"A name is not just a word—it is a destiny. Choose carefully, for once given, it cannot be taken back."
The celebration lasted seven days.
The monkeys of Flower-Fruit Mountain had never known such joy. Their king had returned—returned after ten long years, returned with powers beyond their imagining, returned to fulfill the promise he had made when he left. They danced and sang and feasted, piling the stone tables of the Water Curtain Cave with the finest fruits, the sweetest nuts, the rarest delicacies the mountain could provide.
The Monkey King sat at the head of the great hall, surrounded by his people, and for the first time in ten years, he felt truly at home.
Memory sat at his right hand, as she had always done. She was older now—so old that her fur had gone completely white, so old that her eyes had grown cloudy with age. But she was alive. She had waited, as she promised. And now, seeing her king returned, she smiled with a contentment that made her whole face glow.
"You are different," she said, her voice thin as wind through dry leaves. "The mountain changed you."
"The mountain taught me," the Monkey King corrected gently. "And I have brought back what I learned—for all of us."
He looked around the hall, at the faces of his subjects. Some he recognized—the young ones who had been children when he left were now adults, with children of their own. Others were strangers—born during his absence, who knew him only from stories. But all of them looked at him with hope in their eyes. All of them believed that he could save them from the fate that awaited every living thing.
He hoped they were right.
On the eighth day, when the celebrations had finally quieted and the monkeys had returned to their daily routines, the Monkey King called his closest advisors to a private chamber deep within the cave.
Memory was there, of course. So were four elderly monkeys—the same four who had sat with Grandfather on that fateful day, ten years ago. Three of them had survived; the fourth had joined Grandfather in death during the king's absence. Also present were the leaders of the various monkey tribes that had joined the kingdom over the centuries—strong, wise monkeys who had proven themselves worthy of trust.
The Monkey King looked at them gathered before him, and felt the weight of his responsibility settle onto his shoulders once more.
"I have returned with great power," he began. "The immortal Subodhi taught me secrets that most beings could not learn in a thousand lifetimes. I have mastered the seventy-two earthly transformations—I can change my form into anything I wish, bird or beast, tree or stone, man or demon. I have mastered the cloud-somersault—I can travel one hundred and eight thousand miles in a single leap. And I have mastered the inner alchemy that transforms the body into something eternal."
He paused, letting his words sink in.
"I am immortal now. I will not age, I will not sicken, I will not die—unless something kills me, and even that would be difficult. The question is: can I share this gift? Can I make all of you immortal too?"
The monkeys leaned forward, hope burning in their eyes.
"I do not know," the Monkey King admitted. "The techniques I learned require years of study and practice. They require a kind of discipline that not everyone possesses. And they require—" He stopped, uncertain how to explain.
"What?" Memory asked. "What do they require?"
"They require a certain kind of being," the Monkey King said slowly. "A being capable of understanding the deepest mysteries of existence. I do not know if monkeys—ordinary monkeys—can achieve what I have achieved. The immortals I studied with were all humans, or beings who had once been human. They had minds shaped differently from ours."
The chamber fell silent. The hope in the monkeys' eyes began to dim.
"But," the Monkey King continued quickly, "that does not mean I will stop trying. I will teach what I can. I will adapt the techniques as best I can. And in the meantime, I will use my powers to protect this kingdom, to drive out our enemies, to make Flower-Fruit Mountain a place where monkeys can live in peace and safety for as long as possible."
He rose, his golden fur seeming to glow in the dim light.
"I am your king. I have always been your king. But now I am something more—I am your protector, your teacher, your shield against the darkness. And I will not rest until every monkey on this mountain can look at death and laugh."
The monkeys cheered—not with the wild joy of the celebration, but with a deeper, quieter hope. Their king had returned, and he had brought power. What more could they ask?
The years that followed were the golden age of Flower-Fruit Mountain.
The Monkey King organized his kingdom with new wisdom, learned from the immortals. He established ranks and responsibilities, creating a structured society where every monkey knew their place and purpose. He trained a corps of warrior monkeys, teaching them the basics of martial arts—enough to defend the mountain against any threat. He explored every corner of the territory, mapping its resources, identifying its dangers, making it safe for all who lived there.
