Chapter 1431: The Wordless True Scripture Has Marvelous Uses; The New Heavenly Lord Grips Power Tightly (5/5, begging subscriptions)

"Junior brother, don't you regret it?"

The substitute monkey stood beneath Mount Wuzhi, looking at Six-Ears, whose head alone poked out, and asked with heartfelt emotion.

By this time, several days had passed since the Antian Grand Assembly, and several years had gone by in the mortal realm.

On Mount Wuzhi, where Six-Ears was held, moss had already grown over the stone.

Six-Ears laughed and said, "My heart is overjoyed — where would regret come from?"

As he spoke, he grabbed the iron pellets before him and crunched them down, then drank a cup of copper juice, shouting that it hit the spot.

"Only by enduring bitterest hardship can one rise above others. The suffering I bear today — who knows but that it is the blessed reward of tomorrow?"

At this point, Six-Ears abruptly cut himself off.

The matter was nearly successful, and he could not help showing off a little.

Only if he roused his senior brother's ambition now, then when the time came, what business would the honored seat of the Victorious Fighting Buddha have with him?

The substitute monkey shook his head: "That is not so. I have heard it said that once you have endured the bitterest of hardships, there will still be endless hardship to eat. This suffering has no end — even Fomen speaks of a boundless sea of suffering."

Six-Ears inwardly sneered, but his face remained perfectly calm: "Senior brother, just return to Tiangong and take up your post. I have my own plans."

The substitute monkey nodded and set down the fruit basket in his hand.

Inside were no delicacies — only fruits from Flower-Fruit Mountain.

After chatting idly with Six-Ears for a while, he at last rode a cloud back to Tiangong.

"Crunch!"

Six-Ears lightly picked up a fruit, took a bite, and gazed toward the Heavenly Court.

"Hmph, senior brother — you were born blessed, so naturally you do not know the suffering of us demons and monsters. The blessed fortune of Lingshan you do not want, but I cannot cast it aside."

Steadfast in his resolve, Six-Ears waited patiently.

Time drifted on; in the blink of an eye, five hundred years passed.

Five hundred years — the world had utterly changed, and Six-Ears did not know how many times the thought of retreat had risen in his heart, only to be talked down by himself in the end.

He had no path of retreat left.

Now, trapped beneath Mount Wuzhi, if he did not go fetch the scriptures, how could he get out?

He could only repeat to himself, over and over, the benefits of becoming a Buddha and founding an ancestor-lineage.

At times, he would also recall what his senior brother had said — that freedom and ease were the greatest benefit of all.

By now, he no longer possessed the will of five hundred years ago, and had come to acknowledge, to some degree, the worth of freedom and ease.

Only by losing freedom can one understand how precious freedom is.

But he had already paid so much — to retreat now would be a waste.

Clip-clop, clip-clop!

The sound of hooves rang out. Six-Ears looked up and saw a monk riding a white horse galloping past.

His face lit up with joy, and he called out at once: "Master! Master!"

And so, the journey to fetch the scriptures began.

Only along this road, the demons and monsters were not the same as the Journey to the West he knew.

No Black Bear Spirit, no Bai Gujing…

Many demons and monsters had vanished, replaced by unfamiliar yao-fiends.

"Perhaps that great power who divined the future could not have calculated in such detail — errors and omissions are only normal."

As a Taiyi Jin Xian, he too possessed the art of divination.

Only this art of divination had been useless for many years.

From the very day he had learned the Art of Heavenly Secrets, the heavenly secrets of heaven and earth had been a chaos, rendering his divine ability utterly useless.

Even so, one thing was clear to him — the Art of Heavenly Secrets could never divine with absolute accuracy.

If it truly had not a single error, he would instead have to suspect that someone had laid a trap for him.

Lingshan.

The Tathagata's expression was exceedingly subtle.

Many of the eighty-one tribulations originally decreed by heaven had vanished outright.

This put Lingshan in an utterly awkward spot.

Fortunately, Lingshan had many mounts, so the eighty-one tribulations were scraped together.

Only, although the tribulations had been rounded up, the fortune of heaven was not so easy to make up.

When Tang Seng and his party reached the foot of Lingshan, how shocked they were to discover that this Journey to the West had lost a tenth of its fortune of heaven.

That one-tenth was no small matter.

One had to know that after the Journey to the West, Fomen would flourish greatly.

A one-tenth share of the fortune of heaven sufficient to cause a great chiliocosm and a great teaching to flourish greatly — that was enough to bring boundless benefit to anyone.

"Who was it?"

"The Heavenly Court?"

The Tathagata's gaze was icy. "Impossible. The Jade Emperor, as the supreme one of heaven and earth, would not lightly offend the Heavenly Dao. He would only send a few mounts and immortals of the Heavenly Court to take a small share of the fortune."

Sending immortals and mounts to take a share of the fortune — this too was something the Tathagata tacitly permitted.

After all, the Jade Emperor was the nominal supreme one of the Three Realms; his face still had to be given.

Hogging everything for oneself was absolutely out of the question.

Even though Lingshan would grow powerful in the future, the Tathagata did not intend to offend the others.