All Heavens: Sharing Talents with Countless Mes

Tang Sanzang crawled to Sun Wukong's side and held his hand tightly.

"Wukong, you are the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. You should be free and unrestrained on Flower Fruit Mountain. It is I, this old monk with mortal eyes, who has dragged you down. If it weren't for protecting me, how could you have suffered such humiliation? How could you have been injured so badly by that damned Soul-Suppressing Seal?"

Tang Sanzang then turned to look at Chu Yang.

“Benefactor Chu, you are a recluse with astonishing cultivation. You have saved me from danger many times, yet I have always criticized you with those outdated precepts. Now I see through it all; these gods and Buddhas are not worthy of our worship!”

Tang Sanzang stood up, his body weak, but his back ramrod straight. He pointed to the pitch-black night outside the cave entrance.

"As soon as it's light, we'll head back! Even if we have to walk all the way back to Chang'an, even if we face His Majesty the Tang Emperor's wrath upon returning, or even be executed for deceiving the emperor, I will accept it! I would rather be a soul lost under the Tang Emperor's blade than be an obedient dog before the steps of Mount Ling!"

An eerily quiet fell over the cave.

The only sounds were the wind outside and Sun Wukong's heavy breathing, made overwhelmed by shock.

Sun Wukong stared blankly at Tang Sanzang, a complex light suddenly flashing in his dim eyes. There was shock, emotion, and a profound sense of helplessness. He knew the Buddha's methods all too well. Turn back? With such a grand scheme orchestrated by countless gods and Buddhas, how could they possibly turn back so easily?
“Master…” Sun Wukong gave a wry smile, wanting to offer some advice, but was interrupted by Chu Yang waving his hand.

Chu Yang slowly stood up, supporting himself against the stone wall. He flicked the cluster of pure Yang true fire from his fingertips onto a piece of dry wood in the center of the cave. The true fire instantly ignited the wood, and the bright flames illuminated the small cave, making Chu Yang's pale yet cold face crystal clear.

He walked up to Tang Sanzang and calmly looked at the holy monk who had just completed the collapse and reconstruction of his faith.

"Master, do you think we can still go back now?" Chu Yang's voice was not loud, but it was like an extremely sharp scalpel, precisely cutting through Tang Seng's naive fantasy.

Tang Sanzang was taken aback: "Why can't we go back? We have legs of our own. At worst, we can change our names, find a remote mountain forest, and hide away to live out our remaining days. As long as we don't go on this pilgrimage, what can they do?"

"Hide incognito?" Chu Yang couldn't help but let out an extremely sarcastic laugh. He pointed to the sky, "Master, look up. Above the nine heavens, the all-seeing and all-hearing eyes are constantly watching the mortal realm; beneath the earth, the local gods and mountain spirits are everywhere; in the underworld, the ten kings of hell control the Book of Life and Death. Tell me, in these three realms, where is there a secluded mountain forest where we can hide?"

Tang Sanzang's body trembled violently, and he staggered back half a step.

"Does...do we not even have the right to give up?"

"No," Chu Yang replied decisively, his eyes extremely sharp. "From the moment Guanyin Bodhisattva manifested in Chang'an and appointed you as the pilgrim in front of millions of people, you have no way out. If you turn back now, you will not only fail to save anyone, but you will also drag the Tang Dynasty into an abyss of no return."

Chu Yang stepped forward and stared intently into Tang Seng's eyes.

"Do you think the Buddha would let his grand plan, meticulously crafted over a thousand years, become a joke? If you return today, tomorrow demons will rise up across the Tang Dynasty, plagues will rage, and droughts and floods will follow one after another. At that time, Guanyin Bodhisattva will only need to appear once in the sky above Chang'an and sigh: 'Xuanzang disobeyed the Buddha's decree, and divine punishment has descended.' Do you think those millions of Tang people will blame the gods and Buddhas for their cruelty, or will they burn you, the monk who deserted the battle, alive as a sacrifice to the heavens?"

Tang Sanzang was struck dumb, frozen in place. His lips trembled wildly as images of the displaced and starving people of Chang'an flashed through his mind.

"No...we can't do this...they can't use the lives of ordinary people to blackmail us..." Tang Seng's voice was as weak as a dying insect.

"Why can't they?" Chu Yang's tone became extremely stern. "The hundreds of thousands of people of Lion Camel Kingdom are nothing more than snacks for their mounts to enjoy. The people of the Tang Dynasty are nothing more than bargaining chips to be manipulated at will. Is this the god or Buddha you once believed in!"

