In the primordial era, Gong Gong struck Buzhou Mountain in rage, shattering the sky pillar. Mountains collapsed, rivers reversed, the sun and moon spun out of order, and the heavenly river poured down on the mortal world.
With the four pillars broken, the heavens could no longer support the earth, and the earth could no longer shelter the living. Floods rampaged without end, and wildfires devoured the land.
The Mother Goddess Nuwa, heart aching for all living beings, smelted five-colored stones and sacrificed herself to mend the heavens.
One of those five-colored stones fell to the mortal world and became a stone of pure essence.
Within the stone grew a nascent spirit, blessed with Nuwa's divine power. That spirit was undying, unbound by the Three Realms, beyond the Five Elements.
The spirit eventually observed the creatures of the world and chose to be born as a monkey. He was mischievous by nature and refused to bow to any injustice in the world.
To gain immortality, he traveled the mortal realm, learning peerless abilities.
But instead of defending the righteous, he disturbed the order of heaven and earth, plunging the world into chaos.
He plundered the Dragon Palace of the Eastern Sea, stealing the divine treasure, the Ruyi Jingu Bang—the Sea-Subduing Cudgel—injuring the Dragon Kings who controlled the weather.
He altered the Book of Life and Death, trampling on the cycle of reincarnation, causing countless spirits of the dead to roam the earth.
He rebelled against Heaven, storming the Celestial Palace, scorned the gods, and defied divine authority.
But all things exist for a reason. The gods, instead of killing him outright, bestowed upon him a heavenly title, hoping he would repent and learn right from wrong.
He did not. He stole the Queen Mother's immortal peaches and Lao Jun's golden pills.
Heaven's wrath was thunderous. They cast him into Lao Jun's Eight Trigrams Furnace.
Yet the defiant monkey broke free from the divine furnace and once again wreaked havoc in Heaven.
In battle, he fought Nezha, the Great Deity of the Three Altars, and Erlang Shen, the True Lord, as well as millions of heavenly soldiers, and still did not fall behind.
At the Southern Heavenly Gate, he swept his way up to the 33rd Heaven. None could stop him, none could defeat him.
The Jade Emperor, seeing this, summoned the Buddha of the Western Heaven. Together with supreme Buddhist powers, they finally subdued and sealed the monkey.
The Buddha, merciful as ever, only imprisoned him beneath Five Elements Mountain for five hundred years, then promised him freedom.
But to rid him of his inner demons, the Buddha placed the Binding Circlet upon his head and sent him to protect the monk Tang Sanzang on his journey west to retrieve the scriptures and save the world.
In the end, the demon monkey washed away his sins, turned back from the edge, put down his butcher's knife, and converted to Buddhism.
Tamed… like a dog.
"Hahaha! How about this version of the story?"
"Sun Wukong!"
In the deepest cell of Heaven's Ninth Heaven Prison, a white-haired old immortal laughed as he looked at the monkey bound by countless chains.
The monkey's condition was miserable. His scapulae had been pierced through, his limbs mangled and bloody. His blackened blood covered him entirely, making it impossible to tell if he was alive or dead.
But this monkey was no longer the true Sun Wukong. Or rather, the body was Wukong's, but the soul belonged to another.
This story began three days ago…