radicalducati Chapter 1082 Peaches of Flower Fruit Mountain
Chapter 1082 Peaches of Flower Fruit Mountain
Its leg was still hurting, so much so that it would make soft, sobbing whimpers even in its sleep, but it didn't wake up or move its head off Su Wanwan's shoe.
Chu Yang sat beside Sun Wukong, facing west with his back to east. He didn't look at the stars, the moon, or anything else. His eyes were fixed on the darkness ahead, a darkness so thick that he couldn't see anything, yet he kept staring, as if waiting for something. Perhaps he was waiting for that thing to catch up, perhaps he was waiting for it not to, perhaps he was waiting for Sun Wukong to wake up, perhaps he was waiting to think of a way to win.
Su Wanwan finished crying, took the handkerchief off her face, folded it twice, and stuffed it into her sleeve. She looked at Chu Yang's back, which was very dark in the darkness, darker than the darkness itself, like a wall, not high or thick, but making people feel that as long as that wall remained, nothing behind it could get past.
She leaned against the white wolf and closed her eyes. The wolf's warmth radiated from her side, carrying a faint, licorice-like scent. Slowly, little by little, she relaxed her nerves, which had been tense all day. She fell asleep and dreamed of Sun Wukong. In the dream, Sun Wukong was unharmed. He was perched on a fig tree branch, holding a purple fig in his hand. He took a bite, juice dripping from the corner of his mouth, and grinned, saying to her, "This fruit is sweet, try some." She reached out to take it, and then she woke up.
When she woke up, it was still dark. Chu Yang was still sitting there, in the exact same posture as before he fell asleep, facing west with his back to east, like a clock. Sun Wukong was still asleep, his breathing more steady than before, his chest rising and falling a little more. The white donkey was still grazing, the white dragon horse was still on guard, and the white wolf was still lying down, its head sliding off its shoe to the ground, its ears still turning.
Su Wanwan didn't move, afraid of waking the white wolf. She lay on the ground, looking at the starry sky above. The stars of the Western Regions were still so many, so dense, so bright, exactly the same as what she had seen in that courtyard three days ago. The stars didn't know what was happening on Earth; they didn't care.
Looking at the stars, she thought of Bai Xi. Would Bai Xi know what that thing was? Yuehua had fought it; Bai Xi must know. Bai Xi must know how to fight, how to dodge, how to run. But she wasn't there. Alone on Qiyue Ridge, sitting under an old tree, drinking the two jars of osmanthus wine she had hidden away, unaware that her disciple was being chased all over the Western Wilderness by something with four arms.
Thinking about this, Su Wanwan suddenly felt a little sorry for Bai Xi. She had reinforced the seal that Bai Xi had worked so hard to stabilize, absorbed most of the moon energy that Bai Xi had painstakingly cultivated, and hidden two jars of the osmanthus wine that Bai Xi had painstakingly collected under a stone slab. Then she ran to the Western Regions and was beaten to a pulp by some unknown thing. If Bai tide knew, she would probably chase her to the Western Regions with that broken-toothed wooden comb to beat her up.
She thought of Bai tide chasing her with a wooden comb, and actually smiled. But as she smiled, she started crying again.
This time, she cried quietly, without a sound, only tears. Tears slid down her cheeks, past her temples, and into her hair, wetting a small patch. The white wolf's ears twitched, but it didn't open its eyes. Its tail rose from the ground and gently rested on Su Wanwan's calves, like a fluffy blanket.
Su Wanwan clutched the tail, closed her eyes, and waited for dawn.
Sun Wukong awoke on the morning of the fourth day. It wasn't a sudden, jolting awakening; his eyelids twitched a few times, as if something was struggling beneath them, struggling for a long time before finally opening a crack. His brown eyes darted around in the crack, seeing the gray-blue sky, the expanding orange-red line on the horizon, and Chu Yang's profile. He stared at that profile for a long while, his lips moved, but no sound came out. He tried again, and a sound came out, like sandpaper grinding against glass, hissing and hoarse—not his voice at all.
"Brother."
Chu Yang looked down at him. It was the first time in four days he'd looked down at him. For the first three days, Chu Yang hadn't looked at him, not because he didn't want to, but because he dared not. He was afraid to see Sun Wukong's eyes still closed, afraid to see those eyes never to open again. He carried Sun Wukong for a whole day and night, and after putting him down, he never looked at him directly again. He covered Sun Wukong with his outer robe, checked his pulse, channeled his inner energy, did everything he was supposed to do, but his eyes were always looking elsewhere, towards the west, towards the direction where that thing had disappeared, watching the white donkey graze, watching the white dragon horse stand guard, watching Su Wanwan cry, watching the white wolf sleep. He looked at everything, but not at him.
