Secrets Told In The Slow-Cart Kingdom

Secrets Told in the Slow-Cart Kingdom

consider this an apology for not finishing Goretober, some things came up that made it hard to work. Happy Halloween!

Word Count: 2k

----------------------------

“Have the statues been taken care of?” Sun Wukong whispered, a sly grin slowly inching its way onto his face. One of his feet impatiently taps on the stone beneath him while his tail swings side to side, ‘they are going to enjoy this!’ he thought.

“Yes, down the deepest river I could find!” Zhu Bajie replied with a huff “I don’t see why you had to wake us up in the middle of the night simply to get rid of some stupid Daoist statues!” his voice raises before quickly being shushed by Wukong

Quietly agreeing, Sha Wujing nodded.  “It is a bit odd for you to call something like this…’ fun’...” covering a yawn with his hand as he awaits the monkey's response. An annoyed sigh leaves Wukong and he motions his companions to follow him inside the Daoist temple, the smell of cooked food, fruits, wines, and tea filling the air as the trio make their way to the main hall. Bajie’s ears wiggled and his stomach rumbled at the intoxicating aromas, Wujing gave a soft smile at realising what this was really for.

Entering the main hall, the monkey stops. All around him are intricately carved pillars, paintings on the walls that depicted three godlike entities, incense burners, all the things Wukong should look at with familiarity, but he kept his eye forward. He only spared them a single glance 

 “I hope you remember what those statues looked like because we are going to need to look like them for us to stay safe” Wukong swung around, looking at his friends with a smile and a gleam in his eyes that read of pure joy with a hint of mischief  “Go on, we can’t let anyone know we were here.” and with that, they turned into nigh identical copies of the original statues…well, most of them were identical.

“Stupid monkey! Telling us we need to remember when you clearly have the worst memory out of all of us!” Bajie started “If it wasn't for master’s kindness, we’d have-”

“Enough, Brother Pigsy. We must stay quiet, remember?” Wujing said sternly. “Brother Monkey, I believed that your statue had a longer beard, as well as a shorter nose and pudgier physique”. Despite his mild frustration at Bajie’s remark, Wukong shifted his form to fit the description given.

“Better?” He grumbles out.

“Better.”  Wujing and Bajie said in unison.

“Good” Wukong replies “Now, Pig, you must sit on the left and Sandy sits in the middle. I will sit on the right” instructed to take their places, they do as they are told.

Pigsy’s attention immediately returns to the food and drinks in front of him, marinated bear, warm buffalo milk, red bean buns, an assortment of steamed vegetables and fruits as well as fresh ones, jellyfish spiced with Sichuan pepper, cardamom, and ginger, sweet wines and peach tea…his mouth was a waterfall. He spent much time analyzing the food in front of him, so much so he didn’t even notice his friends were already eating, but when he did he dug in without hesitation.

“Absolutely divine!” Bajie whisper-yelled, his face stuffed to the brim “What would we do without you, Monkey Bro!”

“Die.” Wukong said bluntly, eating a random fruit he grabbed. 

“WHA- we would be just fine without you, SIMIAN!!”

“Quiet, Swine! One would think that with those big ears of yours, you could listen when we tell you to. Be. Quiet.” Wukong shot a glare at Bajie, his gaze seemed to go past the Pig, despite looking straight at him.

Sandy chuckled, spilling a small amount of tea on his lap. Back-and-forth bickering between Wukong and Pigsy was something he’d gotten used to on this journey, and came to enjoy it well enough. Though slightly upset by the tea spill, he simply poured more into his cup and began to drink once more. He wasn’t the type of person to be hungry after waking up, so this would suffice for now.

So the trio continued to eat without a word, Pigsy gorging himself on all he could grab, Sandy satisfied with his drink, and Monkey slowly grabbing fruits now and then. Bajie broke the silence with bewilderment

“This beef is just heavenly! It's sweet and tender, seasoned perfectly with most of the juice retained! It almost of tasted like-”

“Human meat?” Monkey interrupted, looking for what to eat next.

“Why- yes in fact-” Pigsy stuttered

“Have you eaten humans, Brother Monkey?” Sandy asked, his tone serious, eyebrows furrowed.

“Of course I have! But that's nothing- hey, can you pass me that….uh ....” Wukong squinted his eyes, “...that…. weird smelling…peach-thing?”

‘Do you mean the mandarin? But about the human thing-”.

“Yes! The mandarin! Hand it over will ya?” cutting Sandy off and not really willing to get into his past, Monkey beckons his hand for one of the citruses. Wujing hands the fruit over, he’ll let this pass for now, but it will be followed up eventually. They continued in silence once more, it was clear that something was in the air, but still, as silent as ever… until Bajie filled the silence once more.

“Monkey, Why didn’t you just say ‘mandarin’ in the first place? Have you honestly never seen a mandarin in your whole life? I find that hard to believe”.

Wukong paused for a second…he could lie about this, or simply ignore the pig…

“Well? What is it?” Pigsy insisted.

“...I couldn’t see it” the open and honest truth.

Sandy chimed in “couldn’t see it? Brother Wukong, you are a very observant man…how could you just…not see it? The bowl is only a couple of feet away!” He turned his head to face the monkey, attempting to stay as quiet as possible. “You just…couldn’t see it?”

