I just became the Pirate King, and you're telling me I also time-traveled at the same time.

The moon was high in the sky, and the sound of the waterfall was exceptionally clear in the night.

The sound of the water wasn't uniform; it was layered—at the top was the sound of water flowing down from a height, a loud, rushing sound; in the middle was the sound of water hitting the rocks, a crisp, pattering sound; and at the bottom was the sound of water falling into the pool, a deep, gurgling sound.

The three layers of sound overlapped, like a piece of music that had been played for tens of thousands of years, never tiring, never stopping.

Sun Wukong closed his eyes and began to breathe deeply.

His breathing blended into the sound of the waterfall; when he inhaled, it was like water being swept into a whirlpool, and when he exhaled, it was like bubbles rising from the bottom of the water and bursting.

Chu Yang sat next to him, neither practicing his skills nor sleeping, just sitting there, watching the moon slowly move from one side of the mountain to the other.

Suddenly, Chu Yang spoke.

The sound is very soft; it can be drowned out by the sound of the waterfall if you don't listen carefully.

"You said you used to drink the Forget-Me-Not Fruit, and it made the pain go away."

"You really don't remember what the fruit looked like?"

Sun Wukong's eyes were not open, but his eyebrows twitched.

"I remember," he said. "I remember what it looked like, I remember what it tasted like."

The name is fake.

Chu Yang turned to look at him.

"Don't call it the Forget-Me-Not Fruit," Sun Wukong said. "Call it the Heartbreak Fruit."

The old man said it was called "Forget-Worry" because he was afraid I wouldn't dare eat it.

Chu Yang remained silent for a while.

What does the "heartbreak fruit" taste like?

Sun Wukong opened his eyes and looked at the moon above his head.

The moon was very round, with clear edges, like a piece of jade that had been cut very neatly.

He looked at it for a long time before answering.

"sweet.

My stomach didn't hurt after eating it, but my heart ached.

He did not explain what he meant by feeling sorry for someone.

He closed his eyes again and continued breathing.

This time, as he exhaled, a very faint golden light seeped from the corner of his lips. The golden light flashed and then disappeared, covered by the moonlight, as if it had never appeared at all.

Chu Yang didn't ask any more questions.

He turned his head and looked in the direction of the cave entrance.

The cave was dark, but he could see the outlines of the monkeys—clumps of furry figures huddled together, leaning against each other, fast asleep.

The smallest monkey—the one that couldn't get the peach pit in the afternoon—slept in the middle, sandwiched between two older monkeys, with only its tail showing. The hair at the tip of its tail shimmered slightly in the moonlight; it was a small tuft of silvery-white down.

Looking at that small tuft of silvery-white down, Chu Yang suddenly thought of a question.

Su Wanwan's tail tip is also white.

There are many white things in this world—white clouds, white fog, white saline land, white moonlight.

But not all white things are the same.

Some white is cold, some white is hot, some white is hard, and some white is soft.

The white tip of Su Wanwan's tail is probably soft.

He shook the thought out of his mind and looked down at what he was holding in his hand—not a dagger, but a peach pit.

In the afternoon, when the monkeys were dividing the peach pits, one rolled to his feet. He picked it up but forgot to return it.

He placed the peach pit in his palm and rubbed its rough skin with his thumb.

The peach pit still had some dried peach flesh fibers stuck to it, making it feel sticky to the touch.

He tucked the peach pit into his sleeve and closed his eyes.

I have to get up early tomorrow to teach the monkeys how to strengthen their muscles and bones.

Those monkeys will probably be noisier, even noisier than today. They'll run around on the ground, scratch his clothes with their claws, and snarl and throw tantrums when they can't learn.

But he didn't find it annoying.

After walking in the desert for so long, he suddenly found himself in a place with a waterfall, a peach orchard, and dozens of monkeys chattering away. He felt that this place—the first place he had ever been to—had something he hadn't felt in a long time.

It's probably lively.

It was lively and bustling, which was great.

Days passed by one by one.

Chu Yang gets up before dawn every morning and waits for the monkeys on the flat ground next to the waterfall.

The monkeys woke up even earlier than him—not because they were diligent, but because they were already sleeping in the trees. Before the sun even rose, they woke up as soon as the birds started chirping. Once awake, they chattered and jumped around in the trees, shaking the dew off the leaves and letting it drip onto the ground like a light rain.

What Chu Yang taught them was very simple.

On the first day, I taught standing meditation: feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, back straight, head upright, and eyes looking straight ahead.

He stood there for an hour, motionless, like a wooden stake driven into the ground.