Now he's seen it.
Sun Wukong lay beneath Chu Yang's outer robe, the gray robe contrasting sharply with his grimy fur, making it almost impossible to distinguish where the robe ended and the monkey began. His face was thinner than four days ago, his cheekbones protruding, his eye sockets sunken, and dried golden bloodstains at the corners of his mouth resembling two dried-up riverbeds. His golden cudgel lay to his right, a short stick, parallel to his arm, like a forgotten branch. Chu Yang observed him for a moment, then reached out and touched his forehead. It wasn't hot, nor cold; it was the perfect temperature, the temperature of a living being.
"It's good that you're awake," Chu Yang said.
Sun Wukong tried to sit up, but after only lifting halfway, he lay back down. It wasn't that he lacked the strength; his body simply wouldn't obey him. His muscles were trembling, not from the cold, but from the fatigue-induced tremors of overexertion, like a bamboo stalk bent to its limit, still swaying even after being straightened. He lay back down, looked at the sky, caught his breath, and waited for the tremors to subside before trying again. This time he sat up, his outer robe slipping off his body and piling onto his legs. He looked down at himself; he was thinner, his fur duller, his muscles gone, and his ribs protruding from beneath his fur, one by one, like a washboard.
He looked at it for a few moments, then raised his head and said to Chu Yang, "That thing, I, Old Sun, can't beat."
Chu Yang didn't comfort him. He didn't say things like, "You've already done a great job" or "You'll definitely do better next time." What he said was, "Yeah, I know."
Sun Wukong's lips twitched, but it wasn't a smile; it was something more complex than a smile. He reached for the golden cudgel, but stopped halfway through because there was blood on it—golden blood, his own. The blood had dried, congealing on the cudgel's surface like a layer of golden lacquer. He stared at the blood for a few moments, then picked up the cudgel again. The cudgel gleamed faintly in his hand, not with a golden light, but with a very pale glow, like a candle flame, which flickered and then went out. He placed the cudgel across his knees, lowered his head, forehead against the cudgel, closed his eyes, and remained motionless.
Su Wanwan stood not far away, holding a bowl of spring water she had found nearby. The water was cold, and the bowl was broken, with water dripping from the cracks. She stood there, watching Sun Wukong with his head bowed, holding his golden cudgel, not daring to approach. She put the bowl on the ground, the water inside sloshed, and a few more drops seeped from the cracks, seeping into the yellow earth and disappearing instantly.
Chu Yang stood up, walked to the highest point of the low hill, and faced east. The eastern sky was already fully bright, with orange-red light surging up from below the horizon like magma gushing from cracks in the earth's crust, dyeing the entire sky a warm color. He looked at that warm color for a while, then turned and walked back down the low hill, sat down next to Sun Wukong, picked up a dry twig from the ground, and began to draw on the ground.
He drew a line, winding and curving, from east to west. He drew a circle at the beginning of the line and an X at the end. Next to the circle, he wrote two characters: "Chang'an." Next to the X, he wrote two characters: "Tianzhu" (India).
Su Wanwan walked over and squatted down beside her, looking at the line and the two words. The white wolf followed behind her, standing on three legs, its sprained leg raised off the ground, its claws slightly curled in the air, like an injured dancer.
Tang Sanzang also came over and stood behind Chu Yang, his hands moving the prayer beads, without saying a word. The white donkey was still grazing, and the white dragon horse was still on guard, but they both moved closer, as if they knew something was about to happen.
Chu Yang pointed to the fork with a dry twig: "Here, India. Our path." Then, starting from the fork, he traced the line back along the path, stopping at a certain point in the middle and pointing to a dot. "Here, the place where we were stopped yesterday." He threw the twig away, looked up, and saw the people present—Su Wanwan, Tang Sanzang, Sun Wukong, and the white wolf that couldn't understand human speech but could understand the tone of voice.
"I can't go to India anymore," he said.
No one spoke. The white donkey stopped eating grass, still chewing half a blade of grass in its mouth. It stopped halfway through, holding the half blade of grass in its mouth, and looked at Chu Yang. The white dragon horse's ears twitched, turning to face him. The white wolf lowered its raised leg, standing on four legs instead of three. Its sprained leg, barely touching the ground, immediately sprang up again in pain, but it didn't bray.
