The Rotting Buddhas of Journey to the West - chapter 12

Inside the Daoist temple, the delicate Daoist boy finished the last sip of tea, bringing the story to an end.

And I was utterly shocked beyond words!

So, so it was all orchestrated, it was us who destroyed Vulture Peak and brought misfortune to the Three Realms!

“That’s why I say, this world is sick,” the Daoist boy said indifferently.

“Then what do you want!” I slammed the table and shouted angrily.

“Didn’t you want to know what the Ninth Heaven and the deepest part of the ocean are like? You will find out.”

The Daoist boy stood up, tidied his robe, looked up at the sky, and murmured, “It’s about time. I should go.”

With that, he stepped forward.

“Don’t go!” I hurried to block him, but all I caught was empty air.

Gu’s ancient voice echoed around me: “I almost forgot, beneath the Dragon Palace, besides the Golden Cudgel formed from a pinky bone, there’s also a small piece of my facial skin.”

“You are not truly a White Dragon. The enormous white human face your father saw was actually your true form!”

I nearly collapsed onto the chair, my fists clenched so tightly that my nails dug into my flesh, drawing blood. I stared fixedly in the direction where Gu had vanished.

Boom!

A tremendous commotion erupted outside, as if divine thunder was falling from the sky.

Then the ground below began to shake violently, the tremors growing ever stronger!

What’s happening! I soared into the air, hovering above, and dozens of miles away, many commoners were shouting:

“It’s bad! The sky is falling!”

I looked up, and the sky had turned white! It was like an endless sheet of white human skin, slowly descending.

Within the skin, I saw the Jade Emperor, now a decaying corpse wearing a crown, and countless similarly rotting Celestial Soldiers and Generals.

Bang!

The ocean surged backward onto the land, waves as high as the sky smashed through countless mountain peaks!

As I flew, I passed over the common folk, who were swallowed by the fissures in the trembling earth, mingling with a million ghosts from the Underworld.

Mountains collapsed, tsunamis raged, the sky fell and the earth split-everything became reality.

All living beings in the world seemed to meet true equality at this moment-everything would be destroyed!

The sky and earth drew ever closer to me, as if to crush me between them.

“No! This isn’t real!”

Tears streamed down my face as I cried out in agony:

“Gu! May you die a miserable death!”

A sense of powerlessness seeped through my body, followed by rage, and I cursed this instigator madly.

Gu’s voice came from somewhere unknown:

“You will understand. Now, I will take all beings to see Beyond the Three Realms!”

Boom! Heaven and earth merged for the first time in history, and all things were destroyed!

Silence…

Am I dead?

Where is this place? There is no sound, only eternal, silent darkness…

I died in the Great Cataclysm of Heaven and Earth, yet a small part of my consciousness seems to remain.

Who am I? Oh, I am the White Dragon Horse, Third Prince of the Western Sea, one of the Eight Classes of Celestial Dragons.

I don’t know how much time has passed-

I sense that fragments of consciousness from all beings of the Three Realms exist around me, so numerous that even the Buddhist concept of infinity cannot describe it.

Who am I? I can barely remember.

I ask myself again in my heart, perhaps… White Dragon Horse?

What is this place, anyway? Huh? What are those gray substances that exist between all things?

Again, I don’t know how much time has passed-whether it was an instant or eons. In any case, the consciousness of the Three Realms merged together, gradually forming the shape of a giant.
Who am I? I can no longer remember at all.

I only recall a single word-Gu.

Then let us, the consciousness of all things, be called Gu.

Gu! So that’s what it is!

In an instant, a flash of insight surged into my awareness, the beginning and end of this matter pouring into my mind.

It turns out Gu is not only the past of Pangu, but also the future of all things in the Three Realms! It exists in the past, present, and future! It is us!

I began to understand what it wanted to do. But now is not the time.

Time passed, countless years went by, and the gray matter pressed upon us, making us uncomfortable.

I struggled, trying to push away this gray matter. The endless consciousness of other beings seemed to have the same thought.

“Open…”

I spoke the first word uttered in this space in countless years.

As this word was spoken, some kind of switch was flipped, and the consciousness of all things responded one after another.

“Open…”

“Open…”

After a long, long time, all consciousness gradually resonated, and finally, together, they cried out-

“Creation of Heaven and Earth!!!”

The giant formed by all things raised its hand in a chopping motion, swinging with all its might toward the gray matter ahead.

With a thunderous crash that shook the ages, the lighter gray matter rose, the heavier sank.

The giant collapsed between above and below, its body instantly falling apart, its flesh and blood transforming into all things under heaven and earth, and those countless consciousnesses each began a new cycle of reincarnation.

It turns out, outside Gu’s body, is Beyond the Three Realms.

It turns out, this time, the world is a new one created by the combined efforts of all beings-a normal world, without the strange, without sickness!

Epilogue

Seas change, mulberry fields turn, ages pass, even the immortals in heaven do not know how many epochs have gone by.

In Flower-Fruit Mountain of Aolai Country, a monkey sails alone, crossing the ocean, seeking immortals to become a disciple and learn their arts.

A few days later, a great storm suddenly rises in the sea, swallowing the little boat. Just as the monkey is about to perish in the waves-

A White Dragon appears, its tail curling gently, rescuing both monkey and boat. The White Dragon soars, carrying the monkey to the far shore.

The monkey gratefully bows to the White Dragon, then turns to pursue his dream of immortality.

“Monkey King, everything can be changed. This time, we can finally walk the true Journey to the West.”

“Monkey King, five hundred years from now, I’ll be waiting for you!”

A thousand years later, in a small town, a storyteller in white tells the tale of Journey to the West to the crowd below.

“Hey, storyteller, even my son knows Journey to the West. Isn’t it just Sun Wukong escorting Tang Monk to fetch the scriptures from the West, finally obtaining the true sutras and saving all beings? Why do you need to tell it again?”

Someone nearby chimed in: “Exactly, after so many years, the common folk are tired of hearing it.”

“It’s always just Sun Wukong, Tang Monk, Zhu Bajie, and Sha Wujing fighting monsters.”

At this moment, a child interjected:

“No, it’s not four disciples, it’s five! There’s also the White Dragon Horse, hooves facing west…”

I sat at the storyteller’s table, set down the wooden block, and laughed heartily:

“Right! There’s also the White Dragon Horse!”

– The End –