"So you mean the Six-Eared Macaque is still alive?" Shen Bing asked.
"Perhaps!" Sun Wukong replied.
Shen Bing could only smile bitterly. Was Monkey messing with him?
"Great Sage, I... don't quite understand what you mean."
Sun Wukong said, "In a sense, the Six-Eared Macaque was nothing more than a pawn. Though he was a very important pawn, he could never escape a pawn's fate."
"A pawn?" Shen Bing asked. "Who could be powerful enough to use the Six-Eared Macaque as a pawn?"
Great Sage Sun suddenly looked at Shen Bing and spread his thunder-god mouth in a grin. "What's so surprising about that? Heaven and earth are impartial, treating all things as straw dogs! The same holds true for Gods. Under the Heavenly Dao, all living beings are ants, and all our fates are arranged by it. Immortals, Buddhas, demons, and devils are all pawns of the Heavenly Dao. And aren't we Gods also pawns in the hands of the Sages? The journey west to obtain the scriptures was a process of communication and exchange agreed upon by the Heavenly Court and Little Leiyin Temple in the west. Master and the rest of us were all merely pawns."
Though Great Sage Sun's words were rather pessimistic, Shen Bing had no way to refute them.
Once you saw through things, they really amounted to little more than that.
Shen Bing continued, "But what does that have to do with what you're worried about?"
Great Sage Sun said, "The turmoil in the Three Realms back then was actually started by the Demon Realm. Its environment was relatively harsh, and the Monster Race was lustful and fond of breeding, causing its population to swell. Seeking more room to survive, they set their sights on the Immortal Realm. The Immortal Realm was unprepared