Tang Sanzang completely broke down. He found himself trapped in an extremely desperate vicious cycle. Moving forward meant becoming someone's dog; retreating meant dragging all living beings down with him.

"Then what should we do..." Tang Sanzang slumped down beside the campfire, his hands hanging limply at his sides. "We can't fight them, and we can't escape them. Are we just supposed to be humiliated and oppressed like this, and then forced to complete this journey to the West paved with blood?"

Sun Wukong clenched his fists not far away, his nails digging deep into his palms. He too felt an unprecedented sense of humiliation and despair. Back then, when he wreaked havoc in the Heavenly Palace, he was defeated and imprisoned for five hundred years; he accepted his fate. But now, this humiliation of knowing it was a trap yet being led forward with a rope was a thousand times heavier than the Five Finger Mountain.

Who says we have to walk this road like dogs?

Chu Yang suddenly spoke, his voice filled with an extremely fanatical power, as if it were not a human voice, but the clang of a sword being drawn from its sheath!

He walked up to Tang Sanzang, grabbed his shoulder, and forcibly lifted him up, making him look into his eyes.

"Master, do you think that as long as we don't go to retrieve the true scriptures, the gods' and Buddhas' conspiracy will fail? Wrong! Utterly wrong!"

Chu Yang's gaze was like a burning torch.

"If you give up today, die on the way, or run away, Buddha only needs to wait a few more decades, find another obedient monk, and a few more obedient demon bodyguards. The script will still be performed, and the incense offerings will still be collected! Your giving up is nothing more than a trivial stage accident to them. They'll just change the protagonist, and the show will continue!"

Tang Sanzang stared blankly at Chu Yang, the young man in black before him radiating a light that even gods and Buddhas would fear.

“So, Master,” Chu Yang released Tang Seng’s shoulder, turned around, and looked at the endless night outside the cave, “precisely because they think they have everything under control, precisely because they treat us as pawns they can manipulate at will, we should continue! We should swagger forward! Not only should we continue, but we should walk to the threshold of the Great Thunderclap Temple!”

"But... even if we went to the Great Thunderclap Temple and got the scriptures, didn't we still get what they wanted?" Sun Wukong asked, puzzled.

Chu Yang turned his head, looked at Sun Wukong, and a very arrogant smile appeared on his lips.

"Brother Monkey, who told you we went to the Great Thunder Temple to get those few scraps of paper?"

Chu Yang reached out and grabbed at the void, as if trying to grasp all the stars in the sky. "The true scriptures? What are they! What we want isn't some final book. What we want is the power to tear their script to shreds! We want to turn these eighty-one tribulations into their own self-dug graves!"

Chu Yang suddenly turned around and stared directly at Tang Seng, his voice echoing loudly in the cave.

“Master, don’t you understand? The result doesn’t matter at all! They want us to learn to bow our heads in suffering, but we will hone our blades to be sharp enough to cleave the heavens in suffering! The fact that Bai Ling didn’t kill us today is their biggest mistake. Every scar they leave on us will be evidence that we will overthrow Mount Ling in the future!”

Chu Yang walked to the campfire, the flames reflecting his crazed eyes.

"The meaning of resistance has never been about whether you can ultimately overthrow the invincible enemy. It is about knowing that your opponents are invincible gods and Buddhas, knowing that there is an abyss ahead, yet you still dare to draw your sword, still dare to spit at them, and still dare to use your own blood and flesh to smash a huge hole in their flawless 'Heavenly Dao' stele!"

Chu Yang drew the Sword of Slaying Karma from his waist, its blade shimmering with a dazzling interplay of seven colors and dark red in the firelight. He pointed the tip of the sword straight at the sky.

"The reason why humanity can still survive in this world full of gods, Buddhas, demons and monsters is not because we know how to kneel and worship. It is because deep in our bones there is something that even the gods fear."

Chu Yang's voice suddenly slowed down, but every word was as heavy as a thousand pounds, striking the depths of Tang Sanzang and Sun Wukong's souls.

"The process of resistance is humanity's most beautiful hymn. The name of this hymn is—courage!"

silence.

A deathly silence.

The only sound in the entire cave was the crackling of firewood popping as the campfire burned.

Tang Sanzang stood there, stunned. Chu Yang's words were like a raging tsunami, instantly destroying the last vestige of his reverence for fate, and then, on the ruins, building a tower called "Awakening".

