Chapter 421: The false perfect prison, the 'awakening' character in the mud!

Shíhóu rushed out like gone mad.

Heedlessly plunged into the densest forest behind the mountain.

He grabbed those thick ancient vines and swung down.

The vines bit into his palms, grinding out a burning pain.

He didn't even utter a groan.

His feet landed, his claws digging straight into the damp soil.

Both legs burst with all their strength.

He ran forward with all his might.

The thorns along the way tore at his flesh.

He even thought glancing down was a waste of time.

The sun overhead seemed painted on.

It was fixed dead in that position.

The heat was also constant, baking his back and making him creep.

Shíhóu didn't know how long he had been running.

His windpipe felt as if it were on fire.

Every breath brought a strong smell of blood.

His legs felt incredibly heavy.

But he dared not stop.

He felt that if he stopped, this lifeless forest would swallow him whole.

Finally, a glimmer of light appeared ahead.

He violently pushed aside the banana leaves taller than a person blocking his view.

His right foot was about to step forward.

Yet it was nailed dead to the spot.

The roaring sound of a huge water flow crashed into his ears.

A pure white waterfall hung straight ahead.

Water droplets splashed onto his face.

It was unnaturally cold.

Water Curtain Cave.

He had run an entire day.

His legs were almost running to Fèi le.

The result was that he looped back to the starting point.

On the flat ground in front of the waterfall.

Several hundred monkeys still maintained that eerie sitting posture.

Sitting cross-legged, they held ripe fresh peaches in their hands.

Their mouths pulled into a stiff smile.

They stared at him, smiling fixedly.

That smile held no trace of vitality.

It was all a preset program.

"Damn."

Shíhóu squeezed out a word from between his teeth.

His voice was hoarse to the point of being frightening.

You can't run out, right?

But he refused to believe it.

Shíhóu suddenly turned and sprinted off in another direction.

He ran eastward.

That side was an endless sea.

As long as there was sea, he could swim out.

The earth beneath his feet turned into soft sand.

The salty sea breeze blew on his face.

This was the only thing he felt was real.

Shíhóu stepped on the sand and dove headfirst into the seawater without hesitation.

He used hands and feet, swimming frantically.

Each stroke pulled the surrounding water backward and smashed it.

Unclear how far he had swum.

Even the shoreline behind him had completely merged into the great fog and vanished from sight.

Around him there was nothing but water.

Shíhóu stopped to catch his breath.

The eerie feeling came again.

The surroundings were so quiet they made one's scalp tingle.

Not even the faintest sound of waves could be heard.

The water surface was as flat as a stiff mirror.

The sea water was warm and cozy.

This temperature was extremely abnormal.

It lacked the icy cold and biting chill of the deep sea.

The seawater clung to the body like smooth silk.

So comfortable it made one feel nauseous.

Stone Monkey gulped air and plunged straight down.

He held his breath and kept descending.

He reached the bottom.

He opened his eyes, stinging from the seawater.

He wanted to find some seaweed.

He wanted to find a reef.

He even wanted to grab a lively, jumping fish.

But below was empty.

A deathly emptiness.

Not even a grain of coarse sand could be felt.

It was all Dead Water.

Only water.

This was a Fake Sea, hollowed out inside.

A gigantic bathtub devoid even of the Concept of life.

Stone Monkey couldn't hold his breath; he kicked hard with both legs and surfaced.

He gulped large mouthfuls of lifeless air into his lungs.

The waterway was impassable.

He swam back to shore, dragging his soaked body up the beach.

He casually shook off the water droplets on his body.

He lifted his head.

He stared fixedly at that expanse of blue, piercing Heaven sky.

The land was impassable.

The water was impassable.

I'll fly out.

He bent his legs forcefully.

His knees nearly touched his chest.

His muscles tensed throughout his body to the point of bursting.

He stomped a deep depression into the sand beneath his feet.

Stone Monkey let out an angry roar.

His legs burst with force, lifting him off the ground.

The fierce wind wailed shrilly past his ears.

He jumped extremely high.

So high it was outrageous.

He punched through the layer of white clouds as soft as cotton batting.

His view suddenly opened up.

The entire terrain of Mount Huaguo lay before his eyes.

Then.

Stone Monkey's blood ran cold throughout his body.

Where is there any Eastern Sea?

Where is there any Aolai Kingdom?

Where is there any Ten Thousand Great Mountains?

There is only a solitary mountain peak.

All around is an endless white void.

No boundary.

No trace of any other existence.

The whole Mount Huaguo is like a bonsai casually snipped off.

It juts out, suspended on a sheet of white paper filled with Deathly Silence.

Besides this mountain, there is nothing outside.

Stone Monkey's body exhausted its strength in midair and began to plummet rapidly.

Wind blades scraped his face.

His whole body trembled uncontrollably.

His teeth chattered as he clenched them.

Confirmed.

Fully confirmed.

This is simply not the old home.

This is a prison.

A specially tailored cage for him, an advanced cage whose walls are invisible.

It's all rotten flesh piled up from 'comfort' and 'harmony'.

A muffled sound rang out.

Shi Hou slammed heavily onto the grass.

He didn't have time to feel the pain, scrambling up madly.

He rushed to the side, tightly clutching a half-person-high green stone with both hands.

He wanted to smash this broken stone into pieces.

He wanted to hear a cracking sound.

He gritted his teeth, veins bulging on his arms, and heaved upward with all his might.

The green stone didn't budge an inch.

Not even a speck of dirt fell off.

He tossed the stone aside, turned his head and fixed his gaze on an old pagoda tree that three people could encircle.

He leapt over, embraced the trunk, and shook it desperately.

Even shaking off a few leaves would do.

