"Swish, swish, swish!"
In the early morning, having finished cultivating, Chen Jin was sweeping again.
Unlike before, he now had a monkey king beside him.
It followed his example, having bundled together a large broom to help sweep.
In the monkey king's mind, this was "observing a disciple's etiquette," as well as a test before formally entering the fold. It must not be lazy.
When it had gone to the great stockade before, it had hidden nearby and spent quite some time secretly learning.
It learned how people worked, how people read, how people walked, how people spoke...
Unfortunately, its transverse bone had yet to dissolve, and no matter what it tried, it could not speak.
It thus knew that secretly learning alone was not enough. Only by truly taking a master could it learn genuine skills.
But the moment it showed itself, people regarded it as a Demon Beast and cried out to beat and kill it. It had no choice but to return.
Who would have thought its fortunes would turn, bringing a true immortal master right before its eyes?
This was a once-in-a-thousand-years immortal opportunity. It had to seize it firmly.
To keep the other monkeys in its troop from coming up to cause trouble, they were not allowed up the slope without permission, let alone up the tree.
Not even the two female monkeys close to it were exceptions.
The monkey king imposed stern rules and governed strictly, knocking any disobedient monkey to the ground with a blow of its staff.
After spending some time with it, Chen Jin roughly guessed the monkey king's intentions: it was not merely imitating him, but wanted to take him as its master.
Clearly, it had mistaken him for an immortal of some sort.
That was a good thing.
For one, he could continue living in the shrine without a fight; for another, having such a large monkey at his service made doing things much easier.
After all, in his current condition, he could hardly leave the area sheltered by the old banyan tree during the day.
As for imparting teachings, something seemed to be blocking Chen Jin's throat. He, too, could not speak and was unable to teach the monkey king.
Besides, even if he could teach it, he would have to keep something in reserve.
Since the Dragon-Tiger Inner Treasury Mysterious Scripture was a fundamental Qi-refining method, operating within the body and acting upon the meridians and internal organs, no amount of outward observation could make it comprehensible.
Thus, however much the monkey king imitated him, it could only grasp the surface and was destined never to learn the true scripture.
Chen Jin did not know how long he could keep the monkey king hooked under these circumstances. Outside of cultivation, he kept trying to think back, to see whether he could recall more clues about his identity and origins.
During this process, fleeting lights and passing shadows flashed through his mind, revealing scenes of strange and fantastic things:
"Towering buildings, bizarre clothing, mobile games, ice-cold cola..."
A string of unknown images with strange, incomprehensible meanings.
Such images and thoughts were very likely the work of "inner demons," deliberately fabricating such a fantastical, utterly unreal world to erode and disrupt his resolve.
He remembered that when he first visualized the moon, an inner demon had taken the form of the Fairy of the Vast Cold and tried to seduce him, nearly scattering his soul.
With that overturned cart ahead as a warning, he had to be on guard.
At sunrise, Chen Jin returned to the shrine and sat down with practiced ease.
The monkey king remained alone, continuing to sweep.
At first, it had not quite understood, thinking such work pointless, because fallen leaves could never be swept away completely. Before long, the ground would soon be covered again.
But the immortal master had his reasons for doing this, so the monkey king followed his example.
As it swept and swept, it suddenly discovered that it was slowly growing calm.
As the saying went, "the mind is a monkey, intent a galloping horse." Monkeys were naturally restless and would not stay in their place. Whatever they did, they found it difficult to persist; once the novelty wore off, they would run off to do something else.
I understand now. The immortal master wants to temper my disposition!
As though clarified butter had been poured over its head, the monkey king suddenly understood, and swept even more earnestly, leaving nothing to chance.
After cleaning everything, it clasped its paws together and respectfully saluted Chen Jin as a human would, only then turning to leave.
When it saw the monkeys playing and fighting below the slope, relieving themselves everywhere and making a complete mess, displeasure arose in the monkey king.
It suddenly felt this was wrong and no good, and needed to change.
So, staff in hand, it began calling out and issuing orders, telling the monkeys to do this and not do that.
Yet the monkeys could not understand all at once, and found it difficult to carry out its instructions properly.
Angered, the monkey king struck them with its staff, beating its subordinates until they screamed repeatedly and scurried away with their heads covered.
Perhaps I was too hasty.
The monkey king reflected, and after some thought, came up with a plan: it would build a few small houses here.
It had visited the great stockade, where everyone lived in spacious houses.
The immortal master also lived inside a shrine.
Since that was so, could monkeys not live in houses too?
Building houses required timber, bricks, stone, and so on, while felling trees and quarrying stone also required equipment and tools.
The troop had none of these things.
The monkey king was stumped. As it pondered this way and that, it suddenly thought of the deserted ferry landing below, where there were quite a few ruined houses.
Although those houses had collapsed and been abandoned, there were plenty of mud bricks and roof tiles that could be carried up to build houses.
The greatest problem was the mutant toad occupying the deserted ferry landing. It was quite fierce and difficult to deal with.
I'm only going to carry away those useless, broken-down materials. If I greet the toad, it should agree.
Having made up its mind, the monkey king immediately set off in a grand procession with a dozen or so strong, sturdy monkeys.
They followed the winding sheep-gut trail, passed through the mountain woods and across mountain streams, then reached the desolate ferry landing.
The landing was utterly quiet, with only the sound of the wind blowing and the rush of the river in the distance.
The monkey king understood the etiquette of calling on someone to ask a favor. It had its subordinates stop outside and walked over alone to see where the toad was lying around sleeping at the moment.
It searched all around, but surprisingly found nothing.
Could it have gone into the water to cool off? That makes things difficult.
Somewhat puzzled, the monkey king stood at the bank and called "hoh, hoh" several times, but still received no reply.
Forget it. Never mind. They would move the things first.
It waved a hand, and the monkeys immediately came rushing over, chittering and chattering. They split up to work, some moving bricks and others shouldering timber, all frantically busy.
The deserted ferry landing had become a veritable construction site.
The monkey king watched, feeling very satisfied. It did not idle either, beginning to rummage everywhere to see whether it could find anything good.
But when the people had evacuated back then, they had packed up practically every useful object, including chairs, tables, beds, stools, pots, bowls, ladles, and basins, leaving little behind.
Glug, glug, glug!
Bubbles rose amid the rolling waves, followed by an enormous toad's head.
It looked toward the bank and nearly burst its lungs with rage.
Did this troop of monkeys not occupy Banyan Tree Slope? They had always kept well water from river water, so why had they swarmed down today and dismantled all the ruined houses and wrecked boats?
To the toad, those ruined houses and wrecked boats could neither be eaten nor used and were as good as rubbish. The issue was that the landing was its territory, which meant every blade of grass, every tree, every brick, and every tile here belonged to it.
Acting like this, the monkeys were thieves and robbers.
No!
The toad gave a start as a possibility occurred to it: could that red-haired corpse monster have joined forces with the monkeys?
Otherwise, why would these wild monkeys come to move bricks for no reason?
They did not even live in houses.
This was simply bullying a toad too far!
The toad's fury soared to the heavens, inadvertently aggravating its injuries. With a retch, it actually spat out a mouthful of foul blood.