Chapter 294: Master
Sun Wukong's chest heaved violently, the passion and sense of mission accumulated from ten trillion failures nearly burst his Original Spirit!
He is the answer!
He is the last die Master threw after being at a dead end!
Carrying this scorching awareness, Sun Wukong's gaze swept across the boundless Study again.
This time, he no longer merely skims the birth and death of those worlds.
He wants to see something deeper.
He wants to know, before Master made this crazy decision, what that heart that had been lonely for billions of years was actually thinking!
His divine consciousness, like mercury pouring onto the ground, instantly covered every corner of the Study.
He passed the jade slip that represents the Sword Dao Universe.
He passed the beast hide that carries the Creation of the Universe.
He passed the innumerable dossiers that represent failure.
His divine consciousness probed toward the deepest part of this Void space…
There, nothing at all.
Not even a bookshelf reached that corner.
It seemed that the area had been deliberately forgotten by its owner, unwilling to be touched again.
Yet Sun Wukong's perception, in that absolute void, caught a trace of an extremely faint but incredibly stubborn Existence Sense.
He stepped forward, and his Original Spirit instantly manifested in that corner.
An unremarkable wooden box floated there quietly.
The box was old, its surface covered with the scratches of time.
On the box hung a tiny, rust‑stained copper lock.
But Sun Wukong knew that this lock did not seal a mundane thing.
What it sealed might be the only frailty in Master's endless ages that cannot be shown to others…
Sun Wukong extended his hand, but did not touch the copper lock.
He merely gently activated the Void Seed within his body.
A thread sharing this place's origin, yet bearing his own rebellious will, slowly enveloped the wooden box.
Kak.
A faint sound.
The seemingly indestructible copper lock opened in response.
It was not forced open; like a wanderer hearing the call of home, it voluntarily lowered its guard.
The lid slowly lifted upward.
No soaring treasure light, no world‑ending aura.
Inside were only a few thin, faintly yellowed sheets of paper.
They were like a few ramblings an old man might casually write in the deep night.
Sun Wukong's heart tightened sharply.
He carefully extended his hand and lifted the topmost sheet.
The paper was light, yet as heavy as a thousand pounds.
He was more familiar with the script than anything.
It was Master's handwriting.
But this script no longer flowed freely as before; instead it carried a trace… of bone‑deep fatigue and Doubt.
"Does the Dao truly have an end?"
"Does eternity truly exist?"
The brief two sentences, like two heavy hammers, struck Sun Wukong's chest hard!
He was stunned.
The Master in his heart, all‑powerful, calculating the heavens, treating Saints as weeds…
That solitary, towering figure who stood against the entire old world…
Could he also have such a moment of confusion?
He could not believe it!
His trembling hand lifted the second sheet.
The script seemed even heavier than the previous page.
"Today I meet Hongjun again."
"His Dao grows ever purer, and ever… cold."
"He seems to have become a precise machine that can erase everything for the sake of 'order'."
"Seeing his eyes devoid of any emotional fluctuation, I oddly… envy his resolve."
Envy?!
Boom!
In Sun Wukong's mind, it seemed billions of thunderbolts erupted simultaneously!
Envy Hongjun?
Master, could you really envy that old rascal?!
The monster who, for the sake of so‑called order, could personally erase the myriad worlds he created as if they were trash!
That thing that can no longer be called a Living Being, only a cold program…
Master would actually envy him?!
Sun Wukong's heart felt as if an invisible giant hand had clenched it tightly, hurting so much he could barely breathe!
He couldn't imagine how lonely Master had to be to feel even a hint of envy toward his own mortal enemy!
That wasn't envy of power!
That was envy of 'resolve'!
Because Hongjun's path is straight, with no forks—he just needs to execute, execute, execute!
But Master's path is filled with countless possibilities—and also countless……errors!
Every step bears the weight of a world's birth and death!
Who can understand this pain?
Sun Wukong's eye sockets began to redden.
He almost lunged for it, snatching up the third page!
The handwriting on this page is even more chaotic!
Some characters bleed through the paper's back, others are as light as a feather—as if the writer's heart is undergoing a Heaven‑Man Battle!
"Perhaps…… I was wrong."
"What I've pursued—'variables' and 'possibilities'—has brought only more chaos and destruction."
"And Hongjun's 'Fixed Number,' though deathly silent, can endure."
"So that all beings can 'exist' onward, even if only like puppets existing…"
"Should I…… give up?"
Buzz!
At this moment, before Sun Wukong's eyes, it was no longer those characters.
He seemed to see.
He saw a solitary figure.
An old man in a plain Daoist robe, his posture slightly stooped, stood alone at a crossroads leading to countless futures.
Before him, one path was Hongjun's 'Fixed Number' path—a realm of eternal deathly silence, yet utterly stable.
And the countless other paths were all his own projected 'variables' paths—each once brilliantly splendid, yet all ultimately led to destruction.
The old man just stood there.
Beneath his feet lay the remnants of countless worlds.
Behind him stretched endless loneliness.
He was painfully struggling and hesitating for the future of the entire multiverse.
He even considered whether to deny everything he was and take that path of deathly silence he despised most!
At this moment, Sun Wukong finally, truly, touched his master's heart—a heart that had lonelily endured for ages for the sake of all beings.
As it turned out, Master had also once doubted himself.
As it turned out, Master had also once considered giving up.
As it turned out, that omnipotent deity's burden was far heavier than he imagined—ten thousand times, a hundred million times heavier!
A piercing pain welled up from deep within Sun Wukong's Original Spirit.
He wanted to rush over and embrace that solitary figure.
He wanted to tell him, 'You are not wrong!'
It is this cold world that is wrong!
A scorching golden tear slipped from his eye corner, falling onto that thin page and instantly soaking it.
"Master……"
He choked up, barely able to speak.
With a heart full of bitterness and sorrow, he almost despairingly turned over the last, and thinnest, page.
He had braced himself for the worst.
Perhaps this page would contain Master's final decision—to abandon variables and return to the Fixed Number.
However!
The moment his gaze fell upon that final page—
His whole body froze stiff!
On it—
All confusion, all fatigue, all struggle vanished without a trace!
In their place came something he knew all too well—wild! Unrestrained! Carefree!
The handwriting, dragons flying and phoenixes dancing, almost burst through the paper!
That domineering spirit that disregards heaven and earth, that heroic passion that would laugh at fate even in defeat, almost burst from the page to ignite this void!
On the paper was only a short sentence.
A sentence that made Sun Wukong's blood instantly boil!
"Screw the Fixed Number!"
"I'm not playing anymore!"
"I'll just create a monkey to come out and overturn this heaven!"
"Defeat, too, no regrets!"
End of Chapter
