Lokenstein - Journey to the West / 西遊記

Full plot

Progress: chapter 10/36 (2021 English translation by Julia Lovell)

Part 1: Monkey's Origins and Havock in Heaven

Chapter 1

On the land of Aolai, at the top of Flower Fruit Mountain, was a divine stone. The stone one day gave birth to a stone egg, which turned into a monkey with bright, golden eyes.
One day, the monkey decided to find a proper shelter for himself and his fellow apes, and when he did find a nice cave hidden under a waterfall - the Water Curtain Cave - the others monkeys made him their king!
After a few centuries living a peaceful life, Monkey King suddenly became aware of his own mortality, and decided to go on a journey to find immortality. He finds an immortal master, Subodhi, who teaches him many tricks (such as the 72 transformations, and the cloud somersault) and gives him his name - Sun for the monkey radical with the animal part removed, Wu for Awoken, Sūn Wùkōng (孫悟空) meaning "Sun who has awoken to emptiness".

Chapter 2

After about a decade with his master, Sun Wukong once shows off his powers to his fellow disciples, making Subodhi scared and furious that the other disciples will become jealous of the monkey, so he chases him away and makes him swear to never tell who taught him his tricks.
Going back to Flower Fruit Mountain after decades spent travelling, Monkey King finds out that the Monstrous King of Chaos has attacked the area, so he goes and defeats the demon to rescue his fellow monkeys.

Chapter 3

Monkey then arms his people with weapons stolen from a nearby town, before going to look for a proper weapon for himself. He visits the Palace of the Dragon King of the Eastern Ocean, Aoguang. The dragon king is impressed by Monkey King's powers and offers him the Obedient Golden-Hooped Staff, a huge and very heavy black iron rod with golden rings on each end. Monkey, who had previously been wearing a red tunic with a yellow sash, also asks for an armor so the Dragon King asks for help from his three brothers who give out cloud-hopping shoes in lotus-colored silk, a golden chain-mail cuirass and a purple-gold phoenix-feather cap.
Monkey King then started to travel the world and show off his powers, earning himself powerful friends. He swore brotherhood with six great kings: Bull Demon, Dragon-Monster, Roc-Fiend, Lion-Camel, Macaque, and Giant-Ape. One night, after getting very drunk with them, he dreams of being taken to the Underworld. He fights against the Underworld guards and erases his name - as well as the name of all his monkey companions - from the ledger of death, making them all immortal.
Soon after, both the Dragon King Aoguang and the Minister of Hell send complains to the Jade Emperor in Heaven about Sun Wukong, so the emperor sends Gold Star to summon Monkey to Heaven.

Chapter 4

Arriving in Heaven, Monkey is brought to the Jade Emperor, who offers him the only job available: Imperial Groom, aka supervisor of the Heavenly stables. After two weeks of working incredibly hard and well, he learns how low ranking his job is, and immediately goes back to Flower Fruit Mountain. There, he finds out he's been gone for 10 years, one day on earth being equivalent to one year in Heaven.
Upon learning of Monkey leaving his job, the Jade Emperor sends out King Li Jing and his third son Prince Nezha to capture him. They gather an army, descend upon Flower Fruit Mountain, and send Mighty-Spirit to go ask for Sun Wukong's surrender. The monkey comes out of Water-Curtain Cave with "resplendent battle dress, burning eyes and bared fangs", and declares that he will consider going back to Heaven if he is offered a new, worthy position.
A fight breaks out, but Monkey quickly defeats Mighty-Spirit. Nezha comes next, looking like a baby at first but soon transforming into a 3 headed monster with 6 arms, each holding one magic weapon - but still he, too, leaves defeated. Wukong tells Nezha that he wants to be appointed at a higher grade position, under the title of Great Sage Equal to Heaven. Gold Star convinces the Jade Emperor to accept so as to not waste too many resources fighting Monkey, and so Monkey goes back to Heaven, where he's given a meaningless title, a mansion and some aids.

Chapter 5

Having nothing to do in Heaven, Monkey chats up his neighbors until he's acquired a vast social network. The Jade Emperor doesn't like that idea very much, and decides to keep him busy by making him the caretaker of the Orchard of Immortal Peaches. The peaches growing there take between 3000 and 9000 years to ripen, and give various levels of immortality to whomever eats them. Although Monkey takes some parts of his job seriously, he also secretly eats quite a lot of the delicious, golden peaches...
One day, the ladies in waiting of the Queen Mother come to pick up some peaches for the Great Grand Festival of Immortal Peaches, and are surprised at how few there are. Monkey, annoyed that he hasn't been invited to the festival, freezes them and sneaks into the party. First, he eats many peaches there and drinks a lot of wine, but now extremely drunk, he realizes he's going to be punished if he's found out. He tries to run away, and somehow ends up at Laozi's, where he finds some precious elexirs and drinks them all. This sobers him up, making him realize he did something even worse, so he decides to discreetly go back to Flower Fruit Mountain.
Back home, he learns that his half a year in Heaven lasted over a century on Earth. After sharing his latests adventures with his monkeys, he goes back to Heaven to steal some more immortal wine and shares it with everybody. The Jade Emperor dispatches a whole army to capture him, but although his army suffers some losses, he manages to send the Heavenly armies retreating.

