Chapter 426: The Erased Great Sage Equal to Heaven

Shi Hou stopped causing trouble.

After those images faded, he sat at the entrance of the Water Curtain Cave for a long time.

So long that a thin layer of peach blossom petals settled on him, yet he didn't brush them off.

A little monkey baby came over, handing him a glistening peach.

Shi Hou opened his mouth and took a bite.

Sweet.

But that sweetness vanished as soon as it passed his tongue, never reaching his heart.

Chewed to mush, swallowed—no different from eating mud.

He stared at the distant False Sun that grew dimmer and dimmer; his cloudy eyes held no light at all.

No longer roared.

No longer smashed things.

And he no longer tried to touch that thing in his chest.

What difference would it make if he touched it?

Even if he really were some great big shot—so what?

The vision made it perfectly clear.

A world without him is better than a world with him.

What is the meaning of his existence?

Is it to have the people around him die in his place?

Shi Hou rested his chin on his knees, curling his whole body into a ball.

The Prison sensed this change.

That day's sunlight grew warmer by a third.

The next day, a cluster of wildflowers never seen before sprouted at the cave mouth, blooming brightly and fiercely, their fragrance drifting ten-odd zhang away.

On the third day, the wind's temperature became just right—not cool, not hot—blowing on his fur felt more comfortable than a little monkey scratching his back.

The peaches grew sweeter.

The water grew clearer.

Even the False Monkeys' gazes toward him became unusually earnest.

Everything was saying the same thing.

Don't leave.

Stay.

Here there is everything.

You don't need to fight, you don't need to risk your life, you don't need to worry about anyone dying for you.

Shi Hou didn't respond.

But he didn't refuse either.

He began to mingle with the monkey troop.

At first he just sat aside watching them roughhouse; later it turned into occasionally reaching out to snatch a peach.

Later still, he learned to swing from this tree to that, and to hook his tail on a branch and hang upside down to bask in the sun.

His movements grew ever smoother.

His expression grew ever more relaxed.

The grudge and confusion in his eyes were like an ink blot soaked in water, slowly spreading, slowly fading.

He became more and more like a "normal" monkey.

When it was time to eat, he ate; when it was time to sleep, he slept; each day was the same as the next, indistinguishable, and he didn't want to tell them apart.

The crimson-gold speck deep in his chest had grown dark, almost like a dying ember about to go out.

It would occasionally twitch.

That twitch would make Shi Hou feel a heaviness in his chest, like a thorn lodged there that couldn't be pulled out.

But he didn't want to think about what that thorn was.

Thinking about it hurt.

Not thinking about it meant no pain.

How simple a principle.

That name would occasionally surface.

Yao.

Two characters.

Shi Hou didn't know who that name belonged to.

But each time those two characters rose in his mind, his whole heart felt as if someone were sawing it back and forth with a dull blade.

A face would rise along with it.

He couldn't make out the features.

He couldn't make out the outline.

Only a blurry shadow remained, like a silhouette behind a veil of mist.

And there was a sentence.

It, too, was fragmentary.

"... Wait for you to come back."

Just these five characters.

Shi Hou cannot tell what the speaker's voice sounds like.

He cannot discern whether the tone is joyful or sorrowful.

But each time he thinks of that sentence, his eyes turn sour.

Then he shakes his head vigorously, shaking off that sour feeling.

He tells himself: It has nothing to do with me.

I am just a monkey.

All that "whether it's Yao or not," "whether to wait or not."

I got the wrong person.

He can't count how long the days have passed.

This world has no change, no new or old, like a pot of eternally lukewarm Dead Water.

But he knows the cycle has run many times.

Because he unintentionally marked the stone wall in the Water Curtain Cave.

One slash marks one cycle.

There are too many slashes; he's too lazy to count.

When there were roughly a hundred slashes, Shi Hou stood beneath a peach tree.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves, scattering like shattered gold over him.

Warm and soothing.

He tiptoed, reached up, and plucked the largest, reddest peach from the branch.

It was heavy, the juice about to burst through the skin.

Shi Hou took a bite.

Sweet.

His mouth filled with sweetness.

Juice dripped from the corner of his mouth, down his chin, onto the fur on his chest.

He chewed, tilted his head back, and looked at the blue sky above.

Heaven is so blue.

No cracks.

No glimmer.

Not a single cloud, clean as if freshly washed.

Shi Hou thought: This is pretty good.

No fighting.

