Chapter 91: From Today On, Be a Happy Monkey

The writing style of Journey to the West Diary by Lord He is Something Else won Zhang Chu’s deep admiration. Its prose is full of mockery and sharpness, often leaving him smiling one moment, laughing so hard he could hardly breathe, only to have his heart suddenly seize up the next, struck by a reality that was heavy and unalterable.

The same events were still the same events, the same figures still the same figures, and yet the tone of the story shifted almost imperceptibly.

For instance, the whole tale unfolds in the first person through Tang Monk, who is no longer the pedantic, timid, and irritatingly rigid monk of old; he is the only lucid one in the four-man pilgrimage party.

Yet this lonely clarity, this being awake while all the world is muddled and blind, brought Tang Monk not joy but a pain he could never relieve, a pain that only deepened as he fell further into it.

He envied the Monkey King’s lyricism and trance-like oblivion, for the Great Sage Equal to Heaven could bury his former thunderous exploits in the memories of a previous life and find happiness within his own fantasies.

He envied Pig’s simplicity and ignorance; even after falling from a handsome and dashing beauty into a pig with a belly full of fat and intestines, he could still take delight in himself and win the wholehearted devotion of Gao Cuilan.

He envied Friar Sand’s calm and authenticity, this man accustomed to and dependent on an institutional life, who, after accidentally shattering the Queen Mother’s most beloved crystal goblet and being banished to the mortal world, still clung to the dream of returning to the Heavens.

On the surface, these companions laughed and scolded, bantered and traded jokes, accompanying Tang Monk along that road to the Western Heaven, a road so long it might never be walked to the end.

Here, the gods and buddhas all became the villains, smothering the undying longing in the hearts of the master and his disciples.

Of course, Journey to the West Diary contains many uproarious lines of dialogue, a great deal of internet slang and topical references, very much in step with the times, and perfectly suited to Zhang Chu’s identity as a master of punchy one-liners.

With a hot subject and a humorous, lively style, it was simply tailor-made for Zhang Chu, so he did not hesitate for long at all before deciding on this work.

...

After dinner, Zhang Chu quickly logged into his Weibo. By then, his fan count had already surpassed two hundred thousand, and the influence of Stand to the End had long since faded.

Still, thanks to the snowballing growth of the endorsement-style writing he had created, his popularity value was in fact continuing to rise slowly.

Because of the ending incident involving Mind Crime: City of Light, many readers on Weibo were furious, but no matter how angry they were, it did not change the fact that they still wanted to buy the print edition.

However, Zhang Chu had already offered a solution: once the physical book was published, he would reveal the ending on Weibo. And that ending would definitely require full payment to read, so those readers who had already spent money would only need to pay a final little bit of subscription money.

As for whether they wished to buy the print edition again or purchase the full electronic version for a smoother read, that was up to the readers themselves. Zhang Chu could not concern himself with it.

He silently apologized to his readers, because the pit he had dug still had not been filled, and already he was about to dig another one.

In his previous life, the people he hated most were those authors who dug pits and never filled them. He had never expected that in this life he would become such a person himself.

Being tricked by others felt awful, but tricking others seemed to feel very good indeed.

This time Zhang Chu did not bother creating a long Weibo post. He simply put up the title and the text, saying nothing unnecessary.

Journey to the West Diary

[Starting today, be a happy monkey.
Split wood, feed horses, travel the world.
Starting tomorrow, care about grain and vegetables.
I have a Flower-Fruit Mountain, facing the sea, with spring blossoms all around.
Starting tomorrow, write to every demon maiden and tell them of my happiness.
That happiness, revealed to me by lightning, I shall tell to everyone.
Let us journey westward, and give every river and every mountain a warm name!]

As he wrote, Zhang Chu could not stop laughing. This opening was clearly adapted from Hai Zi’s poem, only rewritten from the perspective of the Monkey King, making anyone who saw it unable to suppress a knowing smile.

It was clearly the arduous pilgrimage to the Western Heaven, yet it gave off a gentle warmth; a happy monkey bouncing along to travel the world, though only half a poem had been altered.

Zhang Chu muttered to himself, “Unknown monkey, I bless you too. May you have a peach grove full of harvest.”

There was no original poem by Hai Zi called Facing the Sea, Spring Blossoms, and Zhang Chu had no intention of writing it into existence; that meant one less reference point, a little regrettable perhaps.

This adaptation, steeped in the flavor of the Journey to the West, established a joyful mood from the very first line. With a light press of the mouse, Journey to the West Diary officially met his two hundred thousand fans.

...

Xie Yutong was a third-year student in the Chinese department at Fudan University. Online, she also had another identity: a giant in the world of fan fiction, skilled at writing all kinds of pairings, and known as the fangirl among fangirls.

Sherlock, hailed by the fan-fiction community as the year’s great work of slash fiction, naturally could not escape her attention. She not only read it online and called on her friends in the circle to vote for it, but even after the print edition was released, she openly bought a copy to keep in her collection.

It was said to be for reading a mystery and detective novel, but in truth it was for inspiration as she wrote her own Holmes-and-Watson pairing stories.

“Oh? Zhang Chu’s written something new? Journey to the West Diary sounds kind of interesting. Whose diary is it?”

Xie Yutong murmured to herself, and then her gaze drifted downward, where she immediately saw the adapted poem Zhang Chu had posted.

The top student from the Chinese department instantly widened her eyes. These words were plain and bright, yet carried a freshness as well, conveying the monkey’s sincerity and kindness.

Was this still the monkey who had stormed the Heavenly Palace and shaken the universe to its foundations?

How could it be so warm, like a tender-hearted man, so fresh and lovely, so full of vitality and life, with a spirit of positivity and high resolve shining through every line?

Especially the final line, giving every river and every mountain a warm name—it struck Xie Yutong straight in the heart. Such a scene of happiness was being described by someone on the bitter road to the West.

“Could I have read a fake Journey to the West?”

Xie Yutong began to doubt herself. The words, when put together, were lovely indeed, yet she could also feel the melancholy hidden behind that happiness. Everything was about tomorrow, so what about today?

With the restraint band on his head, could one still be a happy monkey?

She read those few short lines again and again, and in the end exclaimed in admiration, “No wonder he could write The Death of Red Hare. He does dabble in a bit of mystery and detective fiction now and then, but his prose is undeniable! This poem is beautiful. If you changed the monkey into a person, it would surely become a classic poem. Even as it is, it is not bad at all.”

After reading it, Xie Yutong immediately took a screenshot of this slightly unconventional poem and sent it to her advisor. In her view, this little poem was quite good and possessed a certain literary value.