Journey to the West: Break the entire Western Heaven!

"Go on, take a rest, will you?" Zhu Ganglie was terrified, afraid that the bald thief would say, "Make me a whole pig feast and let's see..."

Zhu Ganglie said, "Master, look at this kid, big and burly with a face of naivety, clearly not a liar. What he said must be true, it's getting late, we should cross the river sooner."

Tang Sanzang looked at the red-haired, blue-faced, big black-bearded fellow in front of him, his face covered with fierce muscles, how could he look naive?

But apparently, this guy didn't like to think much either, looking at the time, it indeed was getting late.

And upon thinking it over carefully, what Mu Zha had said hadn't really deceived him.

Sha Wujing indeed had served a high-profile boss before, could take care of people, and was also capable of speech, just ugly a bit.

But then, Mu Zha had never specified what he looked like, whether he was male or female!

Although he knew Mu Zha had intentionally avoided it, avoiding and deceiving are two different things, so he really couldn't blame Mu Zha for this.

Once he figured it out, he calmed down and reverted to his harmless demeanor, looking at Sha Wujing's head full of red hair, he raised his eyebrows and said, "Since you've entered Buddhism, let me shave your head."

Everyone rolled their eyes at that, thinking, "You're not even a monk, how are you related to Buddhism? Shaving the head? You're just jealous of Sha Wujing's thick hair, pfft!"

But no one dared to say this out loud.

Sha Wujing could only honestly let Tang Sanzang operate on him, and afterwards, his head was shining clean and smooth!

Having accomplished this task, Tang Sanzang felt great, pointed across the river, and said, "Alright, let's hit the road! Y'all follow me!"

In the midst of speaking, Tang Sanzang stomped his foot, leaped into the air, and jumped to the opposite riverbank.

Sha Wujing bitterly smiled and said, "This wasn't how we planned to cross the river..."

Sun Wukong said, "The monk we had originally arranged wasn't this fierce either, forget it. This scripture collector isn't the same as that scripture collector."

"What do you mean?" Sha Wujing was a bit confused.

Zhu Ganglie patted his shoulder and said, "It means exactly what it sounds like, this one is a fake."

"So, what about us?!" Sha Wujing was stunned. He had thought Sun Wukong, Zhu Ganglie, and Mu Zha's guidance, with care from the celestial heavens and protection from Mount Ling, would ensure a smooth and straightforward scripture-collecting journey without any mishaps. He hadn't expected to encounter the biggest issue of all!

The scripture collector was a fake!

In that instant, Sha Wujing wanted to cry, "Great Sage, you are the Great Sage Equalling Heaven, someone who once made a ruckus in Heaven. I was lying at the third-floor window when you reached the Hall of Radiant Light. You dared to challenge the heavens, and you knew he was a fake, why did you still follow him? What were you thinking?"

Sun Wukong looked up to the sky and lamented, "Originally, he smashed the Five Elements Mountain with a single punch, then grabbed my neck and asked me, are you going to the Western Heaven with me, or shall I send you to the Western Heaven... Sigh..."

With that, Sun Wukong leaped into the air and crossed the river.

Leaving Sha Wujing, Zhu Ganglie, and the White Dragon Horse standing there dumbfounded. Finally, Zhu Ganglie said with a bitter face, "Let's go, the situation is clear now. Either we go with him to the Western Heaven, or he sends us to the Western Heaven. Anyway, I don't feel like taking any shortcuts this time, you guys decide…"

Zhu Ganglie also leaped into the air and left.

At last, Sha Wujing and the White Dragon Horse sighed and caught up as well.

In the journey that followed, Sha Wujing was everywhere, helping from the front of the saddle to the back, helping to mount and dismount. One side would call for a meal while the other had already started a fire and heated the pot. Combined with his genuinely impressive cooking skills and massage techniques, he quickly leapt from a newcomer to being the darling in Tang Sanzang's eyes.

It made Sun Wukong, Zhu Ganglie, and the White Dragon Horse quite frustrated.

However, after much interaction, they started to understand him better.

Tang Sanzang was a person who was very simple, yet very complex.

He was so straightforward that when it came to handling matters, he preferred action over words, with a simplicity and brutality that was extreme.

The complexity was that he was actually very intelligent, seeing through everything at a glance, only that he was too lazy to bother and liked to take shortcuts with his fists instead.

Moreover, even though this person was very powerful, he did not have any airs about him. As long as you didn't insult him, he didn't care at all about face. He could become brothers with a commoner, accept a scolding from an ordinary old man without minding.

But if you called him a baldy or a "bald donkey" maliciously, touching his fragile nerve, it didn't matter to him whether you were an eighty-year-old man or a three-year-old child, he would definitely punch you.

In the eyes of Sun Wukong and the others, this baldy was just a donkey that would cause no trouble as long as you stroked its coat in the right direction.

Thus, after figuring out Tang Sanzang's temper, the group found it increasingly easy to get along with each other as they journeyed, recognized each other's personality, and smoothed out their interactions.

Only, Sun Wukong and the others were unaware that the era Tang Sanzang survived in was an era dominated by demonic gods, a time when the mighty were as common as clouds, where superiority was only granted to the strong without any moral and ethical order.

Thus, Tang Sanzang acted without questioning whether it was right or wrong, he just did what pleased him.

Also, initially, in order to survive, he had cultivated a depth of meanness to his bones, and had developed a habit of malicious suspicion, thinking "I don't want what you think, I only want what I think." This made him seem out of place in this era, giving others the illusion that he was both simple and complicated.

Meanwhile, Tang Sanzang and his party finally arrived at the location mentioned in the map, the eight-hundred-mile-long Yellow Wind Ridge.

Looking at the vast plain before them...

Tang Sanzang looked doubtfully at the eighteen Kāraṇḍavyūha and asked, "This is what you call the eight-hundred-mile Yellow Wind Ridge? Are you sure this is a ridge, not a plain? Oh, and there's a huge basin over there, and a large canyon too…"

"My friends, it's not that I don't believe you, I'm just curious."

"Are you sure we are going in the right direction?"

The eighteen Kāraṇḍavyūha were also baffled, this script wasn't right, the map wasn't right!

What on earth is going on here?!

Meanwhile, four figures arrived at the top of a small mountain.

The leading woman was a middle-aged female with silver hair who had a unique charm. She held a staff and said with a smile, "Fellow Bodhisattvas, this place happens to be the necessary route for the journey to the west. How about we test the strength of that fake Tang Monk here?"

"The place you've picked is excellent, I have no objections," said the Guanyin Bodhisattva in white.

The other two, Manjusri Bodhisattva and Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, said with a smile, "Li Mountain fellow, it is said that this fake Tang Monk has considerable strength, how do you plan to test him?"