No injuries.

No need to worry about who lives or dies.

No need to fret about the damn nonsense of whether it's the Three Realms or not, whether it's the Universe or not.

Just be a monkey.

Eat when full, sleep; wake, eat.

What's wrong with that?

He prepared to take a second bite.

His mouth opened.

His teeth met the flesh of the fruit.

A gust of wind blew.

Shi Hou's nostrils twitched.

He stopped.

His mouth stayed open, teeth embedded in the peach flesh, his whole body frozen.

That wind carried a scent.

It wasn't the fragrance of peach blossoms.

It wasn't the coolness of a stream.

It wasn't the damp earthiness.

It was a dry, slightly bitter smell, like that emitted by old paper stored for many years.

Yellowed.

Brittle.

Stained with ink and dust.

The smell of books.

Shi Hou's pupils suddenly contracted.

He didn't know why he reacted to that scent.

There are no books in this Fake Huaguo Mountain.

No paper.

No ink.

This scent doesn't belong here.

It doesn't belong to any corner of this world.

But his body is more honest than his mind.

That numb blood, which had been inert for an unknown length of time, suddenly ignited, burning from the soles of his feet all the way up to the heavenly cap.

It is not some great power.

It is not some earth‑shattering scene.

It is simply a scent.

Old paper.

Bamboo Slips.

The Oil Lamp scorches the edges of the pages, releasing charred fumes.

A buzzing sound rang in the Stone Monkey's mind.

A scene Debris exploded without warning.

A very small piece of Debris.

It is shattered, leaving only an outline.

A table.

A very broken, very old wooden table.

One leg is short, and beneath it rests a piece of material that cannot be identified.

A cup of tea sits on the table.

The tea is ice‑cold, the leaves settled at the bottom, and a grayish thin film floats on the surface.

A few Bamboo Slips are scattered nearby; the opened one still has wet ink.

Nothing else.

That's all.

No one.

No sound.

No cause or effect.

Only a table and a cup of cold tea.

But the Stone Monkey's eye sockets feel as if someone pinched them.

They redden.

His lips tremble.

The peach in his hand loses its force, falls to the ground, splits into two halves, and juice splashes onto his foot.

He bends over, both hands resting on his knees.

A syllable pushes upward in his throat.

He holds it in so tightly that the blue veins on his neck bulge.

That is not a name.

It is not a specific character.

It is a kind of summons.

An instinct etched into the cracks of bone, merged into the blood, that cannot be completely eradicated even if memories are wiped clean.

The Stone Monkey opens his mouth.

The sound squeezes out from the deepest part of his throat.

Low.

Hoarse.

Like the first wail of a beast trapped for countless years.

"Master……"

Half a character.

He only manages to utter that half.

The next instant—

Heaven turns upside down.

The Stone Monkey's vision is split open down the middle.

The blue sky cracks.

The peach tree shatters.

The monkey troupe vanishes.

The entire Mount Huaguo scene resembles a mirror smashed on the ground, erupting countless cracks outward from his feet in all directions.

When the Debris flies up, the Stone Monkey sees what lies beyond the cracks.

White.

Endless white.

A white that contains nothing.

Then gravity disappears.

His body loses all support, like a stone kicked off a cliff.

Falling.

Falling endlessly.

The sound of wind fills his ears.

Or rather, it is not wind—it's the void screaming.

The shattered fragments of Mount Huaguo rolled and shrank beside him, eventually turning into specks of light the size of rice grains that vanished at an infinite distance above his head.

Darkness gathered from all directions.

Shihou desperately opened his mouth while falling, trying to shout out that half-word.

Master—

Master what?

What is that following word?

He couldn't remember it.

That ball of fire that had been pressing under the base of his tongue just now was extinguished again by something.

Only a complete blank remained.

That voice came again.

Calm.

Gentle.

Like a patient elder speaking to a lost child.

But this time, a hint of something Shihou had never heard seeped into the calm's undertone.

Urgent.

"Forget him."

The voice's pace was a little faster than before.

Just a little.

"Forget that loser."

Shihou tumbled in the darkness, his consciousness blurred like a loose sand.

But his ears could still hear.

"He can't save you."

"Just like he can't save anyone."

Shihou heard those words and tugged at the corner of his mouth while falling.

He didn't know why he laughed.

His mind was empty as a hollowed-out gourd; he couldn't think of anything.

But a thought arose in that instant, clearer than anything.

You're anxious again.