The monkeys stood behind him, mimicking his posture.

After standing for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, three monkeys' legs were shaking so badly they couldn't stand anymore and sat on the ground panting.

After standing for half an hour, only seven remained.

After standing for an hour, only the young monkey whose demon bones Sun Wukong had touched remained standing.

Its legs were shaking, even more violently than the previous three, but it didn't sit down.

Its teeth were clenched tightly, its lips were turned up, revealing two rows of yellow teeth, and its eyes were fixed on Chu Yang's back, as if it were competing with itself.

Chu Yang put the stake away and turned around to look at it.

The young monkey's fur was completely soaked with sweat and clung to its body, making it look thinner.

But its eyes were bright, not in a demonic way, but in a simpler way, like a piece of bronze that had been polished repeatedly. They weren't as dazzling as gold, but they were more real than gold.

"What's your name?" Chu Yang asked.

The young monkey tilted its head and looked at him, clearly unable to understand human speech.

The old blue-eyed monkey next to them walked over, drew a circle on the ground with its front paw, and inside the circle drew a triangle with its pointed end pointing upwards—probably representing a mountain. Then it pointed at the young monkey and then at the mountain.

Chu Yang looked at it for a long time and guessed the general idea.

"Stone?" he tried to say.

The old monkey nodded.

The young monkey—now called Stone—looked at the old monkey, then at Chu Yang, and seemed to understand something. He patted his chest with his front paws and let out a short "squeak."

The "squeak" was short but crisp, like two stones striking each other.

From then on, Shi Tou became Chu Yang's most diligent student.

Every morning when Chu Yang arrived at the flat ground, Shi Tou was already standing there in his stance. He didn't know how long he had been standing there, but the mud beneath his legs was soaked with sweat, leaving two small wet puddles.

When Chu Yang taught something new, Shi Tou learned it the fastest, but he never showed off. Once he learned it, he would quietly step aside and practice it over and over again. Even after the other monkeys had all left, he was still practicing.

The other monkeys were no less impressive.

Apart from the five demons who followed Sun Wukong to learn breathing techniques, the remaining forty-odd demons all followed Chu Yang to train their muscles and bones.

Chu Yang taught each monkey different things based on their physical condition—the strong and powerful practiced boxing, the light and agile practiced footwork, and the monkeys with sharp claws and teeth practiced pouncing.

He didn't speak, he just made gestures, and then stood aside and watched.

The monkeys imitated his actions, but if they didn't do them well, he would do them again.

Sometimes he has to do a single action a dozen or twenty times, but he never gets impatient or angry.

Sun Wukong was teaching the five monkeys with demon bones how to breathe.

His teaching method was completely different from Chu Yang's—Chu Yang didn't talk, while Sun Wukong talked too much.

He sat on a rock, surrounded by five little monkeys. He talked and gestured, but he kept going off-topic, from the method of breathing exercises to the story of him stealing peaches from heaven five hundred years ago. He realized he had gone off-topic halfway through, slapped his thigh to bring himself back, but he went off-topic again after only three sentences.

"Sink your Qi to your Dantian—let me tell you, the Dantian is like a peach orchard. You have to plant the peaches one by one, and you have to store your Qi bit by bit—speaking of which, the peaches in the peach orchard are really delicious. I ate 3,600 of them back then, purple-veined and yellow-pitted ones. When you bite into one, the juice flows down your chin—" He licked his lips and found that all five little monkeys were staring at him with wide eyes, mouths open, drool dripping all over the ground. They were obviously not listening to his breathing exercises, but to the peaches.

"—Cough, draw your breath to your dantian."

But what he taught was effective.

After practicing breathing exercises for a few days, the five monkeys' eyes became noticeably brighter, their fur became smoother, and they walked with lighter steps, unlike before when they dragged their feet.

The one who made the most progress was Stone—it was the only monkey who had to train its muscles and bones with Chu Yang and learn breathing techniques from Sun Wukong.

Other monkeys would collapse from exhaustion after practicing one skill, but this one could run two more laps on flat ground after practicing two.

One night, Chu Yang got up and saw a shadow moving on the flat ground—it was a stone, and a person was standing in the moonlight, his body as steady as a tree that had taken root.

"This monkey," Sun Wukong walked up to Chu Yang at some point, crossed his arms, and looked at the stone under the moonlight, "is a bit like me back in the day."

Chu Yang glanced at him.

"You used to practice martial arts at midnight back then?"

"I didn't need to train back then," Sun Wukong said. "I was born with it."

