Little Journey to the West 015

Bull Demon King got angry and kicked out with his foot. After all, he was still a demon king; one kick shattered the door of the Fiery Cloud Cave.

"You son of a—... Dad?"

"You little brat! Who are you calling dad?"

The demons outside heard the howling coming from within the cave and all shrank their necks in fear.

So even demon kings beat their kids?

The Eight-tailed Fox caught the signal from Fang Zhiyi and turned to shout, "Alright, that's enough! Everyone go home!"

Fang Zhiyi had already guessed that Red Boy’s appearance was likely orchestrated by forces from Heaven, because so far, this makeshift scripture-seeking team hadn’t faced any real resistance—they had to find their own trials.

But no sooner had they left the borders of the Sui Dynasty than Red Boy showed up. This meant someone was already keeping an eye on them, just as he had expected. Now that they were outside Heaven's jurisdiction, things might not stay as easy as before.

Fortunately, he had bet correctly—those great powers couldn’t interfere directly.

So today, he had prepared two moves. First, he sent the Eight-tailed Fox leading a crew of demons to kidnap the Jade-Faced Princess. Then, he rallied all the demons he had previously recruited.

If it came down to it, they’d have to fight it out.

You can spit fire? Fine—I’ve got numbers!

But as it turned out, the first plan worked.

Bull Demon King dragged the wailing Red Boy out and forced his head down to make him apologize to Fang Zhiyi and the others.

"I won't!"

"You rebellious child!" Bull Demon King’s eyes bulged. If you don’t apologize, your mother will send me straight to Heaven!

"I haven’t done anything! Why should I apologize?"

Bull Demon King paused.

"Bodhisattva told me to capture the scripture seekers here. I sent my men out to find them, but none of them came back. I sent three rounds in a row—not a single one returned! Then the moment I stepped out, I found my door surrounded by all these demons!"

"I ran back inside, and then you show up and beat me!"

Bull Demon King was momentarily at a loss, so he turned to look at Fang Zhiyi and the others.

Fang Zhiyi shrugged. "This is family business. But Monk would advise you that sparing the rod spoils the child. Looks like this kid doesn’t really respect you. However, I’d like to ask the Great Sage Equaling Heaven to go home and fetch that fan."

He paused.

"Time is running out."

Bull Demon King didn’t even spare a glance for his tear-stained son; he turned and ran.

He was burning with anger, just waiting for a chance to blow off steam. But when he reached Princess Iron Fan's residence, he saw a few unfamiliar demons walking out. Princess Iron Fan spotted him and, blushing, said, "So you do remember me!"

Bull Demon King was completely confused as she pulled him inside.

"You rascal, you even remembered to buy me rouge, powder, and these beautiful clothes..."

Bull Demon King looked at those items and felt his scalp tingle.

Wasn’t this the stuff he had given to the Jade-Faced Princess?

He whipped his head around, but the demons were already gone.

"You rascal, you haven’t been home for days. Stay here tonight—hey, what are you doing?"

Bull Demon King grabbed the fan. "I have something to take care of. I’ll be back to have dinner with you!"

This scripture-seeking crew was flat-out intimidating him! But he dared not call their bluff—they had already found his home! The threat couldn’t have been clearer.

He had to force a smile the whole way as he escorted Fang Zhiyi and the others through the Flaming Mountains.

"Monkey, as agreed—release him!"

Sun Wukong grinned. "Release who?"

"You monkey, are you messing with me?" Bull Demon King roared.

"Enough, enough." The Eight-tailed Fox suddenly spoke up, then turned to a figure who had been wearing a hood. "Sister, we’ll see you off here. When your cousin returns from the West another day, I’ll come visit you!"

As he spoke, the Jade-Faced Princess pulled off her hood.

Bull Demon King was stunned.

"Great King, don’t be angry. This is my distant relative! He was afraid you might deceive me and wanted to test your true feelings," the Jade-Faced Princess said with a charming laugh, nestling against Bull Demon King’s chest. "Luckily, you do care about me."

Bull Demon King found himself speechless.

"Live a good life together, Old Bull." Sun Wukong looked Bull Demon King up and down, then shouldered his staff and strode off.

"Old Fox, are you really distant relatives with the Jade-Faced Princess?" Sha Wujing asked stupidly.

"Bullshit distant relative, that was just a bluff. There are so many fox demons—how hard is it to fabricate a connection?"

"Then aren’t you lying?"

"As long as the job got done, that’s what matters! You fish-brained fool!" The Eight-tailed Fox sighed with frustration. "If we had really kidnapped the Jade-Faced Princess earlier, when it came time to release her, that Bull would’ve definitely turned on us! But if the Jade-Faced Princess acknowledges us as her relatives, the Great Sage Equaling Heaven won’t just respect us now—he’ll have to do it every time he sees us from now on."

With that, the old fox clasped his hands behind his back and puffed out his chest.

"We’ve got him by the handle now. We can milk this for the rest of his life!"

"I have a question," Sha Wujing said in his low, gruff voice. "Can a group like us really obtain the scriptures?"

The others all turned to look at that quiet one.

"Who knows if we don’t try?"

Sha Wujing didn’t understand, but he knew that as long as he followed the monk, there’d be meat to eat. That was enough.

"Say, Great King, since you’ve tattooed the Buddhist scriptures all over your body, why do you still eat meat and drink wine?" the bored Eight-Tails blurted out one of the questions that had been nagging him.

Fang Zhiyi rolled his eyes at him. "What Great King? Call me Master!"

"Okay, Great King—I mean, Master."

"Buddhist scriptures?" Fang Zhiyi was puzzled. He had also looked down at himself before, but all he saw were meaningless symbols.

Eight-Tails, seeing this, casually pointed to one. "Here, this character is ‘Fan’ from Brahma... this one is ‘Jing’... this is ‘Ming’..."

Fang Zhiyi suddenly stopped and looked at the others. "You can all see the characters too?"

Sun Wukong shot him a glance. "Obviously."

Sha Wujing shook his head. "I don’t know letters."

"Hurry up! Write down every character on my body!" Fang Zhiyi suddenly had an idea.

Tripitaka’s ghost stood quietly by, watching them work, with an expression neither sad nor happy.

"Jing... Ling... Reincarnation... Fall..." Eight-Tails squatted on the ground, peering and copying one character at a time.

Fang Zhiyi’s mind raced furiously until Eight-Tails wrote down the last character.

"A bystander sees things clearly," Ghost Tripitaka suddenly uttered four words.

Fang Zhiyi didn’t look at him, but stared dumbly at those scattered, unrelated characters, his thoughts momentarily in chaos.

"All beings in this world are on the path of reincarnation, cycling endlessly, never coming to an end..."

Ghost Tripitaka’s voice rang in his ears.

Fang Zhiyi turned in surprise to find that everything around him had turned pitch-black. Sun Wukong and the others had completely vanished.

"...Like silkworms spinning cocoons around themselves. Beings, trapped by the three poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance, create all kinds of karma and trap themselves in the web of reincarnation..."

Ghost Tripitaka’s voice seemed to come from all directions, boring straight into his mind.