Simultaneous traversal: All Abyss difficulty.

Chapter 578 Sending You a Big Appetite

The following morning, the four travelers had prepared and set off westward.

Pigsy, carrying his nine-toothed rake, walked at the front, occasionally turning back to wink at Fang Yu: "Junior brother, the secret to turning into a fly is..."

"Stop, stop, stop!" Fang Yu waved his hand to interrupt. "Second Senior Brother, you've been teaching me how to turn into flies and mosquitoes all morning. Can't you teach me something more practical? Like turning into Erlang Shen or something?"

Sun Wukong, who was squatting on a tree branch eating wild fruit, scoffed upon hearing this: "That fool's little transformation technique can only fool ordinary people."

"Stop talking nonsense, you stable boy!" Pigsy's face turned red. "Back when I, Old Pig, commanded 80,000 naval troops on the Milky Way..."

"Here we go again." Sun Wukong somersaulted and landed. "I've told you the embarrassing story of being banished to the mortal realm eight hundred times already."

As they were arguing, the sun had already reached noon.

Fang Yu said, "I'm not hungry anyway."

The monkey had long since eaten its fill of wild fruit, but even if it didn't eat, it could go hungry for years. "I, Old Sun, am not hungry."

"Hmph." Pigsy grunted for a long time, "I, I, Old Pig, I'm not hungry either."

Only Tang Sanzang held his empty alms bowl, waiting anxiously for a long time, but the white porridge that usually appeared on time did not appear.

"Ahem." Tang Sanzang cleared his throat. "The weather is quite nice today."

Fang Yu didn't even look up: "Yeah, it's perfect for going hungry."

Pigsy's ears perked up; smelling the gunpowder, he quickly hid to the side.

Tang Sanzang, feeling embarrassed, suddenly stood up: "This humble monk is going to beg for alms!"

"Go ahead." Fang Yu picked at his ear. "Remember not to go too far; this is a desolate place."

Before he could finish speaking, Tang Sanzang stormed into the bushes.

Sun Wukong's golden eyes gleamed: "This stubborn donkey won't get lost, will it?"

"Let him experience the hardships of ordinary people," Fang Yu sneered, "so he won't keep spouting nonsense about the emptiness of the four elements."

As the sun dipped westward, mosquitoes buzzed through the woods.

Tang Sanzang staggered and grabbed the tree trunk for support, his vision blurring in waves.

He then realized that he hadn't eaten or drunk a drop of water or a single grain of rice since last night, and was starving.

"Amitabha Buddha." He chanted the Buddha's name weakly, when suddenly his legs gave way and he fell into a pile of decaying leaves.

In a daze, I seemed to hear Fang Yu's voice: "Oh, is the holy monk experiencing 'emptiness is form'?"

As the cool, sweet liquid poured into his mouth, Tang Seng instinctively swallowed, only then realizing that Fang Yu was feeding him honey water through a bamboo tube.

"Drink slowly." Fang Yu's tone was unusually gentle. "Fainting from low blood sugar is no joke."

Tang Sanzang suddenly grabbed Fang Yu's wrist: "Why?" he gasped, "Why must you oppose this humble monk?"

"Me, going against you? You're the one being stubborn! Do you know how many bees will die from that sip of your honey water?"

Upon hearing Fang Yu's words, Tang Seng's face turned deathly pale, and the honey water he had just swallowed swirled in his throat, almost spitting it out!
"What did you say?!" His eyes widened, his finger trembling as he pointed at the bamboo tube. "This honey will kill the bees?!"

Fang Yu blinked innocently: "That's right, bees wear out their wings and have a shorter lifespan when they collect nectar. With that one bite, you've shortened the lifespan of at least a dozen little bees~" He counted on his fingers with great seriousness, "According to Buddhist karma, this karmic burden is enough for you to be reincarnated as a bee for three lifetimes."

"puff--!"

Tang Sanzang spat out a mouthful of saliva and hurriedly tried to wipe his mouth with his sleeve, but the more he wiped, the stickier it became.

