The pilgrimage began quietly.
No oath. No farewell. Tang Sanzang simply organized his belongings, confirmed the sutras were complete, and set out—as though this westward journey were not a departure, but a scheduled return.
I walked ahead of him.
This position was deliberate. It allowed both protection and supervision. Whatever happened, I was to be the first to respond.
That was my assignment.
Tang Sanzang rarely looked back.
Not from coldness, but from professional focus. His gaze remained forward, his steps steady, his awareness of the rear kept to a minimum.
"Looking back breeds doubt," he once explained. "Once doubt arises, the road unravels."
When he chanted, his tone was gentle, precise. Each syllable seemed calibrated.
It was not prayer.It was reproduction.
I tried to hear emotion in his chanting, but failed.
Later, I understood:
He was not required to understand the sutras.
Only to ensure they were transmitted correctly.
Zhu Bajie walked in the middle.
He constantly complained—about the road, the food, the nights—but when action was required, he never hesitated.
He knew what was to be done.
"Rules," he liked to say, "aren't meant to be liked. They're meant to be used."
He charged into danger first, never questioning whether it was necessary. Afterward, he demanded rewards without doubting their legitimacy.
He lived efficiently.
Sha Wujing brought up the rear.
He spoke little, only collecting what had been left behind—damaged tools, forgotten items, occasional kindnesses.
Like a river repeatedly reshaped, he no longer remembered his original course.
One night, he murmured, "This way, there will be no mistakes."
I did not know whether he was reassuring me or himself.
The White Dragon Horse lowered its head.
It joined no discussions, offered no opinions. It simply moved forward.
I tried listening to its thoughts, but heard only a single rhythm:
One step.Another step.
It was the calm of abandoned judgment.
And I walked at the front.
They called me Wukong.
The name fit well, like borrowed clothing worn too long—until even I forgot my original shape.
There were many monsters on the road.
But they were not random.
Each threat was precisely calibrated: enough to endanger, never enough to derail the journey.
Like test points after repeated simulation.
At Black Wind Mountain, a bear demon blocked the path.
He guarded a temple, stole sutras, yet did not flee. He sat before the temple, anxious, waiting—like someone awaiting an exam.
"I only wanted to see," he said, "whether these sutras are truly so important."
I raised my staff, but Tang Sanzang stopped me.
"Ask first," he said.
So we asked.
The bear said he had listened but not understood; followed instructions but changed nothing. So he began to doubt whether the sutras solved anything.
Tang Sanzang replied only:
"You have not listened long enough."
Then he ordered me to act.
The bear was subdued. The sutras retrieved.
In that moment, I understood:
Doubt itselfwas the crime.
It happened again and again.
Monsters blocking the road out of resentment.People interpreting sutras independently, branded heretics.Villages refusing the pilgrimage, unwilling to accept new norms.
The procedure never changed:
Listen first.Then classify.Finally, correct.
I was the one who corrected.
Fatigue set in.
Not physical, but the wear of constant judgment. I had to decide, instantly, which deviations were tolerable and which must be erased.
The criteria were never written.
They existed only as invisible consensus.
One night, I asked Zhu Bajie, "You never doubt?"
He rolled over and yawned.
"What good would doubt do?" he said. "Thinking won't shorten the road."
"What if the road itself is wrong?" I asked.
He was silent for a moment.
"Then we really can't stop," he said. "Stopping means there's nothing left."
That night, I could not enter meditation.
In my six ears, interference began to appear—not external noise, but unrecorded residue.
Like Wukong's echo.
For the first time, I realized:
The pilgrimage was not a path to an endpoint.
It was the endpoint.