The Monkey King

When Shihou stood on Lingtai Fangcun Mountain, his face was covered with dust and his heart was riddled with holes.

Compared with him ten years ago, he has grown much taller, reaching 1.6 meters. His height is considered short by human standards, but as a monkey, he is already a giant.

There are no unnecessary words, the high mountain, the long stone steps, the stone monkey bowed and kowtowed three times, climbed up step by step.

Go to the top of the mountain and see the Taoist temple built in the cave.

"Dongsheng Shenzhou Huaguo Mountain Stone Monkey, I want to see Patriarch Subhuti! I would like to bow down to you and ask for immortality!" He shouted loudly and kowtowed three times.

After a long time, the stone monkey quietly raised his head.

Birds were chirping and insects and cicadas were chirping all around, but there was no movement at all. The tall vermilion door was still tightly closed.

"Dongsheng Shenzhou Huaguo Mountain Stone Monkey, please see Patriarch Subhuti! I would like to bow down to you and ask for immortality!" He shouted again, kowtowed heavily, and the blood on his forehead was deeply imprinted on the rough stone surface, as if A plum blossom in the snow.

Still no movement.

"Didn't you hear it?" Shihou thought, feeling vaguely worried.

In the Taoist temple, a Taoist boy held a fly whisk and walked quickly along the long mountain path into the cave, then turned around and entered the inner room.

"Master, there is a monkey..."

"Master already knows, please step aside." The white-haired old man sat on the futon and closed his eyes to practice. After just one sentence, he didn't make any sound.

The Taoist boy left the room angrily.

Under the scorching sun, a sparrow stopped on the ground, pecked at the grass growing in the gap, looked up at the stone monkey, and then quickly flew away.

"What's going on?" Shihou wiped the sweat from his face with his hand: "Am I really here early?"

The blood on his forehead had solidified, but there was still no movement at the tall red door.

"Could it be that the test has already begun?" Shihou thought.

A man in a cloth robe climbed up from the mountain and knelt beside him: "My dear Li Qing, I am from Luoqiong, Hezhou, Xiniu. I came here to seek the great road. I hope to become a disciple of Patriarch Subhuti. I am willing to be a slave and brush the scriptures every day. !”

He didn't even kowtow.

Not long after, a girl in gray clothes with a round face and a delicate face pushed open the red door and came out of the Taoist temple. She cupped her hands to the man and said, "Master, please invite me."

"Thank you, Taoist Priest, for showing you the way." The man climbed up and saluted with his hands raised.

Shihou also wanted to stand up, but the girl said coldly: "Master didn't invite you."

"Huh?" Shihou was stunned for a moment, and could only watch the two of them enter the door. The door slammed shut, and the man never came out again.

For three full days, Shihou only felt that his eyes were hazy and he was about to faint from hunger, before the red door slowly opened a gap.

It was the round-faced girl again. She crept out and said, "I am the sitting boy of Patriarch Subhuti."

"Hello, senior sister!" Shi Hou thought of saluting, but fell to the ground.

Within three days, he had already lost feeling in his feet.

Along the way, for ten years, he had never had a good night's sleep. He thought he could have a good rest for a few days after going up the mountain, but he didn't expect that the nightmare was not over yet...

The girl came to Shihou, leaned down and whispered in Shihou's ear: "Master asked, are you hungry?"

"Hungry." Stone Monkey said.

"Go back if you're hungry."

"Go back... go back?" Stone Monkey opened his mouth wide.

"Where you come from, there you go."

"I...I come from Dongsheng Shenzhou Huaguo Mountain..."

"Then go back to Dongsheng Shenzhou Huaguo Mountain." After the girl said that, she turned around and left without showing any mercy.

Stone Monkey's mouth twitched violently.

"This Patriarch Subhuti...are you mistaken! Do you, this old immortal, have any sympathy? I came here from Huaguo Mountain a hundred and eight thousand miles away! Damn it! You didn't even meet me and asked me to go back? Do you know how I traveled these hundreds of thousands of miles?" He cursed in his heart.

The girl who was about to slip in through the crack in the door straightened up suddenly and nodded her head in agreement.

This scene made Shihou stunned for a while.

"Is there someone still standing behind that door?"

The girl turned around and knelt down in front of the stone monkey, with a hint of mockery in her eyes: "Master said that saints have no way, and if they become immortals, they will not have compassion, so you should go back."

"What? Can he read my mind?"

"It's just a mind-reading skill, how can it be difficult to live with Master." The girl looked proud and turned around after speaking.

The stone monkey quickly stretched out a hand and grabbed the girl's ankle.

"Senior sister, senior sister, don't leave."

"What are you doing? Damn it! When did the master say that he would take you in? How could you scream, senior sister?" The girl raised her fly whisk and hit the stone monkey on the head, raised her foot and stepped on the stone monkey's palm, crushing her mercilessly.

After all, for a cultivator, his kick is stronger than that of an adult.

But no matter how hard she tried, Shihou wouldn't let go, just gritted his teeth and remained silent.

When she saw blood oozing from the stone monkey's palm, the girl was startled and quickly drew away her feet.

"You...what do you want to do?" The girl was about to burst into tears. After all, she was a teenager and had never seen blood.

"Master, why don't you accept me?" Shihou asked, enduring the severe pain.

"Master refuses to accept me, how do I know why? You'd better leave, it will save me a lot of trouble!"

"Where are you going?" Stone Monkey's eyes were blank and he loosened his hand slightly.

The girl quickly took the opportunity to put her feet back and jogged for a few steps before turning back and shouting: "Go back and forth from where you came from!"

"Going back and forth from where? Going back and forth from where?" Stone Monkey murmured in a low voice with a bitter smile, wiped his face with his hand, and laughed wildly.

Her face was stained with blood, and her ferocious appearance made the girl tremble in fear: "Is this monkey crazy?"

After saying that, he turned around and ran away, and the giant red door slammed shut again.

"I can't go back, I can't go back." Stone Monkey never imagined that he would inexplicably stop just one step away from becoming an immortal.

"Go back? Humph. How to go back? If we go back like this, what can I do to pick up Que'er..."

Can't give up, no matter what, because there is no way back.

If he doesn't become an immortal, he will always be a monkey, an ordinary monkey in the mountains.

He moved his body with difficulty, knelt down, lowered his head and remained silent.

The sun rises and sets, and three days pass in the blink of an eye.

I heard that people can go without food for more than ten days, but they can only go without water for seven days. Stone Monkey was exposed to the scorching sun and hadn't had a sip of water for seven days and nights. He didn't know how long he could hold on.

After ten years of training, he is no longer the stone monkey he was when he first went to sea, and he will probably be able to survive for much longer. Is it just as good this time as before?

"Why don't you accept it? Shouldn't I be tested? Is this also a test? Then why can others go in directly, but I can't? Because I came early? Or do the gods dislike me as a monkey?"

"Maybe, maybe as long as I faint, he will go out to save me. When I wake up, he will be inside the door." Suddenly thinking of the golden carp he saw in the sea ten years ago, the stone monkey raised his head He raised his eyelids and looked at the huge door with his already red eyes.

Separated by one door, there is a world of difference.

Thinking about it, Shi Hou couldn't help but smile bitterly. He was so humble that he had to kneel at the door and use his life to find a way out.

But hasn't he always been like this for the past ten years?

"Nothing can stop me! Nothing!"