Chapter 438: That Cup of Tea... Still Cold

When those two characters fell, the entire dark world trembled.

It wasn't that the darkness was afraid.

It was the darkness—angry.

The Golden Armored Monkey's face split in the same instant.

Not just it.

All the "Losers" surrounding the Stone Monkey had the gentle, relieved skin on their faces shatter simultaneously.

What lay beneath the skin exploded the Stone Monkey's scalp.

It was a ghostly face twisted by resentment and Fear Heart Demon.

The eye sockets were sunken, the mouth corners stretched to the ears, and the teeth were a black mass.

It wasn't a smile.

It was madness.

"Don't touch—"

The Golden Armored Monkey's voice shifted, sharp as a fingernail scraping metal: "You must not touch that sound!"

It lunged forward.

All the False Monkeys pounced at the same moment.

Their ash‑gray bodies burst mid‑dash, turning into countless uneven blades.

Each blade carried a wisp of gray "Negation".

Each aimed at the Stone Monkey's vital points.

Puff.

The first blade pierced his left shoulder.

Puff—

Followed by countless sounds of flesh being pierced.

Ten or so wounds erupted on the Stone Monkey's body at once.

Monkey blood splattered into the void, tracing arcs.

Pain.

The pain made his whole body convulse.

But he didn't step back.

He didn't even lower his head to glance at the wound.

Because he saw.

Right in the center of the circle formed by all the False Monkeys.

At the very heart of that blade Storm.

Something was shining.

It wasn't crimson gold.

It was a very quiet, very faint light.

Like a lamp left on a windowsill, forgotten to be blown out.

The Stone Monkey's pupils fixed there.

His leg moved.

It wasn't a run.

It was a charge inward.

Toward the densest direction of the blades.

Puff—another blade slashed across his face.

A wound split above his left eye, blood streaming down the eye socket, smearing half his vision.

He brushed it with the back of his hand, not cleaning it, the red smeared into a patch.

He didn't care.

He kept charging.

A piece of flesh was cut off his shoulder.

A cracking sound came from his ribs.

His back had been stabbed an unknown number of times.

"Stop!"

That voice belonging to the darkness roared.

The Stone Monkey didn't hear.

Or perhaps he heard, but only one thing remained in his mind.

That quiet light drew nearer.

Close enough that he finally saw what it was.

A cup of tea.

A cup of tea floating out of nowhere in the void.

A small white porcelain cup, its tea a cold amber hue.

No steam rose.

No tea fragrance drifted.

It simply floated there, quiet and still.

It seemed like waiting ten thousand years.

A muffled, blood‑choked sound came from the Stone Monkey's throat.

It wasn't words.

It was a whimper squeezed out from the deepest part of the chest cavity.

He didn't know why.

His mind was Blank, his memories drained, even the word 'Master' was reduced to half a syllable.

But his body knew.

His bones knew.

His blood knew.

That cup of tea was his.

Someone had brewed it and left it there waiting for him to return and drink.

He didn't know how long he had waited.

But the tea had gone completely cold.

The person hadn't taken it away yet.

It was still waiting.

"No—don't—touch—"

The darkness's voice was no longer angry.

It was Fear Heart Demon.

Blade Storm intensified tenfold.

A deep, bone‑visible wound was cut across the Stone Monkey's right arm, his fingers almost unable to grip.

Three feet left.

Only three feet remained.

His leg could no longer move.

It wasn't a lack of strength.

It was being held.

Looking down, three or four False Monkeys' remaining upper bodies were tangled on his left leg, their teeth sunk into his kneecap, refusing to let go.

The Stone Monkey pulled twice, but couldn't free it.

Those things were as if welded on.

He didn't hesitate.

He opened his mouth and took a bite.

His monkey tooth sank into his own thigh flesh.

It pierced the skin.

It pierced the muscle.

It reached the bone.

Crunch.

The sound of bone breaking was more painful than being cut.

The Stone Monkey let out a muffled hum and, skin and flesh together, tore his own half‑shank off at the knee.

The broken leg and the False Monkeys tangled on it fell together into the darkness.

Blood spurted out.

He didn't care.

He propped his body up on one leg.

He leapt out.

The final step.

He reached out his hand.

Five blood‑smeared fingers trembled uncontrollably.

He touched.

The instant his fingertip brushed the porcelain surface—

"Ah—"

All the False Monkeys' remains emitted a heart‑rending Cànjiào at the same moment.

It wasn't an angry cry.

It was a fearful cry.

It was that kind of wail, crushed at its root by something, both unwilling and powerless.

Gray‑white Debris swirled in the void like flying ash for an instant.

Then it dissipated.

Cleanly.

Not a trace remained.

The darkness receded.

It receded far away.

It became quiet.

The world suddenly fell silent.

