Little Journey to the West 023

Fang Zhiyi wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, staring at the Golden-Winged Roc before him with unconcealed resentment.

This creature was exactly as the book had described—no, even more terrifying.

He had originally assumed it was just some well-connected lackey, but it turned out to be a highly skilled one at that.

Fang Zhiyi glanced to the side, where Sun Wukong was carving his way out of the swarm of demons, his Ruyi Jingu Bang slick with blood, yet still firmly clutched in his grasp.

The Golden-Winged Roc’s voice suddenly rang out by his ear.

“Still got the nerve to look around?”

The next moment, Fang Zhiyi felt as though his chest had been slammed by a speeding truck, his entire body hurtling backward.

A sweetness rose in his throat, and he coughed out a mouthful of blood.

“Damn it…” Fang Zhiyi was at his wit's end. Who would have thought that, with only one trial left to complete the pilgrimage, they would run into such a monstrous opponent?

He tried to scramble back to his feet, but his limbs had no strength left. All he could do was watch the Golden-Winged Roc approach with its arms crossed, each step leaving claw marks a palm deep in the ground.

“A pack of frauds daring to impersonate the true pilgrims?” The Golden-Winged Roc shook its head, staring down at Fang Zhiyi lying on the ground. “And here I had a spark of anticipation. How very disappointing.”

Fang Zhiyi frowned at it, mentally calculating how to turn the tables, but every scenario he ran produced the same result: before absolute strength, all clever schemes were useless.

Perhaps growing bored, the Golden-Winged Roc made no move to kill him quickly.

“A fake monk posing as Golden Cicada,” it said, then turned its gaze to Sha Wujing, “a low-cultivation carp spirit,” and finally, toward the wobbling figure of Sun Wukong rising unsteadily to his feet.

“And a Protector of the Horses who’s lost his soul.”

Fang Zhiyi froze.

He knew he was a fake, and he knew Sha Wujing was a fake, but Sun Wukong… how could he be—

“Judging by that look on your face, you didn’t even know. How laughable—not even aware you’ve been traveling with a fake all along.” The Golden-Winged Roc lost its patience and raised its talon to stomp Fang Zhiyi into the ground.

Fang Zhiyi was still lost in shock. No, it couldn’t be! Ghost Tripitaka had said it himself—Sun Wukong was…

Wait, where was Ghost Tripitaka?

Only then did he realize that, at some point, that ghost had vanished.

And now, so was he.

But in the next instant, the sound of chaotic chanting filled his ears, and Fang Zhiyi felt a force yank him away.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk—Personality One has fallen. Personality Two takes the stage…”

Fang Zhiyi whipped his head around and saw Little Hei’s round, stubby body.

“What are you staring at me for? Get a load of the show!” Little Hei’s eyes bulged as he looked outward. Fang Zhiyi realized that he had been forcibly stripped of control over that body.

The Golden-Winged Roc was puzzled. Its talon—which should have crushed that dying monk—was actually being blocked. More absurdly, the man was standing up again.

Unlike the previous bloodthirsty ferocity, the monk now wore an expression of utter calm, even a hint of compassion in his eyes.

That expression infuriated the Golden-Winged Roc.

“You think you still have a chance?” It beat its wings savagely and swung its claw at the monk’s head.

The monk raised a hand casually, catching that devastating blow as lightly as if stopping a five-year-old’s tantrum.

“You…”

“Vajra pierces illusion; lotus blooms to subdue demons.”

The monk said this lightly, then his fingers pressed down gently, and the Golden-Winged Roc let out a sharp cry as it watched its own palm twist into an utterly unnatural shape.

“He who recklessly creates slaughter and brings calamity to the land — if he will not deal with it, I will.”

As the words faded, the monk pressed his palms together, and suddenly, a towering Dharma manifestation appeared behind him.

The manifestation was clearly a Buddha, yet it had no face. As the monk bowed his head, one hand of the manifestation slowly pressed downward.

Terror surged through the Golden-Winged Roc: “The Formless Dharma Body! Just who are you?!”

It strained with all its might against the descending giant palm.

“I thought you were dead,” Fang Zhiyi said.

Little Hei let out a sigh: “Almost. That fake Tripitaka is far too terrifying.”

“What exactly is he? Wasn’t he just some long-winded monk?”

“That was the mortal shell of his current life, not his true body... This fellow is called Lingjizi, and he studied under Jingfan.” Little Hei explained while watching the Golden-Winged Roc struggle against the manifestation. “He’s actually a reincarnated ancient ferocious beast. Somehow, he wound up joining the Buddhist faith.”

Fang Zhiyi was shocked.

“Frightening, right? I was scared too when I peeked at him back then. And this guy knows I’ve been investigating him, but he doesn’t care at all,” Little Hei said. “Even though he’s a Buddhist disciple with an exalted status, his heart is full of confusion.”

“His master was a good monk — compassionate at heart, believing that human nature is inherently good. You know what happened after that, of course.” Little Hei’s body trembled.

Fang Zhiyi nodded. The kinds of people he had seen were varied and strange, and those who could truly be called good were indeed few.

“During one debate on the scriptures, Jingfan said that simply preaching the sutras could not save living beings — that one needed to act personally, to make tangible efforts. That remark made some of the Buddhas sneer. In their eyes, ordinary people who couldn’t understand the scriptures weren’t even worth saving.”

“And so Jingfan made a wager with them, and entered the cycle of reincarnation. In every life, he did everything in his power to help those people.”

“When Buddha learned of this, he did not stop it, which ultimately led to the tragedy that followed. Jingfan met a bad end in almost every life — either he was robbed and killed by beggars he had helped, or he was slandered while doing good deeds. The worst was during the rule of foreign conquerors. You know — under foreign rule, commoners were treated no better than pigs and sheep. Seeing the suffering of the mortal world, Jingfan used his own divine power to save people. He never spoke of scriptures or talked about liberation; he just quietly saved lives. Yet even so, time and again, the very people he saved would report him to the authorities for using evil sorcery. In the end, Jingfan was burned alive by fire.”

Fang Zhiyi nodded: “Aside from all that, he really was a good man.”

“Normally, Jingfan could’ve just gone back to Lingshan and lowered his head, and that would’ve been the end of it. But that stubborn fool said, if he could not save all beings, he would rather suffer endless reincarnation — ten times, a hundred times, until one life he finally succeeded.”

“And so he played himself out. Every life, he spent his cultivation to help mortals, until after one reincarnation, Jingfan faded entirely from the mortal world.”

"He has died. Buddha merely sighed, saying he was too obsessed. But what no one expected was that Jingfan's action was noticed by Lingjizi. Already confused, he became even more bewildered. He couldn't understand why such a thing had happened, so in order to figure out his master's intentions, he too began to re-enter the cycle of reincarnation. Unlike Golden Cicada, who was punished, he did so willingly."

"So..." Fang Zhiyi stared blankly as the protective demonic aura of the Golden-Winged Roc was forced to disperse.