“Yes. I couldn’t see it… it just looked…blurry- or foggy-… I don’t quite know” sighing as he peeled his fruit, avoiding eye contact. “Everything is like that, blurry. A mess of colour swatches that make up only vague shapes” Wukong lowered his voice more, as if ashamed

Both Pigsy and Sandy paused at what they were hearing… Did Sun Wukong, The Monkey King, Great Sage Equal to Heaven, just admit he has bad eyesight? It seemed like something that would never affect him, and yet here it is. All of a sudden, things start to make sense, the statue, his aversion to reading, he simply couldn’t see properly. But that doesn’t explain other things…

“Wait, if you can't see…then how can you tell demons from humans?” Pigsy asked curiously.

“Simple, it's magic. My Golden Eyes of Truth allow me to see something's true form. It's the only way I really can see clearly…especially master, he’s just a ray of gold and cicadas…it genuinely burns my eyes” Wukong chuckles a bit at the end, couple his blindness with light sensitivity? A match made in hell.

“When did your eyesight start to degrade?” Wujing leaned in closer, wanting to know more.

“Wow, rude.” Wukong started “First, it did not degrade naturally. Second, and I'm surprised you both forgot, when I got arrested by heaven they took away my amour and threw me in the Eight Trigrams Furnace, all that smoke and heat had an impact on me. At first, I thought it simply was…fog that blurred my vision, but when I burst out I was too angry to notice how little I couldn’t see. A literal blind rage, if you will” 

Of course, how could they forget? How could anyone forget? It was the biggest event to occur in heaven in a very long time. The pure bloodlust and unbridled rage that came from the monkey was a truly traumatizing sight. His scleras stained red as if drenched in blood, the iris yellow like pure gold, pupils narrowed and catlike. The stone monkey was on fire and smoke burst from his mouth…anyone who saw his rampage was left with a myriad of psychological scars. Heaven was left as rubble and ashes held together by the blood of countless immortals and warriors. Each corner and crevasse was like a painted masterpiece, left soiled by the thick red ink.

“...Can you draw us?” Sandy asked, ripping everyone’s minds away from those dreadful memories and placing their attention on him.

“I- What?” The monkey sputtered “I just told you I can’t see proper-”

“Yes, Brother Monkey, I know. But I'm curious as to how you see us right now, without your gold vision. How do you think we currently appear as mortals? As we are on our journey right now” Sandy paused “Paint us”

“Be sure to make me as handsome as possible” Pigsy chimed in.

‘I suppose it could be interesting’ thought Wukong “there really is no time like the present” he closed his eyes and plucked 3 hairs from his neck, turning them into a brush, ink and a piece of paper, he began to work. Trying to see properly, Monkey got as close as he could without smudging anything. Stroke after stroke he worked the brush like a weapon, his two companions silently watching, taking in how much he was trying. Wukong will admit, he’s no artist, he’s a fighter and a crafty one at that. He takes joy in listening to poetry, maybe getting someone to write his own poems and songs down but he simply cannot do it on his own. Despite that, he’ll try, simply because he can.

Just as Wukong’s art is finished, the trio hears footsteps coming into the hall and they all scurry into their popper positions. They see three figures, there is no doubt that it's the Three Daoist Immortals. Needless to say that now is when they get to have some mischievous fun.

—-----------------------------------

Having left the Slow-Cart Kingdom, the pilgrims continue to journey westward. Memories of their primate companion disembowelling and decapitating himself were still fresh in the minds of each of them, the only difference being that Wukong himself was the only one to view it positively.

Tripitaka decides to send Bajie off to find some food for the group, such ordeals with demons can still leave a person quite hungry. Even with the disgusting events that had occurred, nature dictates that people, especially humans, need to eat. Wukong simply doesn’t trust the pig to do his job properly, so he opts to leave and spy on him. Wujing, Tripitaka, and Ao Lie are left alone with each other

“Master, would you like to see something?” Sandy gave a curious look to the young monk, a warm smile on his face.

“Hm? I suppose that depends on what it is, Wujing” Tripitaka said cautiously, not wanting to be subjected to the sight of more gore.

“Do not worry Master, Brother Monkey made it”  taking a piece of folded paper out from one of the bags he was holding “You are aware of Brother Monkey’s impaired eyes, yes?”

“Of course, Bajie informed me earlier…” Tripitaka trailed off as his disciple handed him the folded paper. Opening it he finds four simple paintings of…what seemed to be their group. The first seemed to be of Ao Lie, a simple dragon-like squiggle, next to it was some very childish and messy handwriting simply spelling out the dragon-horses name. The second was of Bajie, Wukong quite obviously didn’t put much effort into his one, so there is less detail, excluding the stink lines emanating off of the pigman with crudely written insults popped off to the side. The third is Wujing, more respect is placed in this painting, and his features are more defined with cleaner lines and a modest face…there is also a silly painting of him where he simply has a fish for a head. Finally, there was Tripitaka himself, still crude yet genuine passion was put into his depiction. Painted as a heavenly figure who has come to help Wukong become who he was meant to be. There is no doubt that the loyalty Wukong feels for his master is genuine.

Tripitaka sighs, a small smile creeps on his face “Wukong is a kind soul, despite his destructive methods, he is a good person. Don’t tell him I said this, but I believe when he reaches Nirvana, he will truly become what he was always meant to be…..” his voice trails off again

“Victorious”