A putrid scent of rotting sandalwood clung to the mountain mist, pressing heavily against Tianming's chest. He trudged along the old, jagged path, each step cracking withered peach branches beneath his feet. Flower-Fruit Mountain, once a paradise of spirits, now lay in ruins, more tomb than sanctuary. Its energy had long since drained, leaving only cursed shells and endless silence.
He paused, gazing at his hands. Between the fur, golden sparks flickered—residual essence of the Great Sage. Yet with it came scattered fragments of memory: the Monkey King striding proudly before the Water Curtain Cave, the searing pain of the alchemy furnace, five hundred lonely years beneath the Five Elements Mountain. But the clearest memory was the cruelest truth: at the foot of Ling Mountain, the golden hoop removed, his soul had already withered.
Memory was a burden heavier than any stone. When Tianming closed his eyes, he felt the grudges of every demon who had died by his staff: the White Bone Demon's icy sorrow, Red Boy's mischievous defiance, the Bull Demon King's despair. Waves of anguish slammed against his mind. He was no longer a mere warrior—he had become a vessel overflowing with pain. He wondered if "destiny" was nothing but heaven's cruel joke, forcing one monkey to inherit another's tragedy, endlessly repeating.
"What are you still searching for?" a voice sneered through the mist, mocking. It was the old monkey's voice, yet unfamiliar. Tianming whirled—but saw only a dead tree, its trunk twisted into a human-like visage.
He did not answer. Words felt meaningless. Only pain was real. He remembered the woman taken by the Crane Immortal, the Fourth Sister, the only light in the darkness of Pancake Ridge. Her cold, defiant eyes were his anchor. If even that memory was false, his existence would crumble entirely.
He ran, leaping over jagged rocks and thorned underbrush, desperate to silence the whispers in his mind with the thunder of his strikes. The golden staff smashed through boulders, each blow heavier than a mountain, each strike a release of fury at the world's injustice. But when the dust settled, the suffocating silence remained. The Heavenly Palace still loomed above. The gods still watched, amused by this defiant fool.
"Memory is your armor—and your prison," the voice whispered in his ear, cold as ice crawling down his spine. He glanced at the staff. Twisted faces had emerged on its surface, silently screaming. Gods he had slain. Demons he had saved. All now fused into the staff, pressing down upon him.
He collapsed, gasping. The weight was more than physical; it was spiritual. He had inherited the Great Sage's renown—and the rebellion he had failed to finish. He realized that freedom would not come from storming the Heavenly Palace. It would come from mastering the ruins of memory, from forging a heart uniquely his own.
Night fell, and the ruins of Flower-Fruit Mountain grew monstrous under the moon. Tianming sat, diving into the depths of his own mind for the first time. There, a chasm of endless darkness yawned: on one side, divine annihilation; on the other, demonic frenzy. He stood on a tightrope stretched across it, teetering. He closed his eyes and let the memories slice at his spirit like jagged blades. Consciousness bled, forming ghostly crimson flowers of agony.
He did not sleep. He waited in the darkness until the first sickly light of dawn pierced the leaden clouds. He stood, eyes sharpened with cold resolve. The path ahead would be lonely, walking the edge between self-destruction and redemption. But he had no choice. He was Tianming—the fated one, a living dead who refused to bow to fate.