie crouched by the fire, poking at it with a little branch. His expression was the most serious Goten had ever seen since getting to know him. "The Flowing Sand River has a rule. No matter what floats on the surface, don't reach out and pull it in."

Zhi Zun Bao frowned. "Why?"

"Because the thing living in the Eye of Weak Water, at the deepest part of the Flowing Sand River, isn't something you can afford to provoke."

Sha Wujing raised his head from the corner. He opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, then closed it again. Zhi Zun Bao noticed. "Junior Brother Sha, if you've got something to say, say it."

Sha Wujing was silent for three seconds. "Weak Water. Back when I was banished to the mortal world, I soaked in the Flowing Sand River for five hundred years. I could only move around near the surface." He paused. "There's something down below. I know that. But I've never seen it."

"So?"

Sha Wujing's expression remained blank. "So I know which stretch of water is the shallowest. Are you going or not?"

The cave fell silent for two seconds.

Then Goten burst out laughing. It was the first time he had laughed so loudly since crossing over. With a face that looked like it had been dead for five hundred years, Sha Wujing had just said the most crucial thing of the night.

Zhu Bajie tossed the little branch into the fire and watched it burn to ashes. "The one deep at the bottom of the river. Even Junior Brother Sha, who soaked in that river for five hundred years, never saw its true form."

Stars emerged in the night sky—the Gobi Desert was as cold at night as winter.

Goten could not sleep.

He sat up and held the Golden Cudgel fragment. It glowed even in the darkness, its faint golden radiance like a star in the night.

He pressed the fragment to his forehead and closed his eyes. Then he heard it—not through his ears, but directly in his mind. A low, hoarse voice spoke only one word.

"Quick."

Goten opened his eyes. It was not an illusion—the fragment's temperature rose slightly as that word, "Quick," finished sounding, as though it were urging him on.

He stood and walked out of the cave.

Outside lay the boundless Gobi Desert—and the Flowing Sand River was less than half a day's journey ahead.

He knew the Golden Cudgel fragments were waiting for him there. And he—had no way back.

Zixia leaned against the rock wall, awake.

She watched Goten's back as he left the cave with the fragment in his hand. That light swayed in the darkness like a person walking through the desert carrying a lantern.

All of a sudden, she felt that silhouette truly resembled Sun Wukong. Not in appearance—but in the way he walked, the way he would never stop moving forward.

And he did not know that, after he left Five Finger Mountain, deep within the ruins of its collapsed body, that sliver of Sun Wukong's Spiritual Sense sealed within a fragment of the Golden Cudgel slowly, completely awakened.

That consciousness passed through the collapsed mountain, through the dust filling the sky, through five hundred years of time, and settled upon the boy's retreating figure.

Then—that consciousness smiled.

And that voice rang out in his mind again. This time it was more urgent than before, like someone shouting at him from far away: Run...