Chapter 6

The great compassionate Bodhisattva Guanyin from Mount Potalaka comes to visit Heaven with her senior disciple Hui'an - who is also King Li's second son. When she learns of the mischief Monkey has created, she sends Hui'an to fight him, but he comes back defeated.
The Jade Emperor then decides to send his nephew Erlang from the river Guan into the fight. The fight is fierce, and when Erland's army captures his monkey troops, Sun Wukong is distressed and tries to flee by transforming - but Erlang keeps up. When Monkey become a sparrow, Erland becomes a falcon; when Monkey becomes a fish, Erlang becomes a fish hawk. Monkey also transforms into a shrine before going to Erlang's temple and impersonating him. As Monkey starts to lose the fight, Laozi helps out by throwing his steel circlet, knocking down the Monkey King for good...
The Jade Emperor rewards the warriors and condemns the Monkey King to the Demon Execution Block, where he will be chopped into small pieces until his death.

Chapter 7

After a while trying to chop, mince, stab and slash Monkey without effect, the Heavenly executioners had to have the fact that the Demon Execution Block wasn't going to work on him. Laozi then tries to cook him in the Brazier of Eight Trigrams for 49 days, with no avail.
The Jade Emperor sends for the Buddha residing in Thunderclap Monastery on Soul Mountain, and asks him for help with Monkey. The Buddha goes to see Monkey and asks him why is he creating disturbances. Monkey answers that he wants to replace the Jade Emperor on the throne, and Buddha tells him that if he manages to jump outside of his palm, he will be given the throne. Monkey jumps far off into space, and when he finds a nice place, he writes "The Great Sage Equal to Heaven Was Here" before peeing on the spot. Coming back to Buddha triumphant, Buddha laughts at him and shows him his marks are right there on his palm...
Buddha emprisons Monkey in the Five Phases Mountain, leaving him only space enough to breathe and to move his paws a little. He's only fed iron pellets and molten copper. A prediction says that he will one day be freed by a priest from the future Tang empire.

Part 2: The Journey Starts

Chapter 8

500 years later, the Buddha announces that the inhabitants of the South continent are unrully, so he wants to find a scripture pilgrim to bring back scriptures from the East and convert people to Buddhism. Guanyin volunteers to find a pilgrim, and Buddha gives her five treasures to ease the journey. First, an embroided robe and a nine-ringed monk's staff to protect the pilgrim, as well as three tightening hoops to discipline monsters which could help out and accompany the pilgrim. Guanyin sets off to the East with Hui'an.
On her way, she first encounters a monster in the River of Flowing Sand. Turns out, he used to be an immortal, but because he broke a cup during the Peach Festival, he was condemned to torture and transformed into a monster. Guanyin promises him atonement if he joins the pilgrimage, to which he agrees. He's worried about the heads of all the pilgrims he's eaten before scaring away the future pilgrim, but Guanyin tells to simply wear the heads as a necklace. She names him Shā Wùjìng (沙悟淨, Sand Awakened to Purity), Sandy for short.
Next, she meets a pig demon who attacks her before learning her identity. He, too, used to be an immortal but when he got drunk and propositioned Chang'e, Goddess of the Moon, he was condemned to torture and to live as a monster. He wants to attone, so Guanyin asks him along to the pilgrimage, and gives him the Buddhist name Zhū Wùnéng (豬悟能, Pig Awakened to Power), Pigsy for short.
Then, they meet a weak Jade Dragon, who turns out to be the son of Aorun, Dragon King of the Western Ocean. He accidentally set fire to his father's palace, so his father denounced him as unfilial and he is to be executed in a few days. Guanyin intervenes in his favor with the Jade Emperor, who agrees to pardon him. She turns him into a white horse and tells him to wait for the pilgrim.
Finally, Guanyin and Hui'an see a blaze of golden light coming from Five Phases Mountain, and upon realizing that it's where the Monkey King is imprisoned, the goddess improvises some poetry about his crimes. Monkey, hearing it from below the mountain, first takes offense before swearing off his mischief when he sees an opportunity to be freed. Guanyin believes him and agrees to release him if he goes on the pilgrimage - which he enthusiastically promises.
A few days later, Guanyin and Hui'an finally reach Chang'an, the capital of the Tang empire. They disguise themselves and ask the local gods for lodging. The search for a pilgrim can finally start!

