A long stretch of time passed in the blink of an eye.
On Flower-Fruit Mountain, spring gave way to autumn, and flowers bloomed and withered.
The Stone Monkey, Sun Wukong, had long since claimed the mountain as his kingdom, ruling its monkeys as the carefree Handsome Monkey King.
One day,
Sun Wukong was sitting on a stone chair in Water Curtain Cave, drinking and making merry with the monkeys.
Suddenly, a vicious pain stabbed through his head.
The heart-piercing agony swept through his sea of consciousness. He clutched his head with both hands and rolled back and forth across the ground, his entire body convulsing.
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty, what's wrong?"
The monkeys crowded around him, pale with alarm, but none knew what to do.
Only after a long time did that wrenching headache slowly subside.
Sun Wukong lay sprawled on the ground, gasping for breath, his forehead covered in cold sweat.
Deep within his sea of consciousness, the memories of his tragic life in the False Primordial World awakened.
Being pinned beneath Five Elements Mountain, seeking scriptures in the west, the schemes of the Buddhist Sect and the Heavenly Court, and finally rebelling against the Heavenly Court-only for a boundless supreme god to appear and destroy the entire world with a single palm strike.
Scene after scene of the past surfaced in his mind.
At that moment, Sun Wukong's gaze changed completely.
His eyes were no longer clear and innocent. They now held a trace of worldly weariness and a deeply concealed edge.
"Your Majesty! Are you all right?"
An elderly monkey cautiously approached and asked with concern.
Sun Wukong slowly sat up and looked around in bewilderment.
Everything was so familiar.
"Have I..."
"Been reborn?"
He murmured in disbelief, then abruptly came to his senses and hurriedly examined