The trunk was rock-hard.

The leaves didn't even tremble.

No form of destruction is allowed here.

Even an outlet for venting anger has been welded shut directly.

Shi Hou's eyes bloodshot, he panted heavily and rushed to the edge of the ten-thousand-zhang cliff.

Gazing down at the bottomless chasm.

He leapt without hesitation.

He didn't believe that in this godforsaken place he couldn't even die.

His body plummeted rapidly, the wind roaring louder in his ears.

He saw his head about to smash into the jagged rocks at the cliff's base.

He was about to be smashed into a pulp.

A gentle wind suddenly sprang up at the cliff's base.

Like a pair of ridiculously large, soft hands.

Steadily supporting his back.

Buffering all the falling force.

Gently carrying him back to the cliff's top.

His feet landed steadily.

He was completely intact, not a single yellow hair lost.

Violence is contraband here.

Self-harm is also written into the prohibition.

Shi Hou's knees gave way, and he knelt on the cliff's edge.

His hands dug desperately into the ground.

His nails tore off, and bloodshot lines oozed from his ten fingertips.

He threw his head back hard, veins standing out on his neck.

He howled hysterically at the unchanging blue Heaven.

"Let me out!"

"Who the hell locked me up here!"

"Get out, damn it!"

"Come out and fight one-on-one!"

His hoarse, rough roar echoed back and forth across the empty mountaintop.

No one answered.

The monkey troop from the Water Curtain Cave turned their heads in unison.

Looking at him with a completely predetermined, confused gaze.

The bird calls on the branches didn't miss a beat.

Still that cheerful tune that makes you want to vomit.

A furry, not-yet-weaned little monkey timidly approached.

It stretched out its paw and gently tugged at his leg hair.

"Great King."

"What's wrong with you?"

The little monkey stared with its innocent big eyes.

In its pitch-black pupils reflected Shi Hou's twisted face.

"Isn't this place good?"

"There's endless fruit to eat and endless sweet spring to drink."

"No wild beasts come to bite us."

We're still with you every day.

Why aren't you happy?

Shihou froze.

His mouth opened really wide.

Looking at that pair of eyes so clean they had no impurities.

A sharp sourness struck the tip of his nose.

A boundless sense of grievance, pain, and a bottomless emptiness struck his chest without warning.

He couldn't utter a word.

His throat was filled with blood foam, completely blocked.

Yeah.

Why am I not happy?

He has a home.

There's a group of brothers and monkey kids who treat you like Heaven.

Every day, as soon as you open your eyes, there are endless peaches.

No need to go all-out against the Heavenly King and his father.

No need to constantly guard against being schemed against.

No need to go save the damned world while covered in wounds.

There are no enemies to fight.

No heaven to storm.

No one needs him to save them.

Isn't this just the peaceful life that all living beings dream of?

Shihou's fists clenched tightly.

His knuckles turned white, making a creaking sound.

Then he weakly relaxed them.

The locked black box in his mind shook violently.

It made his head feel like it would split.

He realized he had lost something.

Something heavier than his life, heavier than the world.

But that answer was locked tight inside the box.

The key broke.

He knew it was important, but he just couldn't recall its name.

The sun set.

The sun rose.

Heaven grew bright again.

The cycle began again, precisely and without error.

The peaches were still ripe as ever.

The monkey troop still frolicked carefree in the forest.

Shihou didn't go eat the peaches.

He curled up alone in the darkest corner beside the Water Curtain Cave.

He sat there like a soulless living dead.

His right index finger scraped back and forth on the damp soil.

He had no idea what he was doing.

His mind was empty; his fingers moved purely by instinct.

A standing heart radical.

A five.

A mouth.

He carved deep grooves.

That was a symbol.

A square-shaped character.

"Wu".

Shihou was an illiterate who couldn't even remember his own name.

He had never even turned a scroll or a jade slip.

But he stared fixedly at that character on the ground.

The longer he looked, the more his chest ached.

It was as if someone took a rusty dull knife and slowly sliced his flesh, stroke by stroke.

That character was too heavy.

So heavy he could barely breathe.

This thing was extremely important.

Important enough to make an iron-willed man want to burst into tears.

Tears swelled in his reddened eye sockets.

His tongue tip was bitten open by him, and he desperately swallowed it back.

Continue carving.

Carving over and over.

Even if he gouged the dirt to ruin, he would still carve.

His finger scraped the skin open in the rough dirt.

Warm fresh blood flowed out, mixing into the black dirt.

Forming dark red grooves.

Just as he finished the last stroke of that character for the hundredth time.

An abrupt change occurred.

A voice suddenly came from behind him.

It was not the mindless chatter of the monkey troop.

Nor was it the unchanging wind and water sounds of this mountain.

It was a man's voice.

Low.

Rich.

Carrying an extremely punch‑deserving smile.

"Little monkey."

"You haven't given up yet."

Shi Hou's dry yellow fur all over his body instantly stood on end.

Like a wild cat whose tail has been stepped on.

In this godforsaken place, aside from the False Monkeys, it's absolutely impossible for a second person to speak!

He grabbed the sharp stone fragments beside him in one motion.

His waist exploded with power, and he suddenly turned around.

His eyes flashed with violent ferocity, locking firmly on the direction the voice came from.

No one was there.

Behind him were only mud and tangled grass.

Only a dilapidated Old Peach Tree, bearing countless Fake Peaches, stood there.

Not even a ghost's shadow.

Shi Hou clenched the stone tightly, his eyes darting around searching.

Not even a hint of wind around.

The air congealed like a lump of iron.

But the branches of that Old Peach Tree.

Yet they.

Extremely slowly.

Gave a slight sway.