"Ugh, cough, cough!" He bent over and gagged, trying to vomit up all the honey he had drunk. He was sweating profusely. "What a sin! What a sin!"

Pigsy, who was watching the show from the sidelines, couldn't help but interject, "Master, you don't understand, do you? When I was in Gao Village, I saw beekeepers. They always left enough food for the bees to survive the winter after harvesting honey."

"Shut up!" Tang Sanzang suddenly roared in fury, veins throbbing on his bald head. "You...you've conspired to make me break my vows!" He slammed the bamboo tube to the ground, splattering honey everywhere. "This humble monk will go beg for alms right now! I'd rather starve to death than eat any of this!"

He was so angry that he could barely speak. He turned and rushed into the woods, not even caring that his robe was torn by tree branches.

Sun Wukong wiped the honey off his face and grinned at Fang Yu.

It's just that Sun Wukong doesn't know what a "thumbs up" means, otherwise he would definitely give him a thumbs up.

As darkness fell, Tang Sanzang stumbled along the mountain path, his stomach growling with hunger.

Suddenly, he saw a faint light coming from a thatched hut in the distance, and his spirits lifted immediately.

"Thank goodness, there are finally people here!"

He straightened his robe and was about to knock on the door when he suddenly smelled the aroma of meat wafting in.

Tang Sanzang paused, a sense of foreboding rising in his heart.

"Squeak-"

The door opened, and an old hunter with a wrinkled face came out carrying a bowl, in which was a glistening roasted wild rabbit!
"Master," the old hunter greeted warmly, "do you need the lodging? I just caught a rabbit, would you like to share some?"

Tang Sanzang stared at the charred rabbit leg, his throat involuntarily bobbing.

He abruptly took two steps back, his face paler than the moonlight: "Forgive me! This humble monk!"

The old hunter suddenly realized, "Oh! Look at my memory, you monks don't eat meat." He scratched his head, "How about I cook you a bowl of wild vegetable soup?"

Just as Tang Sanzang was about to agree, he suddenly glanced at the pot full of oil stains. This pot had been used to cook meat. If he drank the soup made from this pot, wouldn't that be breaking his vow?

His lips trembled for a long time before he finally managed to stammer, "No, no need. This humble monk is suddenly not hungry."

He turned and ran after saying that, but tripped over the threshold and fell, instantly causing a large bump to swell on his bald head. Late at night, by the campfire.

Fang Yu looked at Tang Sanzang, who was slumped under the tree roots with a vacant look in his eyes, and his shoulders trembled as he tried to suppress his laughter: "Holy Monk, did you manage to get any alms?"

Tang Sanzang mechanically turned his head and said quietly, "This humble monk is not hungry."

"Aren't you hungry?" Fang Yu suppressed a laugh.

"Not hungry!"

Without saying a word, Tang Sanzang fell asleep immediately.

My stomach was growling as I slept.
As dawn broke in the east, Tang Sanzang tiptoed out of bed, rubbing his rumbling stomach, and stealthily glanced at the three still fast asleep.

Sun Wukong hung sprawled on a tree branch, Zhu Bajie snored loudly, and Fang Yu slept soundly with his head resting on a blue stone.

"Amitabha." Tang Sanzang gently tightened his cassock, muttering to himself, "This humble monk will find his own food and won't be fooled by that fellow again."

In the dew-dampened grass, several low shrubs bore bright red berries, looking especially tempting in the dim morning light.

Tang Sanzang wasn't stupid; he knew that some fruits were inedible, "too delicate, inedible, inedible."

After taking a few steps, he looked up and saw some greenish-yellow wild fruits hanging on the branches high up, exactly the same as the ones Sun Wukong had eaten yesterday.

"If Wukong can eat it, this humble monk will naturally follow." He couldn't reach it by standing on tiptoe, so he simply lifted the hem of his cassock and tied it around his waist, clumsily climbing up the tree trunk.

When Tang Sanzang jumped down from the tree with a full armful of wild fruit, his forehead was already beaded with sweat.

He took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped the fruit peel. Sticky juice seeped from the berry's skin, giving it an eerie sheen in the morning light.

