Already ordained

The pig demon lay sprawled beneath Sun Wukong's foot.

He gasped for breath.

Amid his ragged panting, he heard that familiar, heartless voice coming from beneath the table.

"Elder! Quickly! Kill him now, while you have the chance! If this demon lives, my family will never know peace!"

Elder Gao's voice trembled, yet it was shrill, like a rusty saw cutting viciously into the pig demon's heart.

His little eyes, once filled with fear, suddenly froze.

Everything around him seemed to slow.

He remembered three hundred years ago, when he had still been Marshal Tianpeng, commanding eighty thousand naval soldiers. How glorious he had been.

Now, banished to the mortal world, he had actually been reborn as a pig, reduced to this wretched shape that even dogs despised.

Then he remembered all these years.

Up before dawn and working past dark, he had labored like an ox or a horse. He had cleared the land and planted the fields, built bridges and repaired roads. Even every brick and tile of this hall bore his sweat. He had never asked for a penny in wages, never worn a decent set of clothes. All he had wanted was a home.

And what had that earned him?

"Ugly... eats too much... demon..."

The pig demon muttered to himself, his nails digging deep into the dirt.

"I never hurt your family... I tore out my heart for you... I only wanted to live a decent life."

Why?

I accepted it all. Why do you still have to torment me?!

"Why?!!!"

A low roar rolled through his throat like muffled thunder.

Black vapor, thick as ink, rose along each bristle standing on end. It was the venom of betrayal, the despair of being trampled underfoot.

His eyes grew bloodshot. His once simple, foolish face gradually twisted into a savage grimace, and his tusks lengthened before their eyes, gleaming with a chilling light.

A brutal demonic aura suddenly erupted.

"Since you all insist I'm a demon... then I'll be a real demon!!"

"I'll eat every last one of you!!"

Boom-!

The pig demon suddenly surged to his feet, throwing Sun Wukong off his head. His body swelled, and the ferocity that burst from him in that instant forced even Sun Wukong back half a step.

"Wretched beast! You've fallen into demonic madness, and you still dare run wild?!"

Killing intent blazed in Sun Wukong's eyes as he raised the Golden Cudgel high. Now that this fool had fallen into demonic madness, he could no longer be spared!

"Die!"

A white figure passed through the dust-a pair of clean cloth shoes stepping onto the edge of the dust-filled crater.

Xuanzang did not retreat. Before Sun Wukong's astonished eyes, he stepped right in front of the pig demon, who was on the verge of rampaging and devouring whoever came within reach.

The pig demon's eyes were crimson now, all reason gone. He opened his gaping, bloody maw and lunged to bite.

"Master, watch out!"

Xuanzang remained unmoved, his expression calm as still water. He slowly extended one hand, palm down, and gently laid it on the pig demon's head, covered in stiff black bristles and billowing with murderous energy.

The pig demon stiffened, but the struggle in his bloodshot eyes only intensified. The bristles all over his body, wreathed in black vapor, stood erect like steel needles. Agonized roars tore from his throat, as though he meant to shake that hand from his head.

"Get away... don't touch me!!"

"No one believes me... no one wants me... false kindness! It's all false kindness!!"

Demonic energy churned around him as he tried to break through that gentle red glow.

It was more than anger. It was years of pent-up hurt bursting through the dam all at once. He feared that this warmth, too, would bloom for only a moment, and that an even deeper abyss would follow.

Xuanzang swayed slightly, but stood rooted like an ancient pine, utterly unmoving. The red light in his palm flared, and the Red-Blood Buddha Wheel spun ever faster, humming.

He neither retreated nor dodged. He merely pressed his hand down harder, his voice suddenly rising like mighty bells, shaking the hall:

"If there are sentient beings who repeatedly turn their backs upon the true Dharma and teachings of All Buddhas, who feel no shame for the sins they commit, who neither see nor fear the bitter fruits of future lives..."

"Aah!!!"

The pig demon roared in agony.

The scripture felt less like comfort than a red-hot branding iron pressed against his long-numbed heart.