And he taught.
Every day, he gathered the monkeys who showed the most promise and tried to pass on what he had learned. He taught them to meditate, to quiet their minds, to feel the energy that flowed through all living things. He taught them to breathe in ways that strengthened the body and clarified the spirit. He taught them the beginnings of transformation—small changes, like shifting the color of their fur or making themselves slightly larger or smaller.
Some learned faster than others. A few showed real talent. But none—not one—came close to achieving what the Monkey King had achieved. The techniques that came naturally to him, that he had mastered in months, took his students years to barely grasp. And even then, they could not transform completely, could not achieve true immortality, could not do more than extend their lives by a few decades.
The Monkey King watched them struggle, and felt the stone in his belly grow heavier.
He had promised to save them. He had promised to return with the gift of eternal life. And now, faced with the reality of their limitations, he had to accept that he might not be able to keep that promise.
Not for all of them. Not even for most of them.
But perhaps—perhaps for some.
One evening, as the sun set over the mountain and the waterfall caught fire with orange and red, the Monkey King sat alone on the natural bridge, thinking.
Memory found him there, as she always did when he needed her.
"You are troubled," she said, lowering herself carefully to sit beside him. Her joints creaked; her breathing was labored. She was so old now that every movement cost her something.
"I am failing," the Monkey King said quietly. "I cannot give them what I promised. I cannot make them immortal."
Memory was silent for a moment. Then she laughed—a soft, wheezing sound that held no mockery, only affection.
"You foolish child," she said. "You think we expected you to make us all immortal?"
He looked at her, confused. "I promised—"
"You promised to try. You promised to seek answers. You promised to return." She reached out and took his hand. "And you did all of those things. Do you think we measure you only by what you can give us?"
The Monkey King did not know how to answer.
"When you left," Memory continued, "I was already old. I knew I might not live to see you return. And yet I waited—not because I expected you to bring me immortality, but because I loved you. Because you were my king, my child, my family. Because seeing you again, even once more, was worth any waiting."
Tears pricked the Monkey King's eyes. "But I wanted—"
"I know what you wanted." Memory squeezed his hand. "You wanted to save us all. That is why you are a great king—because you care so much. But even a great king cannot do everything. Even a great king must accept that some things are beyond his power."
She released his hand and looked out at the waterfall, her cloudy eyes reflecting the fading light.
"I will die soon," she said calmly. "Not tonight, not tomorrow, but soon. And when I do, I want you to remember something."
"What?"
"I want you to remember that you gave me the greatest gift any king can give. You gave me hope. For ten years, while you were gone, I hoped. I hoped you would return. I hoped you would succeed. I hoped that death might not be the end." She turned to look at him, and even through the cloudiness, he could see the love in her eyes. "That hope kept me alive long past my time. It gave me years I would not otherwise have had. And that—that is a kind of immortality."
The Monkey King wept then—wept for the first time since Grandfather's death, wept for all the years he had been gone, wept for the love he felt for this ancient, dying monkey who had been his mother, his grandmother, his everything.
Memory held him as he wept, her thin arms wrapped around his golden fur, and said nothing. There was nothing to say.
Memory died three weeks later.
She went quietly, in her sleep, with a smile on her face. The monkeys found her in the morning, curled on her favorite sleeping mat, as peaceful as if she had simply decided to stop dreaming.
The Monkey King sat with her body for an entire day. He did not weep—he had no tears left. He simply sat, holding her hand, remembering everything she had given him.
She had been there when he first emerged from the stone. She had been there when he became king. She had been there when he decided to seek immortality. She had been there when he returned. For over three hundred years, she had been the constant in his life, the one who always understood, the one who always believed.
And now she was gone.
He buried her at the top of the mountain, where she could see the sun rise each morning and set each evening. He planted a tree over her grave—a sapling from the oldest tree on the mountain, so that her spirit would live on in its growth. And he carved her name into the rock beside the tree, in characters that would last forever.
MEMORY
WHO REMEMBERED EVERYTHING
AND LOVED WITHOUT CONDITION
He stood before the grave for a long time, the wind ruffling his fur, the sun warming his face. And slowly, painfully, he began to understand what she had tried to tell him.
