Chapter Thirty-One: Dongfang Shuo

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As the author of *Journey to the West*, Wu Cheng'en was the one who single-handedly lifted Sun Wukong to greatness. Without Wu Cheng'en, Sun Wukong could never have leapt from a mere nobody to become an object of worship in the hearts of so many Chinese people. Calling Wu Cheng'en his second parent would hardly be an exaggeration.

When Teacher Xing and Teacher Yang first proposed choosing the soul of a literary master to pour spiritual power into me, they both suggested Wu Cheng'en. After all, *Journey to the West* was more famous. Yet I instinctively rejected the idea and proposed choosing Xu Zhonglin, the author of *The Investiture of the Gods*, instead. Only later did I learn that Xu Zhonglin had been Little Round Cake's soul in a previous life.

Wu Cheng'en had likewise been a recorder dispatched by the divine realm to the human world to write *Journey to the West*. Throughout the dynasties, countless recorders had been sent down to the mortal realm to document events. I simply did not know who Wu Cheng'en had been in the divine realm.

I lay on my bed, my thoughts in turmoil. My head felt as though it weighed a thousand pounds, and the more I thought, the more my skull seemed ready to split apart. Suddenly, a fierce wind rose inside the room, despite the doors and windows being tightly shut. My body was swept up by that unexpected gale and floated lightly into the air like a rootless feather. I had no idea how long it lasted. Gradually, the sensations of weightlessness and drifting faded, and I realized that I had landed safely. When I opened my eyes, I found myself in the training ground.

The Kunlun Divine Lord sat behind the tea table in a white battle robe, occupying the seat Teacher Xing usually used. Although the Kunlun Divine Lord and Teacher Xing were essentially one being, there were still some differences between them. In the divine realm, the Kunlun Divine Lord had always been an exceptionally stern master.

The instant I saw him, I felt an involuntary sense of awe and stammered, “Master.”

The Kunlun Divine Lord acted as though he had not heard me. With the same practiced ease Teacher Xing displayed every day, he warmed the cups, rinsed the tea leaves, and brewed the tea in one smooth motion. When he was finished, he handed me a small cup of steaming tea, which I accepted reverently with both hands.

His tone was severe. “Dongfang Shuo was Wu Cheng'en. Both he and Sun Wukong tampered with your writing.”

“Dongfang Shuo… Why would he target me?” I asked in bewilderment.

The water in the teacup I held suddenly spread outward like boiling liquid. I hurriedly placed the cup on the table. As the surface gradually settled, scene after scene appeared clearly upon the amber tea.

Inside a palace of the Han dynasty, Liu Che sat high upon his throne. Beneath him sat an old man with a rather comic appearance—Dongfang Shuo himself. The two of them watched a performance of singing and dancing.

A group of lovely dancers, beautiful as paintings, wore matching dance costumes and moved through the center of the hall. Each wore the same gentle, faint smile, as though accompanied by a soft, fragrant breeze drifting through the air.

Halfway through the performance, a delicate hand with skin as smooth as jade quietly lifted the pearl curtain on the western side of the hall. As the curtain rose, a woman holding a plain white silk fan appeared. With her face concealed behind the fan, the beauty entered the hall and followed the rhythm of the music. Her left hand deftly swept through her colorful sleeve, her slender waist bent coquettishly, and with one graceful turn she merged into the dancers. Then the cherry lips hidden behind the fan parted slightly.

Her voice, capable of shaming the lark and astounding the phoenix, echoed throughout the hall.

The woman continued turning and dancing. Only when the dance had reached its end did she lower the silk fan and give Liu Che a graceful bow.

She was none other than Li Furen, the new favorite of the Han emperor.

At last, the dancers withdrew, leaving Li Furen standing alone. Beneath her crimson gauze robe she wore a multicolored skirt. A touch of dark pigment brushed her arched brows, while a faint peach-colored blush rested upon her cheeks. Around her slender waist, narrow enough to encircle with one hand, she wore a large peony fashioned from silk. She stood there in incomparable beauty, aloof and singular.

Liu Che said proudly, “Manqian, you often say that singing and dancing flourish in Heaven, and that the celestial maidens are as beautiful as flowers—far beyond anything in the imperial palace. Compared with my Lady Li, how do those goddesses of Heaven measure up?”