It's different; it wasn't born that way, and it knows that, so it works harder than anyone else.

Those who know they weren't born that way often go further than those who weren't.

Chu Yang did not respond.

He looked at the stone's motionless back in the moonlight and thought of Su Wanwan.

Su Wanwan wasn't born that way.

She was born with only one tail, but now she has five, each one earned with her life.

What's the situation at Qiyue Ridge now? Did she drink those three flowers? How much has her bone fracture opened? Does it hurt?

He swallowed these questions and turned back to the cave.

A few days later, the breathing techniques taught by Sun Wukong and the muscle and bone exercises taught by Chu Yang began to show their synergistic effect.

After practicing breathing exercises, the five monkeys with demon bones developed a foundation of qi in their bodies, and when they trained their muscles and bones, they were much stronger than the other monkeys.

Stone's progress was particularly astonishing—it could split a tree branch as thick as an arm in half with a single palm strike, run on wet rocks under a waterfall without slipping, and dodge Chu Yang's first three punches.

When it tried to dodge the fourth move, it couldn't keep up and was hit on the shoulder by Chu Yang's palm wind. It tumbled twice and fell into the pool. But when it emerged from the water, the expression on its face was not pain, but excitement.

It tasted the sweetness of becoming stronger, a taste sweeter than a peach.

Although the other monkeys did not have demon bones, their bodies had become noticeably stronger after these days of training.

They used to have to catch their breath three times before climbing up the tree to pick fruit, but now they can climb up in one breath.

Previously, it took two monkeys to lift a stone, but now one monkey can lift it.

They could sense the changes themselves; they worked harder, ate more, and snored louder at night.

One night, the one-eyed old monkey walked up to Chu Yang, bowed three times, and then brought out something wrapped in leaves from behind him.

Chu Yang opened it and found a roasted rabbit leg.

The rabbit legs were poorly roasted; the outside was burnt while the inside was still raw. However, a few grains of coarse salt were sprinkled on top—salt is a rare commodity in Flower Fruit Mountain, probably something picked up from the foot of the mountain before and never used.

The old monkey looked at Chu Yang with its one eye, making "woo-woo" sounds, as if saying, "Here, have some."

Chu Yang took the rabbit leg and took a bite in front of the old monkey.

The burnt parts on the outside are bitter, the raw parts on the inside are fishy, ​​and the salt grains crunch between your teeth.

He chewed, swallowed, and then nodded to the old monkey.

The old monkey's one eye curved slightly, and it turned and walked back into the troop.

If life continues like this, it will probably be very good.

But the things in the mountains won't let life continue like this forever.

It was afternoon that day.

As the sun began to set in the west, light filtered through the gaps in the peach grove, carpeting the ground with a layer of shimmering gold.

The monkeys had just finished their afternoon practice. Most of them were drinking water and washing their faces by the pool, while a few little monkeys were chasing each other through the peach orchard. They chased each other to the base of a tree, where one of the little monkeys climbed up and picked a green wild fruit—not a peach, but a kind of wild fruit that grew on the edge of the peach orchard, about the size of a thumb, so sour it made your teeth ache, but the monkeys loved to eat it.

It tossed the wild fruit to the little monkeys below, who caught it and were about to put it in their mouths when they suddenly stopped.

What did it hear?

It was a little female monkey with ears bigger than other monkeys. She was always the first to hear Chu Yang's footsteps when they practiced their footwork.

It took the wild fruit away from its mouth, pricked up its ears, turned them around, and headed towards the outside of the peach grove.

Its body froze, its eyes widened, and its mouth slowly opened, revealing its teeth that hadn't fully grown in yet.

The wild fruit fell from its hand, rolled on the ground, and landed on a fallen leaf.

Then it screamed.

The scream was short and sharp, like a needle piercing your ear.

All the monkeys heard it. Those drinking water looked up, those washing their faces shook the water droplets off their hands, and those chasing stopped in their tracks.

They all turned to look at the little female monkey, and then followed her gaze to look outside the peach grove.

Outside the peach grove was a scree slope covered with sparse shrubs, behind which lay a dense forest.

The trees in the dense forest were taller and denser than those in the peach orchard. Their canopies were so close together that they blocked out all the sunlight, making the inside perpetually dark and damp, like a nightmare from which one could never wake up.

At that moment, something was moving at the edge of that dense forest.

It wasn't the kind of movement you see when the wind blows through the leaves; it was a heavier, more purposeful movement—the bushes were swaying, not just one or two, but the whole thicket was swaying, very slowly and heavily, as if some big thing was walking out of the dense forest.