Immortality was not just about living forever. It was about living well—about loving and being loved, about giving hope and receiving it, about leaving something behind that would outlast the body.
Memory had not achieved eternal life. But she had achieved something perhaps more precious: eternal love. The monkeys would tell her story for generations. They would remember her kindness, her wisdom, her unwavering faith in her king. She would live on in their memories, in their hearts, in the very fabric of the kingdom she had helped build.
That was a kind of immortality.
It was not enough—not for the Monkey King, who still carried the stone in his belly. But it was something. It was a beginning.
The years passed.
The Monkey King continued to rule, to teach, to protect. He drove out demons who threatened the mountain. He made alliances with neighboring tribes. He expanded the kingdom until Flower-Fruit Mountain was known throughout the Eastern Continent as a place of peace and prosperity.
And he continued to search for a way to share his immortality.
He experimented with different techniques, different approaches. He studied ancient texts, consulted with other immortals he met in his travels, even ventured into the realms of gods and demons to seek answers. Nothing worked. The secret of immortality could not be transferred—it had to be earned, and earning it required a kind of focus and discipline that ordinary monkeys simply did not possess.
He watched his subjects grow old and die, generation after generation. He mourned each one, but the mourning grew easier with time. Not because he loved them less, but because he understood better. Death was not the enemy he had once believed it to be. It was simply part of life—the closing of a circle, the completion of a journey.
But still, he could not accept it for himself. The stone in his belly had not gone away; it had simply changed. It no longer drove him with desperate fear, but it still reminded him of what he had lost, what he might yet lose, what he refused to surrender.
He was immortal. He would live forever. But forever was a long time, and the loneliness of it sometimes threatened to crush him.
One day, a young monkey came to him.
He was small—barely more than a infant—with bright eyes and fur that seemed to shimmer with a golden tint, like the Monkey King's own. He sat before the throne and looked up at his king with an expression of pure adoration.
"Great King," the young monkey said, his voice high and clear. "I have a question."
The Monkey King smiled. He loved the young ones—their curiosity, their fearlessness, their endless questions. "Ask."
"What is your name?"
The Monkey King blinked. It was not the question he had expected. "My name? I am the Handsome Monkey King. Everyone knows that."
"Yes, but that is a title, not a name." The young monkey tilted his head. "The humans have names—words that belong to them alone, that tell who they really are. Do you have a name like that?"
The Monkey King was silent for a long moment.
He had never thought about this. On Flower-Fruit Mountain, he was simply the king. Among the immortals, he was the monkey student. But a name—a true name, a name that belonged to him alone? He had never had such a thing.
"I do not," he admitted. "I was born from stone. I had no mother to name me, no father to give me a place in the world. I have always just been... me."
The young monkey nodded thoughtfully. "Then you should get one. A real name. A name that means something."
He scampered away, leaving the Monkey King alone with his thoughts.
A name. A true name. The idea took root in his mind and would not let go.
That night, the Monkey King sat alone on the natural bridge, looking up at the stars. Memory's star—the one he had named for her—shone bright and steady, as it had every night since her death.
"A name," he said aloud, as if she could hear him. "What name should I take?"
The stars did not answer. But somewhere, in the depths of his memory, a voice spoke.
The name is not given—it is discovered.
Subodhi's words, from long ago. The Monkey King had almost forgotten them.
A name is discovered. Not chosen, not invented, but discovered—uncovered from within, like a statue hidden in marble, waiting to be revealed.
He closed his eyes and looked inward, into the depths of his own being. He saw the stone from which he had been born—the ancient rock that had soaked up the essence of heaven and earth for eons before giving him life. He saw the monkey he had become—the king, the seeker, the immortal. He saw the journey he had taken—the raft, the sea, the mountain, the master. He saw the stone in his belly—the question that would never let him rest, the drive that would never let him stop.
And slowly, a word began to form.
Wu — emptiness, nothingness, the void from which all things come and to which all things return.
Kong — emptiness again, but a different emptiness—the emptiness of the sky, the emptiness of the enlightened mind, the emptiness that is not absence but potential.