Xuanzang's gaze burned like a torch as he looked straight into those frenzied eyes. He spoke neither quickly nor slowly, yet every word carried crushing weight:

"Such beings, whose evil karmic obstructions of body, speech, and mind are utterly grievous and complete, whose hearts are obscured and impaired-I behold these stubborn beings..."

As he recited the scripture, the phantom image within the Red-Blood Buddha Wheel grew clearer.

The vicious dog that had been baring its teeth beneath the Bodhisattva's hand gradually stopped struggling. The savagery faded from its eyes, revealing boundless exhaustion and sorrow.

The pig demon's struggles likewise slowed.

Xuanzang's voice lowered, filled with boundless compassion:

"Though they fall into manifold hells and suffer every torment... never shall they abandon the practices of the bodhisattvas..."

"Rrgh... ooh..."

At that moment, his ink-black demonic aura melted and crumbled away like lingering snow beneath a blazing sun.

His mountainous demonic body shook violently and slowly shrank, finally returning to its original fat-headed, big-eared form.

But he no longer struggled. He collapsed on the ground like a child who had suffered every injustice, his hands clawing desperately at the earth as he let out heartrending sobs.

"I don't want to be a demon... I don't..."

"I only wanted a home... I only wanted to live a decent life..."

Tears mingled with dirt, smearing his pig face.

Xuanzang did not remove his hand. Warmth flowed steadily from his palm until the Red-Blood Buddha Wheel slowly faded from sight, until the sobbing gradually subsided.

Silence lay all around them.

Sun Wukong put away the Golden Cudgel. Looking at the pig demon on the ground, he refrained from mocking him for once, merely scratching his head and sighing.

Elder Gao, hiding beneath the table, had long since been struck dumb. He did not even dare breathe loudly.

Xuanzang looked at the pig demon lying at his feet, slowly withdrew his hand, and spoke gently:

"This humble monk is Tang Xuanzang, the Pilgrim sent by imperial decree from the Great Tang of the Eastern Land to worship the Buddha and seek scriptures in the Western Heaven."

The pig demon shuddered and jerked his head up.

Through his tear-blurred eyes, he saw the man before him clearly.

"The... the Great Tang of the Eastern Land? The Pilgrim?!"

Even the pig demon's voice trembled. His resentment instantly turned into immense delight, even an almost disbelieving ecstasy:

"You... you're the Pilgrim?!"

Xuanzang withdrew his hand. The red wheel vanished, and he nodded slightly.

"I am."

"Oh! What misery! What a mistake!"

The pig demon slapped his thigh. Ignoring his pain, he scrambled up, then dropped to his knees before Xuanzang with a thud, like a mountain of gold toppling or a pillar of jade falling, and knocked his forehead against the ground like a pestle pounding garlic.

"Master! Honored Master! Please accept your disciple's bow!"

"Old Pig was blind! Old Pig deserves to die! I actually raised my hand against one of my own!!"

Sun Wukong put his cudgel away at the side and asked suspiciously, "You fool, a moment ago you wanted to eat people. Now you're suddenly claiming kinship?"

The pig demon ignored Sun Wukong. He remained kneeling before Xuanzang, wiping away tears and snot, his face filled with hurt and excitement.

"Master, you don't know my story. I was once Marshal Tianpeng of the Celestial River. Because I got drunk and dallied with Chang'e, the Jade Emperor banished me to the mortal world. I ended up in a pig's womb by mistake, and that's how I came to look like this."

"A few years ago, Guanyin Bodhisattva graciously enlightened me. She laid her hand on my head and ordained me, giving me the Dharma name Zhu Wuneng. She told me to wait here for the Pilgrim and accompany him to the Western Heaven to worship the Buddha and seek scriptures, earning merit to atone for my sins!"

"I waited and waited here in Gao Village, but you never came. So I married into the family as a live-in son-in-law, just to have something to eat. I never meant to hurt anyone. I was just bitter inside..."

"I never imagined I'd finally see you today!"

Overcome with emotion, Zhu Wuneng wept with tears and snot streaming down his face, clutching the hem of Xuanzang's monk's robe and refusing to let go, as though afraid his master would run away.