Xingtie: My silly online friend is actually a raccoon!

A full week has passed since that boat trip on the lake.

Within this short week, the same story began to circulate almost simultaneously in teahouses, taverns, and post stations within a radius of hundreds of miles around Chang'an.

The story begins in a very conventional manner, following exactly the story of the holy monk who was recently ordered to travel west:

"Now, in the Great Tang Dynasty of the East, there was a holy monk named Tang Xuanzang, who was ordered to travel to the Western Paradise to retrieve Buddhist scriptures..."

The storytellers were all very satisfied with this opening, after all, the monk Xuanzang was the emperor's younger brother, and riding on his popularity was a sure win.

However, if there were modern people present, they would find that the further the story goes, the more something seems off.

In this version of the story, Pigsy is not a simple-minded fool, but a cool and aloof woman with "gray hair, golden eyes, and snow-white skin".

Her previous life was a star lord in the heavenly realm—the Vermilion Bird Star Lord. She was banished to the mortal world for violating heavenly rules, losing all her magical powers and having her spiritual treasures covered in dust, which is why she ended up in this state.

But her personality hadn't changed at all; she still had a "don't approach me" attitude and her first words were "get lost."

Sha Wujing was not a fierce man with a full beard, but a petite loli-like general with white hair, red eyes, and a small stature.

He was banished to the mortal realm for accidentally breaking a glass cup, where he suffered daily in the Flowing Sand River.

Although she was small, her fighting prowess was ridiculously fierce. Every seven days, she would suffer the pain of flying swords piercing her heart at the bottom of the Flowing Sand River, curling up in agony, but never uttering a sound.

The audience in the teahouse who heard this story couldn't help but feel sorry for the two women and felt a pang of pity for them.

Several soft-hearted young ladies from wealthy families even secretly wiped away their tears.

The reason this story is so captivating is undoubtedly due to the brilliance of the original Journey to the West story, but it is also inseparable from the daring adaptation by the renowned director, Spark.

The rapid spread of the virus was also due to the tireless division of labor and cooperation among the three people over the past week.

Lu Ze traveled day and night, riding his flying sword to cross the city, delivering the "modified version of Journey to the West" novel that Spark had been writing overnight to bookstores and teahouses along the way. One trip could cover seven or eight towns.

Xing stayed in Chang'an, where he was responsible for giving money to the storytellers in various teahouses.

Her method was always the same: she would order the most expensive tea, listen to a segment of the story, and leave a small ingot of silver on the table before leaving, adding a note: "Sir, the Journey to the West story you told today was very interesting. Could you tell another segment tomorrow?"

The storytellers couldn't resist such praise, and they performed even more enthusiastically the next day than the first.

During the day, Spark himself transforms into different forms—sometimes a traveling scholar, sometimes a wandering Taoist priest, and sometimes a wealthy merchant passing by, frequenting various teahouses.

In each place I visited, I would order a pot of tea, pretending to be a visitor from out of town, and ask the shopkeeper questions out of curiosity.

"I heard there's a really popular Journey to the West story here? I came all the way from Luoyang to hear it."

The shopkeepers were flattered and immediately asked the storyteller to perform an encore.

As a result, all the teahouses thought the Journey to the West story was a huge hit and used it as a gimmick to attract customers.

As a result, within just one week, the "Spark Edition" of Journey to the West became an instant hit throughout the Tang Dynasty.

Not only are the teahouses and taverns in the city telling this story, but even in the countryside villages, children love to pester adults to tell them about the gray-haired, mature woman Pigsy and the red-eyed, loli Sandy.

The prophecy in the story, "The Vermilion Bird Star Lord's wrath burns the heavens, the Curtain-Rolling General's smile captivates the city," is so famous that even an old man selling pancakes by the roadside can hum a few lines off the top of his head.