Dongfang Shuo stared at Lady Li in shock.

It was her?

Lady Li smiled sweetly. She accepted Emperor Wu's outstretched hand and walked over to sit beside him.

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Liu Che smiled and said to Lady Li, “My lady may not know this, but Dongfang Shuo claims that he was an immortal banished to the mortal world after stealing the Queen Mother's peaches three times.”

Dongfang Shuo quickly recovered from his astonishment. Hearing Liu Che's words, he gave a self-mocking, roguish smile. “I suppose I, Dongfang Shuo, was simply unlucky. I stole the Queen Mother's peaches three times, and every time I was caught by the same female warrior.”

Liu Che grew interested. “Oh? Women in Heaven can serve as military generals as well?”

“There are quite a few female generals in Heaven. One in particular is named Yuli. She has a fiery temper and a short fuse. Three times she beat me, the peach-stealing rascal, until I ran all over Heaven.”

Liu Che burst out laughing. “With such a savage temperament, she must be lacking in beauty. No wonder she has never found a husband!”

Dongfang Shuo stroked his beard and cast a sidelong glance at Lady Li. Wearing an ambiguous smile, he said nothing more.

The surface of the tea rippled faintly. A subtle wave passed over it, and then the image vanished, leaving the tea perfectly still.

I raised my head and looked at the Kunlun Divine Lord, asking in confusion, “Am I Lady Li from the reign of Emperor Wu? Did Dongfang Shuo come after me because I caught him stealing peaches in Heaven?”

The Kunlun Divine Lord lightly tapped the rim of the teacup with one finger and said meaningfully, “Do not always look at the surface of things. Use the wisdom you possessed in your life as Lady Li and think carefully.”

With that, he picked up the cup of tea from my hands and flung it into the air before me. The tea instantly turned into mist, and the mist transformed into snow. The entire training ground vanished as though snowflakes were melting beneath the sun.

The next morning, just as I was about to get out of bed, a sudden wave of dizziness swept over me. I touched my forehead and found it somewhat hot. I had developed a low fever, and even after taking medicine, it did not improve throughout the day.

All day long, Little Round Cake once again became as lethargic and sleepy as he had been when the Sleeping Arhat possessed him. By evening, I realized something was wrong and immediately asked Wang Xinyue to sense what was happening.

Through the phone, Wang Xinyue's usually carefree expression turned grave. She stared at Little Round Cake's tiny face as he lay deeply lost in sleep in his crib. Suddenly, a flash of insight crossed her mind, and she blurted out, “Someone gave Little Round Cake a Sleeping Pill. The purpose was to make you anxious and unable to write in peace. Even your sudden low fever today was secretly caused by that person.”

The moment Wang Xinyue finished speaking, I suddenly sensed a strange fluctuation in the air, as though an invisible person had been hiding there and was now enraged at having been exposed.

A force suddenly attacked me. I shouted, “Warrior God Saber—strike!”

The Warrior God Saber materialized at once. Blue flames hissed along its blade as it slashed toward the invisible person behind me.

“Ah!”

The man could no longer maintain his invisibility. While dodging, he stumbled and revealed himself. He was an old man with snow-white hair and white robes, and his features were exactly like those of the Dongfang Shuo I had seen earlier. He glared furiously at me. Although the Warrior God Saber had not struck him, he had realized that I had discovered him. Gritting his teeth, he spun around and vanished into the air with a swish.

“Damn it, that bastard Dongfang Shuo!” Wang Xinyue's curse came through the phone.

I focused on the screen and saw that Dongfang Shuo had not truly fled. In the blink of an eye, he had gone to Wang Xinyue's home.

Because Wang Xinyue had helped me investigate the matter, Dongfang Shuo resented her interference. Taking advantage of the fact that her attention was focused on me, he had attempted to launch a sneak attack.

That old bastard Dongfang Shuo was as devious as ever.

Behind Wang Xinyue hung a painting of the Goddess of the Luo River. Her figure flickered, and she drifted gracefully out of the painting. Wielding her red silk magical weapon, she engaged Dongfang Shuo in fierce combat.