"It's not that we can never go," Chu Yang said, "it's that we can't go now. If we continue westward in our current state, we won't reach India. That thing is just a protector; there are others above it. We can't even defeat one protector; going up would just be suicide."
Sun Wukong lowered his head, his forehead still pressed against his golden cudgel, and his voice squeezed out from the gap between the cudgel and his knees, muffled: "I, Old Sun, will go and get reinforcements."
"Who are you moving?" Chu Yang asked.
Sun Wukong didn't answer. Whom to move? The Heavenly Court? He had moved the Heavenly Court's soldiers before, five hundred years ago, when he was the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, commanding countless followers. Now he wasn't. He was a monkey burdened with guilt, a prisoner following the monk on his pilgrimage. The Heavenly Court owed him no favors, and he owed the Heavenly Court nothing. Whom to move? The Underworld? The Dragon Palace? His sworn brothers? None of those brothers had come to see him when he was imprisoned under the Five Elements Mountain. Not because they were ungrateful, but because they dared not. They dared not touch that thing either.
Sun Wukong didn't answer. Chu Yang didn't press further. He knew Sun Wukong couldn't figure it out because the answer wasn't among Sun Wukong's options. Nor was it among Chu Yang's options. It wasn't among anyone's options. But they still had to move forward, not because the answer lay ahead, but because there was no turning back.
Su Wanwan squatted on the ground, looking at the line Chu Yang had drawn. The line started from Chang'an, winding its way through thousands of mountains and rivers, finally stopping in the desolate wilderness of the Western Regions. She had walked this line for a long time, from Qiyue Ridge to Ping'an Village, from Ping'an Village to Mingsha Desert, from Mingsha Desert to this nameless village, to this nameless wilderness. She thought she would keep walking, all the way to India, to the end of the story. Now Chu Yang said she couldn't go on.
Her hand unconsciously traced names in the sand, tracing names and tracing names, until it drew a tail. Not her tail, but the kind of tail carved on Bai Xi's wooden comb—slender, elegant, with a slightly curled end, like an unfinished sentence.
She looked at the tail and suddenly said, "I'll go back and continue fixing it."
Everyone was looking at her.
"I'm going back to Qiyue Ridge," Su Wanwan said, her voice not loud, but much steadyer than yesterday. "Senior Bai Xi said that once I reach the sixth tail, the seal will be stable. Once I reach the seventh tail, the wolf clan won't be able to get out. I don't care what that thing is, it fought Yuehua. If Yuehua could fight it, so can I. Not now, but in the future."
She stood up, her five tails unfurled behind her. The fur on her tails was a little messy, stained with dirt, hay, and bloodstains that had somehow ended up there—not hers, but the white wolf's, Sun Wukong's. But she stood very straight, just as straight as after she defeated Qingya in the inner tomb.
"I'll go back and fix it," she said again, this time to herself.
Sun Wukong finally raised his head. He looked at Su Wanwan, his brown eyes reflecting her five outstretched tails and the increasingly bright sky behind her. He stared at her for a few moments, then his lips twitched, and this time he truly smiled, a very soft smile, like a withered leaf swept up by the wind, falling to the ground without a sound.
"I, Old Sun, am going back too," he said, his voice still hoarse but clearer than before, "Back to Flower Fruit Mountain."
Tang Sanzang paused his prayer beads for a moment.
Sun Wukong took the golden cudgel off his knees, twirled it in his hand, and the short stick became a long stick, then a stick that reached his eyebrows. The stick paused in his hand, then retracted back into a short stick. He tucked the short stick behind his ear, the movement very slow, as if it were the first time he was doing it, and he needed to recall how to do it.
"The peaches on Flower Fruit Mountain are ripe," he said. "I haven't had any for years."
When he said "several years," his tone was light and casual, as if he were talking about something insignificant. But Su Wanwan knew that he had been imprisoned under the Five Elements Mountain for five hundred years. Five hundred years, not just a few years. After he was released, he followed Tang Sanzang on his journey to the West. They traveled for so long, passing orchards, peach groves, and countless trees laden with fruit, yet he never picked a single peach. He was a monkey burdened with guilt; every peach on their journey belonged to the Buddha, not to him.
Now he says he wants to go back to Flower Fruit Mountain to eat peaches. Su Wanwan doesn't know if Buddha will allow it; she only knows that something gleamed in Sun Wukong's eyes. It wasn't golden light, but the light of heaven reflected in his brown pupils.