Chapter 9

We change perspective to follow Guangrui, a gentleman from Haizhou who travels to Chang'an (during the reign of Emperor Tang Taizong) to take the imperial civil service exam, and gets first place. During his celebrations, he meets Yin Wenjiao, the daughter of an Emperor's chief minister Yin Kaishan, and they get married. Taizong appoints Guangrui as governor of Jiangzhou, and the newlyweds start their journey right away.
On the road, they pass by Guangui's home, so he tells the news to his mother Mrs. Zhang and takes her along. A few days later, as they are resting in the Myriad Flowers Inn, Mrs. Zhang falls ill and decides to stay in the inn until the autumn, when they'll be able to fetch her back. Before leaving her, Guangrui notices a golden fish and saves it from being cooked, releasing it into the water. Finally, after paying his mother's rent for the months ahead and leaving her with some money, the couple sets off again.
As they arrive to the River Hong, they hire two boatmen to take them accross the river, but one of them - Liu Hong - becomes infatuated with Wenjiao and quickly hatches a plan with the other - Li Biao. Both men kill Guangrui and his servant, and tell Wenjiao to submit if she doesn't want to die. Liu Hong then takes the identity of Guangrui and becomes the new goveror of Jiangzhou.
Wenjiao gives birth to Guangrui's child and - having received a prophecy that the child was important but that Liu Hong wanted to kill him - she decides to put him on a plank and into the river. The child reaches the Temple of the Golden Montain where its abbot, Faming, rescues him and gives him the name Riverflow. The child becomes a monk and, when he turns 18, he receives the religious name Xuanzang. He begs the abbot to tell him about his parents, so Faming gives him the letter his mother had tucked in his baby clothes, and tells him to go find her in Jiangzhou.
Xuanzang does find his mother, but after some tearful hugs, she sends him away again, scared that Liu Hong will discover the truth. Soon after, she uses the pretext of charity to visit the Temple of the Golden Mountain, and gives her son strict orders on how to rescue her. First, Xuanzang goes to the Myriad Flowers Inn, where his grandmother was left almost 20 years ago - she went blind and is now a beggar. He prays for her and her sight comes back, and he leaves her once more in the inn with some money and a promise to come back. Then, he goes to his grandfather Yin Kishan to ask for help, and upon learning of the tragic story, the emperor himself sends an army to take care of Liu Hong and Li Biao, and they are soon condemned to death.
As Wenjiao weeps over this whole story, her husband's body floats back to the surface and comes back to life. Indeed, the golden carp he had once saved turned out to be a dragon king, who saved him when he was killed in the river. Now was the right time to resurrect him, and the whole family weeps together on the shore. Unfortunately, Wenjiao could never get rid of her shame for having 'yielded' to her husband's murderer, and despite her son, husband and father begging her to stay alive, she ends up killing herself...

Chapter 10

We once more change perspective, this time to follow a dragon king living near Chang'an.
His troops hear a fisherman brag about a fortune teller, Yuan Shoucheng, who has been giving out information about the best fishing spots, and the dragon king fears that his population will soon dwindle due to overfishing. He wants to immediately go and slaughter Master Yuan, but is convinced by his court to test his prediction abilities first. The fortune teller reveals the precise weather pattern for the next day, and when the dragon king receives his weather orders from the Jade Emperor, he sees right away that Master Yuan's predictions were exact. Not ready to lose face, he slightly modifies the weather, before going to brag to the seer that his predictions were wrong.
Unfortunately for him, Master Yuan reveals that he knows he's the dragon king, and that for disobeying the Jade Emperor by changing the weather pattern, he will soon be executed by Wei Zheng, Emperor Taizong's prime minister. The dragon king goes to beg Taizong for mercy, and the Emperor promises to spare him. Meanwhile, Wei Zheng receives a dream from the Jade Emperor with an order to execute the dragon king, but when he wakes up, he receives a summon from Taizong and they spend the whole day together - Taizong hoping that this would prevent his prime minister from executing the dragon king. At the execution time, Wei Zheng suddenly falls asleep, and soon a dragon head falls from the sky - he had conducted the execution in his sleep.
Eaten by the guilt of having failed his promise to the dragon king, Taizong soon falls into madness and his body starts to weaken. Just before his death, Wei Zheng gives him a letter and the advice to bring it out to Cui Jue - the infernal judge used to be a close friend of Taizong's father, and should be able to bring him back to life.

Lokenstein's

Journey to the West / 西遊記

A note on English translations