The monkey soon returned, with a lavish dinner all prepared.
"Master, come eat! This rice is still piping hot."
The monkey served Tang Sanzang a bowl first. Sure enough, steam still rose from the rice, and waves of fragrance wafted straight into his nose.
"Master, these are your favorite chive blossoms. Have a taste!"
The monkey had long since learned Tang Sanzang's preferences. Apart from meat, which was absent, every vegetarian dish Tang Sanzang liked appeared at every meal without fail.
"Good, good! Come eat. All of us together!"
At Tang Sanzang's invitation, master and disciples gathered around the bluestone, squatting in a circle, and began to eat.
There was no helping it. Before, if they refused to eat, Tang Sanzang would not touch his chopsticks either, insisting that a family meal was only lively when everyone ate together. Thus, they had all developed the habit of sharing meals.
And indeed, after eating together for so long, the relationship between the master and his two disciples had genuinely improved a great deal.
A warmth would always well up in the monkey's heart, too.
For so many years, he had been alone. Who could understand that loneliness?
Now he had Tang Sanzang, who treated him as one of his own. It stirred an unfamiliar feeling in the monkey's heart, and precisely because of that, he treated his master with the utmost respect.
This was not for the sake of completing the Journey to the West mission, but respect that came from the heart.
Tang Sanzang had a tremendous influence on the monkey, one that had even surpassed Patriarch Bodhi's influence all those years ago.
Especially after learning that Patriarch Bodhi had approached him with an agenda and selfish interests, the monkey's heart would always ache with a lonely sense of abandonment.