Jiang Liu'er, the Martial Monk

"Alright, enough of this nonsense, isn't this good news?"

"Great Sage, if you remain imprisoned for a few hundred more years, you will regain your freedom."

Nezha was actually more optimistic than Sun Wukong. He seemed even happier than Sun Wukong when he thought about how Sun Wukong would soon be free from these constraints.

"Once this seal is broken, I will definitely come to find you for a good drink and to reminisce, and to properly thank you for all the kindness and care you've given me and the little monkeys in the mountains over the years."

After sighing, Sun Wukong's eyes were filled with hope again, as if the day when the shackles on his back would be removed was just around the corner.

"Alright, let's not talk about this anymore. I brought so much food, it'll get cold if we don't eat it soon. After all these years, your mouth must be so bland."

Nezha interrupted Sun Wukong's sighs and gestured for him to eat the chives he had brought, to satisfy his craving.

"Okay, let's eat and chat."

Sun Wukong pressed the button and immediately agreed.

Afterwards, the two of them, sipping passion wine and eating dishes, chatted happily at the foot of the Five Elements Mountain. They hadn't seen each other for over 200 years, and the longing they felt for one another was palpable.

Three days passed in this chat, and the two seemed to still have some lingering interest.

Nezha originally wanted to continue chatting with Sun Wukong, but he knew it was time for him to leave.

After making a promise with Sun Wukong that they could have a proper get-together once Sun Wukong was freed from his restraints, he left without looking back.

While waiting for the person who would extract his essence to help him break free of his restraints, Sun Wukong went into seclusion to cultivate and increase his strength so that he could finally escape these constraints.

Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, more than 480 years have passed since Sun Wukong was imprisoned.

In that year, a temple built on the banks of a river in the Great Tang of the Eastern Lands took in a baby who was not even a month old as a monk.

Here's what happened: It's been raining heavily these past few days, and something has been blown down from upstream, blocking the river channel and causing the water level to rise. It's about to flood the temple.

The abbot then sent several young monks to clear the silt from the riverbed and dredge the water.

However, one morning, when the abbot of the temple went to check whether the river needed to be cleaned that day, he heard the sound of a baby crying.

He went closer and saw that it was a child who had been placed in the wooden tub and blown down from upstream.

Seeing the child's pitiful state, he took him back to the temple to adopt him, since the child was not yet full-term and there were no women in the temple who could provide breast milk.

So the abbot took out some money meant for incense offerings and went to the market to buy goat milk for the child.

The temple was full of men, and neither the abbot nor the young monks had any experience raising children. It took them a lot of hard work to raise the child until he was old enough to remember things.

The old monk named the little fellow Jiang Liu'er, because he was blown down from that river.

Ever since Jiang Liu'er could remember, the old monk taught him Buddhism, telling him this and that, determined to make him a great monk with profound Buddhist knowledge.

However, for Jiang Liu'er's own safety, the old monk also instructed the martial monks in the temple to teach Jiang Liu'er martial arts for self-defense.

Jiang Liu'er has a strong learning ability. He can quickly understand the Buddhist teachings of the old monk and can apply them to other situations. In some aspects of Buddhist teachings, he can even surpass the old monk.

Furthermore, Jiang Liu'er was very diligent and hardworking in learning martial arts, even in just a few short years.

He learned everything the martial arts students in the temple had learned, and the monk realized he had nothing more to teach Jiang Liu'er.

He then gave him the secret manual containing Law Technique that was treasured in the temple, to be used for self-defense, hoping that he could learn a set of Law Technique according to the manual.

However, to everyone's surprise, Jiang Liu'er was able to master the basics of magic by relying on the instructions in the Law Technique.

So, more than a decade later, a freak appeared in this temple.

This freak was Jiang Liu'er. He was not only a monk with profound Buddhist knowledge who had the deepest understanding of Buddhism in the temple, but he was also the monk with the strongest martial arts skills in the temple.

Over the years, thanks to his talent, he has learned all the Law Technique described in that manual. Although he is not very strong, he is still much stronger than ordinary people.

He had been diligently practicing in the temple and had had no contact with the outside world for more than ten years.

However, he saved a pedestrian during a chance outing, and the pedestrian told him about his deeds, making him famous.

Here's what happened.

The old monk in the temple asked him to go up the mountain to chop some firewood and bring it back. So he carried an axe up the mountain. On his way back from chopping firewood, he saw a pedestrian being forced to climb a tree by a wild boar.

Even after the pedestrian climbed the tree, the wild boar persisted, using all its strength to ram the tree, trying to shake the pedestrian down or break the tree.

After witnessing this scene, the pedestrian clung tightly to the tree trunk, his eyes closed, hoping that the wild boar would give up after a while longer.

However, several minutes passed, and instead of the wild boar giving up its pursuit, he encountered Jiang Liu'er, who was passing by after chopping firewood.

"You beast, stop hurting people!"

After Jiang Liu'er roared at the wild boar, he threw down the firewood on his back, picked up the axe in his hand, and charged towards the wild boar.

Before the wild boar could react, he had already chopped it down on the back with his axe.

Wild boars have very thick fur; even if you cut them with a knife, it will only leave a small cut at most.

However, Jiang Liu'er, due to years of training and the study of Law Technique, not only possessed superb martial arts skills but also immense strength.

So when Jiang Liu'er's axe struck the wild boar's back, it ripped open the skin and left a large gash on its back, more than ten centimeters long and two or three centimeters wide.

After feeling the pain in its back, the wild boar became extremely angry, kicked its hind legs, and charged towards Jiang Liu'er in an attack posture.

However, Jiang Liu'er was not afraid at all. The moment he saw the wild boar charging towards him, he tore off his clothes and threw them at the boar's face.

After losing sight of him, the wild boar hurriedly stopped, afraid of bumping into something and causing danger. However, before he could even shake off Jiang Liu'er's clothes from his face...