Wukong. Awakened to Emptiness. One who understands that all things are empty—including the self, including death, including the very fear that had driven him across an ocean and up a mountain.
The Monkey King opened his eyes. Tears streamed down his face—not tears of sorrow, but tears of recognition. This was his name. This had always been his name, waiting for him to discover it.
"Wukong," he whispered. "I am Wukong."
The stars seemed to shine brighter. The waterfall seemed to sing a new song. The mountain itself seemed to acknowledge the truth of his words.
He was Wukong. The Monkey King. The stone child who had awakened to emptiness.
And now, finally, he was complete.
The next morning, the Monkey King gathered his subjects in the great hall of the Water Curtain Cave.
"My people," he announced, "I have discovered something. Something I should have discovered long ago."
The monkeys leaned forward, curious.
"I have no name," he said. "I was born from stone, with no mother to name me, no father to give me a place in the world. For three hundred years, I have been simply 'king'—a title, not a name. But last night, I discovered what my name should be."
He paused, letting the silence stretch.
"I am Wukong. Awakened to Emptiness. That is my true name, the name that has always been waiting for me to find it."
The monkeys looked at one another. Then, slowly, they began to chant.
"Wukong! Wukong! Wukong!"
The sound grew and grew, filling the cave, echoing off the stone walls, rising to the waterfall and beyond. The Monkey King—Wukong—stood and listened, and felt something he had never felt before.
He belonged. Not just as king, not just as protector, but as himself. As Wukong. As the one who had awakened.
When the chanting finally died down, a young monkey stepped forward—the same one who had asked the question the day before.
"Wukong," he said, testing the name. "It is beautiful. What does it mean?"
Wukong knelt so that he was at eye level with the child. "It means that I have learned the greatest secret of all."
"What secret?"
"That everything is empty. The mountain, the sea, the sky—empty. You, me, all of us—empty. Even death—empty."
The young monkey frowned. "That sounds sad."
Wukong laughed—a real laugh, full and free. "No, little one. It is the opposite of sad. Because if everything is empty, then nothing can truly be lost. Your mother, your father, your friends—when they die, they do not disappear. They simply return to the emptiness from which they came. And the emptiness is always there, always waiting, always ready to give them back to you in some new form."
The young monkey's eyes widened. "Really?"
"Really." Wukong ruffled his fur. "I did not understand this for a very long time. But now I do. And understanding it has set me free."
He stood and looked out at his subjects—thousands of monkeys, from the youngest to the oldest, all watching him with love and trust.
"I am Wukong," he said again. "And I am your king. And together, we will make this mountain a place where emptiness is understood, where death is not feared, where love outlasts any body and any life. That is my promise to you—not eternal life, but eternal meaning. Not immortality, but eternal love."
The monkeys cheered. They did not fully understand his words—how could they, when he had spent centuries learning their meaning? But they understood his love, his commitment, his unwavering dedication to their well-being.
And that, Wukong realized, was enough.
That night, he sat alone on the natural bridge, looking up at Memory's star.
"I found my name," he told her. "Wukong. Awakened to Emptiness. Do you like it?"
The star twinkled, as if in answer.
"I understand now," he continued. "What you tried to tell me. Immortality is not about living forever. It is about living fully. It is about loving completely. It is about leaving something behind that will never die."
He reached up, as if he could touch the star.
"I will never forget you, Memory. You will live in me forever—in my heart, in my mind, in the very emptiness that I have awakened to. That is your immortality. That is the gift you gave me."
He sat there for a long time, watching the stars, feeling the peace that had finally come to rest in his heart. The stone in his belly was still there—it would always be there, he suspected. But it no longer weighed him down. It had become something else—a compass, a guide, a reminder of why he had begun this journey in the first place.
He was Wukong. Awakened to Emptiness.
And his journey was far from over.
For the one who awakens must still walk through the world. The one who understands must still act. And the one who has found his name must still live up to it—in every moment, every choice, every breath.
Wukong sat beneath the stars, and the stars looked down, and somewhere, far away, his destiny was already beginning to unfold.
[End of Chapter 6]