With a "crunch," the first bite sent a burst of sour juice splashing into my mouth.

Tang Sanzang frowned and forced himself to swallow, secretly relieved: "It's better than breaking the precepts."

After swallowing five in a row, a strange tingling sensation suddenly rose in his throat, and the shadows of the trees in front of him began to twist and overlap.

"Om-"

A deafening roar of flapping wings suddenly erupted!

Tang Sanzang looked up in alarm and saw that the swarm of bees had transformed into a golden torrent pouring down.

Each bee had Fang Yu's face, and its compound eyes gleamed with mockery.

"Ah! Don't sting this humble monk!" He waved his arms and staggered back. "This humble monk knows his mistake! I shouldn't have drunk your honey!"

Tang Sanzang collapsed into a pile of decaying leaves, watching helplessly as the swarm of bees transformed into countless miniature Pigsys, each carrying a rake and drilling towards his nostrils.

"Help! Pfft!" He bit down on the "bee-pig" that had crawled into his mouth, but ended up with a mouthful of mud.

In the hallucination, sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, and salty flavors explode on the tip of the tongue, eventually turning into a nauseating stench.

Twenty paces away, three heads peeked out furtively from behind a rocky outcrop.

Sun Wukong laughed so hard he almost pounded the ground: "Why does this silly monk put everything in his mouth?"

"Ugh!" Tang Sanzang suddenly bent over and dry heaved, spraying yellowish-green liquid onto his monk's shoes. He knelt on the ground and vomited violently, eventually even vomiting bile, his throat burning with pain.

Fang Yu seized the opportunity and unleashed a beam of white light. When the divinely blessed white light swept across Tang Seng's back, Tang Seng felt much more comfortable, and the hallucinations receded like the tide.

Tang Sanzang slumped down beside his own vomit, his face paler than a dead man's.

He pointed tremblingly to the wild fruits on the treetop: "Wukong! These are what you...you usually eat."

"I, Old Sun, sprang from a crack in a rock; I'd eat arsenic as a snack." He suddenly added, as if remembering something, "I picked these yesterday to pass the time; who knew Master..."

Upon hearing this, Tang Sanzang felt like vomiting again, but could only manage a painful dry cough.

Fang Yu crossed his arms. "I thought Old Tang could support himself, but it seems I'll have to take care of things later."

"It's none of your business! I don't need it!" Tang Seng waved his hand weakly, his stubbornness seemingly an indelible part of his personality.

"Alright, alright, Master! Why are you arguing with your junior brother? I think you should let him prepare the vegetarian meals for you, otherwise you'll be on your way to the Western Paradise forever!"

Fang Yu also gave Tang Seng a way out, "I won't argue with you anymore, I'll take care of your three meals a day."

Tang Sanzang nodded, "Amitabha, this humble monk will not hold it against you. Let's rest for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, and then we'll continue our journey." With that, he walked to the side and went to find some leaves to scatter.

At this moment, Pigsy nudged Fang Yu with his shoulder and muttered, "Junior brother, what do you want to eat for lunch? You know, I'm not picky about food, as long as I'm full."

Fang Yu stared at the spot where Tang Seng had disappeared into the distance, a smug smile playing on his lips. "Mengzi."

"Ah! Stewed meat! That's great! I, Old Pig, love to eat stewed meat!"

Fang Yu licked his lips lightly, "If you like it, that's great! From now on, there will be steamed buns in the morning, at noon, in the evening, and before bed!"

"Ah! Junior brother, this isn't a good idea. Eating this stew once in a while is fine, but eating it in front of that monk every day is..."

“If you don’t tell him that the jelly is made with meat broth, how would he know anything?” Fang Yu patted Bajie’s big belly. “Also, I’m warning you! If you want to beg for alms every day on the journey to the West, then you should tell him what the jelly is made of.”

Zhu Wuneng, who was once Marshal Tianpeng, sensed something was amiss. "You, what are you going to do?"

Fang Yu suppressed a laugh, "I'm going to feed Tang Sanzang until he has an even bigger stomach than you!"

"Then, send this enormous stomach to the Western Paradise!"

(End of this chapter)