His eyes, which had been filled with confusion and pain, gradually brightened. It was a light unlike any he had ever seen before, no longer the meek and submissive compassion of the past, but a resolute determination to see the truth of the world even if it meant being shattered to pieces.

"The process of resistance... is called courage..." Tang Sanzang murmured the words softly, chewing them over and over again.

Suddenly, Tang Sanzang smiled.

He looked up at the dark ceiling of the cave and laughed. The laughter started softly, then grew louder and louder, until it became a wild, unrestrained laugh in the deep mountains and forests. He laughed until tears streamed down his face, as if he were laughing out all the pent-up frustration he had endured for ten lifetimes.

"Well done! What a beautiful hymn!"

Tang Sanzang suddenly turned around, strode over to Sun Wukong's side, and sat cross-legged on the blood-stained ground without any disgust.

"Wukong, Benefactor Chu is right. We're not going back." Tang Sanzang's voice became incredibly clear and firm. "Going back is cowardly. We must move forward! Don't they want to see us suffer? We'll show them! Since these gods and Buddhas in the heavens are not worthy of our reverence, then we'll tear off their disguises and show them that the backbone of mortals cannot be broken!"

Looking at his master, who seemed to have undergone a complete transformation, Sun Wukong's dim, fiery eyes suddenly erupted with an extremely blazing golden flame. Although his body was still extremely weak, his spirit was completely reborn from the ashes at this moment.

"Hahaha! This is my master!" Sun Wukong endured the excruciating pain in his soul, used his golden cudgel to support his body, and stood up unsteadily.

He wiped the golden blood from the corner of his mouth, and the arrogant smile that had once been on his hairy face when he wreaked havoc in the Heavenly Palace five hundred years ago reappeared.

"Brother! Master! You're right! Let whoever wants this rotten scripture take it! But I, Old Sun, must walk this path to the end! That Bai Ling used the broken seal to smash my soul today. Once I've recovered, I'm going to personally go to Mount Ling and smash that big seal on that old Buddha's head!"

Looking at the two who had rekindled their fighting spirit, Chu Yang finally smiled with satisfaction. He knew that from this moment on, the pilgrimage team had truly been transformed, becoming an invincible sword.

He sheathed the Sword of Slaying Karma and walked to Sun Wukong's side, supporting his swaying body.

“Brother Monkey, as long as the green hills remain, there will always be firewood to burn. Your soul injury cannot be delayed; we must find a way to heal you.” Chu Yang said with a frown, “Ordinary pills are useless for the soul, and the true energy I just transferred to you can only protect your heart meridian.”

Sun Wukong took a few deep breaths, his eyes flashing slightly: "Brother, I know a place that might be able to heal this injury to the soul."

"Where?" Chu Yang and Tang Seng asked in unison.

"Wanshou Mountain, Wuzhuang Temple." Sun Wukong gritted his teeth and spat out these six words. "The ginseng fruit of the Great Immortal Zhenyuanzi is a spiritual root from the beginning of heaven and earth. Just smelling it can make you live for 360 years, and eating one can make you live for 47,000 years. More importantly, that fruit contains the purest innate Yi wood energy, which is specially used to nourish the soul."

"Wuzhuang Temple?" Chu Yang's heart stirred; he was naturally familiar with this part of the story. It was the Daoist temple of Zhen Yuanzi, the ancestor of earth immortals. Although Zhen Yuanzi did not belong to Mount Ling, in the original script of Journey to the West, he was also part of creating tribulations for the pilgrimage team.

“Brother Monkey, that Zhen Yuanzi is the ancestor of earth immortals who is equal to the world, and his strength is unfathomable. He is even stronger than Buddha.” Chu Yang calmly analyzed, “The ginseng fruit is so precious, how could he give it to us so easily? If it were normal times, we could ask him for it, but now you are seriously injured. If we force him, we will be like going from one wolf’s den to another.”

Sun Wukong grinned, a sly glint in his eyes.

“Brother, have you forgotten? Five hundred years ago, I, Old Sun, made a great disturbance in the Heavenly Palace. Who in the Three Realms doesn’t know me? Although Zhen Yuanzi is of a higher generation, he met me once at the Orchid Basin Gathering and we even became sworn brothers. If I go to ask him for help, he will most likely give me face.”

"A single meeting? Calling each other brothers?" Chu Yang couldn't help but roll his eyes. He knew Sun Wukong's boasting habit all too well. In the original story, Sun Wukong even knocked down the ginseng fruit tree; there was no question of calling each other brothers. (End of Chapter)