By the time Wukong and Bajie hurried back to Baolin Temple, dawn was nearly breaking.
The two landed outside the meditation room.
Bajie hitched the corpse higher on his back and strode inside.
Wukong followed, closing the door behind him.
The lamp was still burning in the meditation room.
Bajie kicked the door open and laid the corpse on the bed. The bedboards gave a muffled creak.
"Master! We're back!"
Hearing him, Xuanzang came out of the inner room, with Sha Wujing following behind.
A-Hu settled at the doorway, stretched, lifted his eyelids, then rested his head on his paws again to watch the show.
Xuanzang walked to the bed and looked down at the corpse.
His complexion was normal. Though he was not breathing, he looked more asleep than dead.
Some moss from the bottom of the well clung to his ocher-yellow robe, which had been rubbed into a wrinkled mess as Bajie carried him back.
Wukong leaned over and asked with a grin, "Master, take a look. Is this the man you saw in your dream last night?"
Before Xuanzang could answer, Bajie jumped in, talking and gesturing all at once:
"Master, you have no idea how much hard work Old Pig put into this trip!"
"Brother Monkey and I went to the Hall of Senluo in the Netherworld, and those Ten Kings of Hell tried to give us the runaround at first. Only after Old Pig negotiated with them, mixing soft words with hard pressure, did they finally agree to tell the truth!"
He paused, lowered his voice, and put on a mysterious air:
"As it turns out, the Wuji Kingdom Ruler was most likely chosen by some mighty being up above. He's about to bring his merits to completion and become an immortal or a Buddha!"