Dongfang Shuo was, after all, a civil official. He was no match for the Goddess of the Luo River. After several exchanges, he was defeated and could only withdraw resentfully before leaving in disgrace.

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I contacted Teacher Xing by video. He removed the Sleeping Pill from Little Round Cake and fed him another pill to dispel its effects. Little Round Cake's eyelashes trembled, and he slowly opened his clear eyes before giving me an innocent smile.

Teacher Xing's eyes blazed with a sharp light. In a deep voice, he said, “Dongfang Shuo placed a formation on you. I will break it for you.”

A vast and majestic force surged from Teacher Xing's palm, rushing like a raging tide toward the formation hidden within the void.

Boom!

A deafening explosion suddenly rang out. Under the impact of Teacher Xing's power, the invisible formation shattered instantly. A shrill scream echoed through the air. Dongfang Shuo had suffered a backlash from the destroyed formation, and at the very least, he had lost half his life.

Once Teacher Xing reported Dongfang Shuo's actions to the Heavenly Court, the divine realm quickly sent heavenly soldiers and divine generals to arrest him. The Jade Emperor ordered Dongfang Shuo to be imprisoned in the Celestial Prison.

Many people have entertained dark theories about *Journey to the West*, believing that the novel conceals a tremendous conspiracy.

Quite a few assume that the conspiracy was aimed at Sun Wukong, or that it arose from the conflict between Buddhism and Taoism. But the truth is otherwise.

At most, Sun Wukong was merely a minor underling. The reason Wu Cheng'en exaggerated Sun Wukong's abilities in the book was that, as the first male protagonist of the pilgrimage to retrieve the scriptures, he could not be portrayed as too weak. It was like parents transforming their own son from an uneducated delinquent and useless failure into a polished elite who had returned from studying abroad with a golden résumé.

The embellishment Wu Cheng'en poured into Sun Wukong could have filled the entire Eastern Sea. Which righteous deity in Heaven ever took Sun Wukong seriously?

Back then, the Jade Emperor dispatched the civil official Dongfang Shuo to reincarnate in the mortal realm as Wu Cheng'en and write down the events of the journey west to retrieve the scriptures. What the Jade Emperor never anticipated was that a mysterious force within the divine realm would quietly use *Journey to the West* as a chessboard and set a grand scheme in motion. Dongfang Shuo secretly joined that mysterious force.

The scheme behind *Journey to the West* continued for many years and achieved tremendous success. Ever since the novel appeared, the Jade Emperor's faith and prestige among mortals had come under an unprecedented threat.

This was especially true in the famous 1983 television adaptation of *Journey to the West*. In that series, when Sun Wukong stormed into the Hall of the Golden Chimes, the actor playing the Jade Emperor hid beneath a table in terror and shouted, “Quick, summon the Tathagata Buddha!” That cowardly image became deeply rooted in the public consciousness, causing the Jade Emperor's reputation in the eyes of the masses to plummet and inflicting an enormous impact.

The gods require incense and offerings of faith from the mortal world. The stronger the people's faith, the greater a god's power and the more secure that god's position.

Many people believe that the Jade Emperor is unworthy of his rank because of the subtle influence exerted by *Journey to the West*. Ever since the novel became popular, it has been nearly impossible to find a positive portrayal of the Jade Emperor in television dramas. In most series, he is either the villain who tears lovers apart, a fool incapable of distinguishing loyalty from treachery, or a weak and incompetent ruler. He almost always appears in the guise of an antagonist.

No wonder the primordial spirit of Teacher Xing—the Kunlun Divine Lord—told me not always to look at the surface, but to pay attention to the details.

It was because Dongfang Shuo knew that I would expose the entire conspiracy hidden within *Journey to the West*.

I still remembered that, before I descended to the mortal world, the Jade Emperor had summoned me alone to the Hall of the Golden Chimes. Filled with unease and anxiety, I told him that I feared I would be unable to complete such an important task as a recorder, since I was a military general and recorders had always been civil officials sent down to the mortal world.

The Jade Emperor's expression was solemn, but his tone remained calm and composed.

“A military general's affairs are best written by a military general himself. Whether you write well or not is unimportant. What matters is that you keep justice in your heart. I would rather you write poorly than allow those civil officials to descend again and distort the truth with their brushstrokes and spout nonsense.”

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