Chapter 435: Not giving up…… is selfish?

After the wave of "Negation" was brutally cut off mid-flow by that heartbeat sound, the darkness did not make a comeback.

Nothing happened.

Unusually quiet.

Shi Hou sat cross-legged in the void, his chest rising and falling as he breathed heavily.

That just drained him of more than half.

The point of light still glowed, but it was dimmer than before, like a lamp about to run out of oil, ready to go out with a breath of wind.

He had won a round.

But he knew he couldn't afford to keep draining himself.

This place has no concept of time; I don't know how long has passed, nor how much longer I can hold out.

Shi Hou lifted his hand and looked at his furry claws.

The monkey claws trembled slightly.

Not from fear.

It's emptiness.

"What, you're not coming?"

He shouted at the darkness.

The echo bounced in the void a few times then faded, with no one to answer.

Shi Hou waited a while longer.

Still nothing.

He scratched his forehead, leaned his back against the void, and his monkey legs swung idly.

He acted nonchalant, but inside a string was taut.

The quieter it got, the more off it felt.

This thing never rested from the start; when gentle it deceived him, when furious it struck him, when lecturing it wore him down.

Suddenly it went silent?

That makes no sense.

"You're interesting."

A voice appeared.

No direction.

No distance.

Like it welled up from inside his skull.

But this tone left Shi Hou stunned.

Not gentle.

Not irritable.

Not condescending.

Plain and plain, like two people sitting at a chessboard, you place a piece, I place a piece.

"I haven't encountered anything in a long time that could make me speak a third time."

Shi Hou's eyebrows knotted.

He didn't like this tone.

He's not afraid to argue with him, nor to fight him.

But chatting with him,

this trick is more aggravating than anything.

"Cut the damn familiarity."

Shi Hou curled his lip, spat a mouthful of monkey phlegm into the darkness, and said, "Who are you? You're the one who locked me up here, right?"

The voice fell silent for a beat.

That beat wasn't long or short, just enough to make Shi Hou's heart sink half an inch.

"No."

The voice said.

"It's you who locked yourself in here."

Shi Hou's monkey face twitched.

"Bullshit!"

He jumped up, pointing at the darkness all around and cursed, "Did I stuff myself full and lock myself in this damned place?!"

The voice was unhurried.

"Think back—what happened before you entered here?"

Shi Hou opened his mouth.

Not a single word came out.

He thought.

He racked his brains.

His head felt stuffed with cotton; the harder he tried to pull at it, the more the cotton retreated inward.

He remembered Mount Huaguo.

He remembered the False Monkeys.

He remembered that character "wu".

Remember the light at your chest.

Then go forward,

A blank expanse.

A spotless blank.

Like bamboo slips scraped by a knife, the surface still bears the indentations of characters, but the ink is completely gone.

He couldn't remember anything from before he came in.

He only remembered that when he woke up, he was already on Mount Huaguo.

The voice did not urge him.

Just waiting like that.

Waiting for him to realize how terrifying this fact is.

Shi Hou slowly sat back down, his hands resting on his knees, gripping so tightly his joints creaked.

"This place is not a prison."

The voice continued, its tone as flat as a bowl of cooled water.

"This is your own 'heart'."

Shi Hou's pupils contracted slightly.

"The outside world is collapsing. Your flesh is being devoured by a force you cannot resist. At the moment you were about to die, your consciousness fled to the deepest place, inside your heart."

The voice paused.

"You locked yourself inside your own heart."

Shi Hou remained silent.

He wanted to say 'bullshit'.

But those two words were stuck in his throat, he couldn't get them out.

Because there was one thing he couldn't deny,

he couldn't find a door.

From beginning to end, he had tossed back and forth in this space an unknown number of times.

He had run, jumped, smashed, even tried suicide.

There was no exit.

There was no boundary.

There was nothing that resembled the 'outside'.

This place… really doesn't resemble a prison cell.

A prison cell has walls, a door, and a lock.

There is nothing here.

A place with nothing is not a jail.

It is the heart.

An empty heart.

"You're lying to me."

Shi Hou said this in a low voice.

So low that even he himself could hear the lack of conviction.

The voice did not rebut.

It simply said: 'You judge for yourself.'

Shi Hou clenched his back teeth, his mind racing.

But the more he thought, the more panicked he became.

Because he realized he could produce no evidence to prove 'this is not my own heart.'

He could not even produce any evidence to prove 'there is still a world outside.'

All his memories of being alive were only this place.

A long silence ensued.

So long that Shi Hou himself couldn't count how much time had passed.

The voice did not urge him.

It was waiting.