Stone Monkey knelt in the void.

Stone Monkey's whole body was covered in blood.

The right shoulder had collapsed halfway, the left eye was smeared with blood scabs making it impossible to see, the left leg from the knee down was empty, bone fragments protruded outward, and blood dripped down.

Stone Monkey cupped that cup of tea with both hands.

All ten fingers were trembling.

It is empty.

It is not fear.

The cup is small.

It is white porcelain, the rim has a small chip, as if someone had knocked it.

The tea inside is motionless.

Ice‑cold amber, with no heat at all, not even reflecting light.

Dead.

Cold.

As if it had been left for ten thousand years.

Stone Monkey pressed his nose up to it.

Stone Monkey inhaled.

When that smell pierced his nostrils, Stone Monkey's hand trembled even more.

Old paper.

Ink.

Fragments that fell from the Bamboo Slips.

And a hint of pine smoke, so faint it was about to dissipate.

Stone Monkey recognized the smell.

It wasn't his mind that recognized it.

It was his nose that recognized it.

Every cell in his body shouted, "I know this scent, I have smelled it, I have lived within this scent."

Stone Monkey pressed his lips to the rim of the cup.

The porcelain surface was as icy as stone.

Stone Monkey tilted his head back.

The tea flowed into his mouth.

Cold.

So cold it made his tooth roots ache, his tongue trembled.

Bitter.

Astringent.

Not pleasant to drink at all.

Harder to swallow than the worst wild fruit juice on Mount Huaguo.

But as it passed his throat,

Stone Monkey's tears fell.

Not the wailing kind of crying.

There was no sound.

The tears simply streamed down on their own.

They rolled out of his intact right eye, traced across his blood‑stained face, and dripped into the cup.

Not grievance.

Not sorrow.

Not pain.

It was something Stone Monkey could not find words to describe.

Like a road walked too far and too long, so long that one forgets where one came from, who one is, and why one keeps walking.

Then suddenly pushed open a door.

Inside the room there was a lamp.

A table.

A cup of tea chilled through.

And an empty chair.

That chair had always been empty.

Empty for an unknown number of years.

But no one had ever sat there.

Because that seat was reserved for him.

It had always been kept.

The tea, once cooled, stayed cold.

Not replaced.

Not poured out.

Just left there.

I'll wait for him to return and drink it myself.

When this realization slammed into the stone monkey's mind, his chest exploded.

That crimson‑gold speck of light wasn't "jumping."

It was exploding.

It was surging outward with all its might.

The radiance seeped out through the gaps in his sternum, pierced his skin pores, and burst from every wound on his body.

Crimson‑gold.

Scorching.

Burning hot.

It illuminated the darkness for a hundred‑mile radius.

The stone monkey's body began to change.

It wasn't growing larger.

It wasn't becoming stronger.

It was "unsealing."

Layer after layer of gray‑white—like rust, like scab, like dust that had settled for countless years—peeled off his hair.

Revealing the color beneath.

Crimson‑gold.

A single hair shifted from gray‑white back to crimson‑gold, as if fire were burning from root to tip.

Something was burning in his pupils.

It wasn't ordinary fire.

It was a light that could see through all illusion.

His left leg— the one he had bitten off himself—had golden light surging at the break, bone and flesh regenerating, stitching, and healing at a visible speed.

It wasn't mere recovery.

It was awakening.

An entity sealed within the stone monkey's shell, once enough to make the Three Realms tremble, was rising from its slumber.

In his consciousness, those erased, stolen, and shattered memory fragments—at this moment—flowed back in reverse.

Tiěbàng.

Somersault Cloud.

The monkey troupe of Mount Huaguo.

Five hundred years beneath Wǔxíng Shān.

The endless yellow sand on Xi Xing Lu.

That endlessly nagging Tang monk.

That donkey that was stupid to death.

And that sand ascetic.

And—

An old, dilapidated Study.

A desk piled with Bamboo Slips.

A cup of tea that was always ice‑cold and never drunk.

A white‑haired old man who complained he was annoying but never stopped teaching.

Four characters rose from the flood of Chaos Realm memories.

Crystal clear.

Stroke by stroke.

Like etched onto bone.

Bodhi Patriarch.

Stone monkey—no.

Sun Wukong opened his eyes.

Golden flames roared in his pupils.

He clenched the ice‑cold tea in his hand.

A smile spread at the corner of his mouth.

It was a laugh.

Laced with blood.

Laced with tears.

Carrying a murderous aura and grievance that made heaven and earth shudder three times.

"Master—"

His voice was hoarse beyond recognition.

"The tea is cold."

"I'll… top it up for you."

The moment the words fell, a deep sigh echoed from the distant darkness.

The sigh was long.

It was weary.

But the tail twitched upward.

It was like a smile that had been held back for a long time.