A friendly question swirled through the white space like a gust of wind.
Li Qingshan suddenly became rather speechless. He was not the person that this one had been waiting for.
The stone monkey then lowered the claws that blocked his eyes. Two streaks of light shot out from his eyes, illuminating the endless white. He studied Li Qingshan and was greatly disappointed. “So you’re not!”
Li Qingshan shook his head. “I’m not.”
The stone monkey wriggled and stood up, but he still only reached up to Li Qinsghan’s chest. He had a scarlet-red face and brownish-yellow fur, the standard look of a monkey. If he did not possess three heads and six arms, he was basically no different from a wild monkey in the mountains.
However, perhaps because he had spent far too long in the Formless realm, Li Qingshan felt like he had never seen such a novel and interesting thing before. He basically could not shift his eyes away.
“Sir, are you perhaps the Wind-coursing Great Sage, the Macaque King?”
The Macaque King extended his long arms and grabbed Li Qingshan by the collar suddenly, dragging him over to his face. He raised his head and bared his teeth. “Who are you, kid? How dare you tap this Great Sage’s head?”
Li Qingshan found this all quite hilarious. If it were not for the fact that he knew who he was, he basically would have felt the urge to stomp this damned monkey to death. “I’m-”
“Hold on!”
Right when Li Qingshan was about to explain, the Macaque King suddenly interrupted him and brought an arm over his mouth. Afterwards, he lowered the claws over his ears, and his ears twitched. He smiled. “You’re Li Qingshan, born in Crouching Ox village of the Clear River prefecture in the nine provinces. Am I correct?”
Li Qingshan could only say, “Yes.”
“Yeah, at least you’re honest and not lying to this Great Sage!”
The Macaque King let go in satisfaction and even helped him fix his collar, brushing away the non-existent dust. He reached out with his six arms and his three heads yawned at the same time. He seemed like he had just woken up from a wonderful nap. He did not resemble a prisoner at all.
“…” Li Qingshan was speechless. Why would I lie about that?
The Macaque King placed his six arms on his hips at the same time and then asked arrogantly, “Now let me ask you, what are you doing here?”
“I-”
“Hold on!”
The Macaque King interrupted him again. He shook his three heads, and they collided together with a thunk. His three heads and six arms merged back into one head and two arms.
Only his six ears overlapped together. The tips of the ears trembled at the same time as if he was listening for something. He said with realisation, “Oh, so big bro ox sent you here! I’ve blamed you wrongly then. In other words, you’re the eighth brother?”
Li Qingshan nodded silently.
The Macaque King grabbed him by his hands affectionately. “Eighth brother, why didn’t you tell me? Sigh, I shouldn’t have been so aggressive to you earlier. I must have frightened you!” He extended his arm as far as possible and rubbed Li Qingshan’s head to comfort him.
Li Qingshan squinted his eyes and met the Macaque King’s clever, bright eyes. Time seemed to slow down.
He sucked in a deep breath and opened his mouth slowly. “I-”
“Hold on!”
Li Qingshan flew into a rage. Are you still going to let me talk? What kind of fool are you supposed to be?
The Macaque King suddenly vanished before appearing on the top of Li Qingshan’s head out of thin air. He stood tall with his head raised and his tail sticking high up, such that he seemed like a flagpole. He announced proudly, “I am the six-eared macaque, sharp in hearing, skilled in observation, understanding and all-knowing!”
Li Qingshan shivered inside. The six-eared macaque, whatever, I want to stomp this damned monkey to death!
The Macaque King leapt around gently, avoiding Li Qingshan’s arms as he reached for him. His head suddenly dropped down, and he giggled. “You can call me six-eared bro! Also, you better not speak ill of me in your head! What doesn’t six-eared bro know?” After a pause, he continued, “Six-eared bro knows everything!”
Li Qingshan was overcome with a deep sense of helplessness. He suddenly discovered just how hopeless it was to start a revolution with someone like him. He almost lost the attainment of Neither Perception Nor Non-perception in the process.
“Six-eared bro, you’re so foolish. Does your family know?”
“My family? You mean, first brother, second sister, third brother, fourth brother, little sixth, and old seventh? Oh right, and there’s you now too, eighth brother!” The Macaque King counted on his fingers.
Li Qngshan’s heart softened. He thought of Xiao An and said tenderly, “Six-eared bro, could you…”
“I can’t. I stand wherever I want to stand! I sit…” The Macaque King just sat down on Li Qingshan’s head. “wherever I want to sit too!”
Li Qingshan’s feelings of affection immediately vanished. He leapt up and cursed him. “Damned monkey, get your ass down here!”
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“Heh, how disrespectful!” The Macaque King lost his temper as well. “Say that one more time and I’m going to take a shit!”
“Six-eared bro, surely we can talk this through!”
Li Qingshan immediately lost his spine. If others tried to beat him up or kill him, it would instead rouse his fighting spirit, but he really did become rather powerless given the current situation.
The Macaque King crossed one leg over the other. “That’s more like it.”
How could Li Qingshan just let the matter be? He thought of something, “Six-eared bro, since you know everything, why did you mistake me for someone else earlier? Like some ‘Wukong’!”
The Macaque King dodged that topic. “About that… You misheard me. I was asking whether you comprehended emptiness yet. In this Formless realm, how can you not comprehend emptiness? Heh, let’s not talk about this anymore. Big brother has sent you to find me because you have an important mission!”
Li Qingshan also became serious. “What mission?”