Waiting for Shi Hou's heart's defenses to crack.

"Your 'Monkey Heart,' the thing you pride yourself on, is killing you."

The voice spoke again, its tone still that unhurried, even calm.

But each word struck deep.

"It makes you incessantly 'fight'. incessantly 'resist'. incessantly 'defy'."

Shi Hou's fingers gouged several marks into his knees.

"But have you ever considered,"

The voice's tone sank slightly.

"It is precisely this 'never giving up' that prevents you from ever finding peace?"

"It makes the people around you forever live in fear?"

Shi Hou's breath halted for a beat.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say 'no'.

But the picture appeared.

He couldn't stop it.

A girl.

Wearing a wedding dress.

Smiling with curved brows and eyes, she held another man's arm.

No monkey.

No Tiěbàng.

No blood and fire all over.

Only peaceful days.

The picture changed.

Mount Huaguo.

It was empty.

The monkey troop ate peaches when they should, slept when they should.

An old monkey sat on a stone bench basking in the sun, and a little monkey asked him, "Where is the Great King?"

The old monkey shook his head: "There is no Great King. There never was."

Stone Monkey knew these pictures might be false.

But the dull ache they left in his chest was real.

That pain was not a knife cut.

It was stuffiness.

So stuffy he couldn't breathe.

"If I weren't here..." Stone Monkey's lips moved slightly, his voice no louder than a mosquito.

"Would they... really be better off?"

As soon as he said that, even he was startled.

But he couldn't take it back.

The voice sighed.

That sigh carried something strange—not mockery, not pride.

It seemed like... genuine regret.

"You are not the first Línghún trapped here."

The voice said.

"Before you, there were countless 'you's."

Stone Monkey's spine stiffened.

"From different times and spaces. Different fates. Different choices. But all called Sun Wukong."

The voice's tone slowed, as if telling a story told too many times.

"They also had Monkey Heart."

"They also were Unyielding."

"They also felt they could withstand everything, break through everything, change everything."

"But in the end, they all came to this point."

Stone Monkey's fingers stopped.

"They made the same choice."

"Let go."

Those two words fell into the void, light and soundless.

But the weight that struck Stone Monkey's heart was heavier than a mountain.

"Because they discovered something."

The voice said calmly.

"Not giving up" is not a virtue.

Stone Monkey's eyes widened gradually.

"Sometimes, it is merely another form of... selfishness."

Stone Monkey's head buzzed.

He sat there motionless.

Like being hit on the Back of the Head with a blunt stick.

Not giving up... is selfish?

He had never thought of that angle.

Never before.

He always felt that Unyielding was something etched into his bones.

It was his greatest pride.

It was the sole reason he could still sit here and breathe.

But if,

If his Unyielding was filling it with others' lives?

If each time he persisted, someone he cared about would suffer more?

The woman's wedding dress flashed in his mind.

The quiet smiling faces of the monkey troop flashed in his mind.

There was also a stooped back whose face he couldn't recall; that back waited in the dark for who knows how long, until the waist bent, until the tea went cold.

If he no longer "fights".

Does that back no longer need to wait?

Can he just rest a bit?

Stone Monkey's fist,

loosened.

One finger.

One finger.

Slowly, everything relaxed.

His gaze changed.

Not anger, not arrogance, not the carefree smile of a dead pig unafraid of boiling water.

It was bewilderment.

A genuine bewilderment that seeped from his very bones.

For the first time, he didn't know whether he should keep holding on.

The point of light on his chest sensed this wavering.

It did not dim.

But its rhythm of beating became disordered.

Fast then slow, alternating.

Like a heart hesitating whether to continue to the next beat.

In the depths of the darkness, there was no sound at all.

Even the sound didn't speak.

It no longer needed to say anything.

The seed had already been planted.

Stone Monkey lowered his head, both hands resting on his knees, palms up, empty.

He stared at his own palm lines for a long, long time.

Suddenly, he heard a voice.

Not that "equal and gentle" voice.

It was another.

Coming from his heart, no, from the point of light.

Very faint, very fragmented, like a shout from a hundred and eight thousand miles away, leaving only a trailing sound.

"... don't... believe..."

Stone Monkey shuddered all over.

He suddenly lifted his head, his pupils dilating violently.

The point of light jumped.

It grew a little brighter than before, just a little.

But the thing contained in that little bit made Stone Monkey's nose ache with sourness.

He had heard that voice before.

He had heard it on the stone walls of the Water Curtain Cave.

He had heard it beside that cup of cold tea.

He had heard it when he was near death.

It was that one,

the person who called him "Monkey Head".