Short interlude for Wukong, Bajie, and Wujing
Interlude: Wukong – The Cage You Carry
The moon is sharp tonight.
Wukong sits apart from the others, back against a tree. His staff leans beside him — asleep, for now. His tail flicks once. Twice. Still.
A breeze rustles the leaves. It sounds like bells.
He closes his eyes.
[System Echo: Replaying Emotional Ghost]Subject: Sun Wukong | Title: Great Sage Equal to Heaven]Memory Lock: Post-72nd Rebellion – Solitary Confinement Log]
He was alone in a cloud-forged cage, one designed not to hold his body… but his mind.
The system didn't suppress his strength.It suppressed attention.No one could see him. Not gods. Not mortals. Not himself.
He punched walls that weren't there.
Spoke words that dissolved before they left his tongue.
His system said nothing for 108 years.
Only on the 109th did it speak.
[You are free to go.]
No one opened a door.No one unlocked the cage.Because the cage was never real. It was agreement.
He stepped out into an unchanged sky.
And knew, without question, that the worst thing wasn't the silence.It was how much he had missed it when it ended.
He opens his eyes now.
Not in memory, but in the present.
And says to the darkness:
"Tell your gods I haven't forgiven them."
No one answers.
But he smiles anyway.
Interlude: Bajie – The Belly Remembers
Bajie snores.
Loudly.
Wujing throws a pebble. Bajie grunts and rolls over.
But he's not really asleep. Not inside.
Inside, he's remembering.
A warm temple kitchen. Pots bubbling. Steam on the windows. He's young here — thinner, brighter, unbroken. Still a general. Still a divine butcher.
The kitchen is full of laughter.
Because he's feeding them.
Not disciples.
Ghosts.
They're small. Pale. Fractured Qi signatures. Victims of war.
He cooks for them anyway. Because even in Heaven, the hungry wait.
One ghost-girl tugs his sleeve.
"Mister Pig," she says, "why do you cry when you cook?"
He blinks. Feigns confusion.
"I don't cry."
"You do. The broth tastes like it."
He wakes.
A tear on his cheek.
He wipes it with a sleeve already stained with spice.
"Might as well make breakfast," he mutters.
Because even now…
The ghosts still eat.
Interlude: Wujing – Stillness Is a Discipline
The others sleep.
Wujing meditates.
He does not dream. He was not built for dreams. The system saw to that.
Instead, he reflects.
Memory Fragment – Sea Prison Tenure, Day 9,401
He sits at the bottom of an endless trench.
Chains bound his limbs, not physically — karmically. System-wrought iron.
He recites his scripture aloud, again and again, even though the sea eats the sound.
"Stone sinks. Thought drifts. But the word remains."
A single word.
Every day.
For thirty years.
Until the sea starts to respond — not with speech, but with rhythm.
His mantra ripples in the water.Echoes in the bones of the deep.And then… he is heard.
Now, in the forest near the Wound, he listens.
Not to the sea. But to the sound of leaves.
He speaks only once.
"When the Word returns to the world, I will carry it until I drown again."
He opens his eyes.
Stillness intact.
Mantra ready.