Warning: This story may be triggering for some. Please read with caution.
“Zhu Wuneng,” Bodhisattva Guan Yin announced, “due to your lascivious nature throughout the journey, you will not be conferred a title.”
My face fell.
“Instead, you will be the cleaner of the altars, consuming the waste that has been left behind by the spirits and the gods.”
Although this suited me fine, it was a letdown. The journey was hell and I went through eighty-one trials and tribulations only to be told this? This?
I’d done a lot of reflecting on this trip and thought about what I’d wanted. Maybe I wanted my post back, but if you asked me to go back to the heavens with all its rules and paperwork, I’d refuse. I certainly didn’t want to go to hell, and maybe I didn’t exactly want to be mortal, although I enjoyed eating. According to Wu Kong, I enjoyed it a little too much.
What could I do?
Ah. I could apologise to her. My wife. The journey had taken her ten years. I wondered if she was alive.
Around me, everyone was congratulating and hugging one another. The Monkey King Wu Kong was returning to the Mountains of Flowers and Fruit, while our master would stay in the court and be the emperor’s advisor. Sha Wujing would now go to one of the temples to be an arhat, and then, there was me. They were all chatting about their plans excitedly and saying goodbye, while I was stuck there, not quite knowing what to do.
“It’s going to be fine, brother,” Wu Jing reassured me. “You’ll find your way.”
It was easy of him to say so. He had fully repented. I was a cleaner of the altars. It was a post, sure, but a mere glorified one at that.
Since I could now use my powers, I conjured up a somersault cloud and journeyed back to the village. Everything was still standing, thank goodness. The fields were vast, and I saw the shed where I acquired my rake, the weapon I would use on this journey. I looked left and right for my former wife’s house but there was now one beside it. Of course. In front of it someone ploughing a field. The young man was probably her son.
I approached the house and the young man looked up. He raised his eyebrow at my appearance. I knew I still looked like a monster, but I had chosen to live with it.
“Excuse me,” I tried to be as polite as possible. “Is your mother around?”
He turned around and called for her.
“Ma! Someone’s outside to see you!”
In a minute, she appeared. She was, of course, larger in size and streaks of white lined her once jet black hair. But she was still beautiful. Her face was wrinkled and she looked exhausted. At first glance, she staggered back.
“You still look the same,” she said.
“You still look lovely,” I let that slip before realising that it wasn’t appropriate. “Sorry.”
“I’m married.”
“I know. Look, I came to apologise for what I did those years ago. The…uh…”
“You still can’t say it.”
“But I’m sorry.”
“All right. I accept your apology—“
I nod.
“—but I don’t forgive you.”
“Excuse me, what?”
“I know you and I know your kind. You never apologised to me unless it was because of some ulterior motive. You have no idea how much you hurt me and how no one wanted to marry this ‘whore’, for a while.”
“I—I—”
“You have no idea what it’s like to be a woman, and have your purity be judged by—by—“
She stopped.
“You ruined my life and you come in with an apology like it will mend what you have done. It doesn’t. Zhu Bajie, you went on this journey but you still have lots to learn.”
With that, she spun around and slammed the door.
I hated to admit it, but she was right. She couldn’t obviously know what she was doing, but I was apologising to her, hoping that I would suddenly become enlightened. That Guan Yin would magically descend from the heavens and that I would be an arhat or a buddha or something. But I had ended up where I had started.
That stung. The worst part was, she was right. I was doing this for me, not for her. For once in my life, I was disgusted with myself. I couldn’t stay here any longer. I went on my way. I had to do better and be better, whatever that meant.
Featured image by Pascal Debrunner