Xuanzang's voice fell silent.
Great King Si's vacant eyes stirred slightly.
"Mas...ter?"
He repeated the word haltingly.
The moment he squeezed it out, the blankness on his face suddenly shattered.
The Diamond Ring hummed and trembled in his palm.
Great King Si abruptly raised a hand and pressed it against his broken horn.
There was no blood.
But veins bulged beneath his brow, crawling along both temples toward his neck.
"What is a master?"
"Who is my master?"
His breathing grew heavier and heavier.
His chest heaved.
Broken, muffled sounds rose from his throat.
Great King Si suddenly struggled backward.
His feet remained nailed to the spot, utterly motionless, but the stone beneath them crackled with countless fractures. Brown lines spread from under his feet like innumerable old roots burrowing underground.
"I have no master!"
He clutched his head with both hands and let out a low roar.
"I have no name! I am a tree!"
The dome above the hall shook with his cry.
Fine flakes of lime pattered down.
Wukong gripped the Golden Cudgel and took a step forward.
Xuanzang extended a hand to stop him without looking back.
He bent down and picked up the broken horn from the ashes.
The horn was light in his hand. Rings of blue-green markings covered its broken surface, one inside another, like the growth rings of a tree.
Xuanzang slowly brushed the ash from the broken surface with his thumb, then looked up at Great King Si.
"Do not be anxious, benefactor."
"Then please listen to this humble monk tell a story."
Great King Si still clutched his head.
He kept repeating:
"I have no master."
"I have no name..."
Xuanzang looked at the broken horn in his palm.
"This story is rather long."
"This humble monk listened to