“The crisis of the world is imminent, yet big brother is trapped beyond the Nine Heavens. Our priority right now is to free second sister so that she can preside over the entire situation and scoop that stone lion out of the water first!”
Li Qingshan was surprised. “Second sister! The Ocean-upheaving Great Sage, the Serpent Demon King!?” And that stone lion must be the Mountain-moving Great Sage, the Lion Spirit King, in Ruin’s End. He wondered whether his other self had met with him yet.
“That’s right.”
“Where is she?”
The Macaque King did not directly answer him. His six ears perked up, and he listened quietly for quite a good while before spitting out a single word sharply, “Dragonsgrave!”
“What kind of place is Dragonsgrave?”
“The ancestral grave of the Dragon clan. All true dragons go there and wait for their deaths when they sense death approaching.” The Macaque King fumed. “Those bastards from the heavenly palace sure are vicious. They actually locked her up in a wretched place like that!”
“How do I reach Dragonsgrave?”
“There’s only one way.”
“Become a true dragon.”
“I see!”
Li Qingshan sank into his thoughts for a while. If he had guessed correctly, the last divine transformation should have been the True Dragon Transformation.
The true dragon, the phoenix, the qilin, and the spirit turtle corresponded with four legendary spirits. They were natural spirits that already existed since the formation of the universe.
“And then?”
“And then…” The Macaque King listened closely for a while longer before telling Li Qingshan the locations of the Heaven-stirring Great Sage, the Peng Demon King, and the Soul-controlling Great Sage, the Snub-nosed Moneky King. “As long as you tell this to second sister, it’s enough. You don’t have to worry about the rest.”
If he included brother ox beyond the Nine Heavens, the second sister in Dragonsgrave, and the six-eared bro right here, he knew the location of six of the Great Sages. There was still one missing.
As a result, Li Qingshan asked without good intentions as if he was in thought, “Then, six-eared bro, what about the last one?”
The Macaque King’s ears perked up. He listened around again before scratching his ears. “This… he has problems at home, so you don’t have to worry.”
“But aren’t we his ‘family’? You’re all trapped, so where’s he?”
“This…” The Macaque King was unable to answer that.
“Don’t tell me he became…”
“Shut your mouth!” The Macaque King flew into a fury and bared his teeth.
Li Qingshan was completely unthreatened. Then he asked, “Why were you suppressed originally?”
The Macaque King suddenly widened his eyes, which spun around rapidly. He abruptly let out a strange cry and leapt up. He began to expand, reaching a hundred metres, a thousand metres, ten thousand metres tall… until he filled the entire white space, struggling, roaring, and ready to declare war at the world!
The Cakravadaparvata mountains rumbled as the entire Hell realm shook violently.
The Tower of Gazing Home collapsed, the Road to the Yellow Springs was broken, and the River of Forgetfulness flowed in reverse.
The six realms of sa?sāra and the trichiliocosm were all affected, leading to many earthquakes, rockslides, storms, and floods. Great gales uprooted colossal trees and swept up great waves on the ocean.
King Pingdeng’s expression suddenly changed. As long as they had yet to Merge the Void with the Dao, even True Immortals were not indestructible.
The Ten Hell Guards exchanged glances, all wanting to retreat. If it were not for King Pingdeng’s presence, they would have scattered a long time ago.
K?itigarbha sat unfazed, chanting away softly as if he was comforting him yet also suppressing him.
Li Qingshan stood within the centre of the storm, experiencing the unbelievable power and might. This was no regular monkey after all, but the Wind-coursing Great Sage.
His cultivation at the sixth heavenly tribulation was completely insignificant. Even just a gentle breeze could erase his existence. Even with how furious the Macaque King was, he did not harm him at all, probably because he acknowledged him as his eighth brother!
Li Qingshan understood that he was simply too heart-broken.
A while later, perhaps due to K?itigarbha’s chanting, the Macaque King gradually calmed down. “Don’t ask anything more about it. There are also things that I don’t know!” He extended a claw that seemed as vast as a grassland. “Enter my palm. I’ll send you out of here!”
Li Qingshan leapt onto the Macaque King’s palm. “You…” This time, the Macaque King did not interrupt him, but he had no idea what to say. Even after becoming a Great Sage, would it all still be so painful?
The Macaque King said, “Qingshan, I will convert everything you’ve comprehended here into a letter of wind. You don’t have to comprehend it all again outside.”
“Alright.” Li Qingshan nodded. This was extremely helpful to him. Probably even many True Immortals and arhats never received such great treatment, yet he did not thank him.
The Macaque King smiled in satisfaction. “You have to believe that we’re different from those guys up in the heavens!”
Li Qingshan knew he was referring to him as well by “we”. He nodded. “I believe!”
The Macaque King cheered up again and grinned. “That’s more like it!” Then his cheeks swelled up before he blew hard.
Li Qingshan suddenly felt like his body had become weightless. He was hoisted up by a great gust of wind, such that he became a part of the wind.
He flew out of this white land immediately, over the Cakravadaparvata mountains, over the Ten Courts of Yanluo. He saw the king of hell that came after him before.
King Pingdeng seemed to sense him, gazing up, but he did not see him.
He even saw the large ghost who sold tickets to the Tower of Gazing Home who was currently crushed under the tower, howling out in pain. He could not help but smile. When he looked around again, he had already left the Hell realm, returning to the Human realm.
In the Formless realm, the Macaque King gradually shrank, conjuring his three heads and six arms again. He covered his eyes, ears, and mouth, not seeing, not listening, and not speaking, yet he wept in dejection. They rolled down his cheeks, turning into stone.
“Wukong, why?”
