The village chief smiled but said nothing.
He knelt beside a bamboo grove and dug a small hole. With care, he placed the charred-yellow fragment, taken from the cripple's hand, into the soil, then gently covered it.
"Your past self has returned. Your future self too. Only your present self remains missing... Ah, tell me. Was all that suffering truly worth it? You once stood so high 'up there', far beyond reach. Was it really all for that damned monkey?"
He lightly patted the mound of earth, as if tucking away something delicate.
The tavern keeper and the cripple exchanged glances, puzzled. They didn't understand his meaning.
The chief turned his gaze to the jagged tear splitting the nine-layered sky and murmured:
"Tell me, Winemaker. Cripple. What is time, really? And where exactly does the present reside?"
The cripple scratched his head.
"Chief, isn't there an old saying time is a great river, forever flowing toward the future? Back in my wandering days through Aparagodānī and Jambudvīpa, I met adepts who devoted lifetimes to studying that river. Some even claimed they saw its source."
The tavern keeper stayed silent, eyes lost in the fog of memory.
The chief chuckled, then pulled out a small cloth bundle and unwrapped a few snacks: golden sesame rings, oil-fried and still fragrant.
He laid them out between the three men.
"Time, to me, isn't a river. It's a sesame ring. There's no clear beginning or end, and no one knows which part is 'now.' Maybe the past, present, and future are nothing but illusions imagined by the sesame seeds. They can't see the whole ring, so each one thinks its little spot is the present."
"You're saying time is a circle?" the tavern keeper asked, his voice low. "That everything we do, every struggle, every hope, just loops back again and again?"
His face darkened. A long breath escaped him.
"If that's true... then what's the point of striving? Has Heaven truly cursed us... to grant us awareness only so we're forced to witness the futility of our fate?"
The chief looked at him, eyes gentle.
"We two old sesame seeds, yes, we failed. But there's still one fresh seed among us, isn't there?"
He smiled.
---the separator line was served under-cooked chicken on its date---
At Thunderclap Pagoda.
After braving the trial of Falsehood and confronting the jet-black teacher, Tô Mạc Tà and her companions stepped through the newly revealed doorway.
They had passed through this courtyard once before - during the trial of Desire - but retracing their path now led them somewhere entirely new.
The chamber they entered was plain, almost crude. No sweeping eaves, no elegant beams. It felt less like a shrine and more like a shed, bare, utilitarian.
Two withered trees flanked the entrance.
And there, in front of the shed, sat a rotund monk. His robe hung loosely off his plump frame, belly round, navel fully exposed. He lounged comfortably on a wooden ox statue, lazily fanning the beast's rear with a straw fan.
Then came the voice of Thunderclap Pagoda once more:
"The Eight Precepts: the third - thievery."
Tô Mạc Tà narrowed her eyes, wary. What was this monk planning to steal? And more importantly... which precept would grant them a safe way forward?
But unlike the earlier guardians - the pink skeletons, brass sentinels, or black-robed monk - this one felt different.
The other had all been rigid, lifeless extensions of the pagoda's sacred order. Puppets of law.
But not him.
This monk was vivid. Animated. Disarmingly alive.
Meeting their gaze, he gave a broad, warm smile and gestured casually for them to come closer.
Seeing their hesitation, he gave an exaggerated shrug. Rather than coax them, he shifted upright on the ox's back and said:
"Must you be so cautious? I just want to tell a story. No one's listened in tens of thousands of years. I'm about to burst!"
When no reply came, he grinned. "Fine. I'll talk. You listen."
He shifted to get comfortable and began:
"100,000 years ago, my big brother and I attained full enlightenment. He became a Buddha. I became a messenger. Back then, everywhere I went - people offered incense, rice cakes, joy, laughter - it was paradise.
"Then, 200,000 years ago, the Ominous arrived. Even the Celestial Court and Spirit Mountain couldn't comprehend it. No one knew what it truly was, only that its hunger know no end. Once tainted, you were no longer yourself.
"We lost.
"Seniors, juniors, arhats, bodhisattvas, Buddhas. None escaped. The war dragged on for over 30,000 years."
His voice softened.
"230,000 years ago, only my big bro remained. The last Buddha. He stood alone, defending Spirit Mountain and Thunderclap Pagoda to the bitter end.
"But even he... failed.
"His body shattered into stone. His burning eyes fell to the mortal world. His golden armor became a bronze husk wrapped around his corpse.
"300,000 years ago, the Ominous finally withdrew. A single bamboo shoot he'd once planted came alive. It wandered the world, gathering faith from all living beings, hoping their prayers could revive him.
"320,000 years ago, even we - Thunderclap Pagoda included - were cast down by impostors. We sank into the mortal realm and fell into slumber… until the day the earth rose again, and the pagoda touched sunlight."
The monk spoke on and on, breathless, eyes shining with a mix of sorrow and nostalgia.
His tale seemed to follow a timeline, but something was off. Each part reached further back than the last.
The deeper the story went, the further back in time he claimed to be.
Was he simply rambling?
Or was he mad?
Tô Mạc Tà had no answer. And she didn't dare interrupt.
She still couldn't tell what this monk had stolen to be judged under the precept of "thievery." Nor which part of the Eight Precepts gave the bronze men the right to act against him.
But Kim Giác Tử was not so hesitant.
He stepped forward and declared coldly:
"He's lying. Can't you hear it?"
Thunderclap Pagoda gave no response.
Tô Mạc Tà stiffened in disbelief.
The pagoda only ever responded to violations of sacred law. If it didn't refute the monk's words, then everything he said - at least in the eyes of the pagoda - must have been true.
The monk let out a bitter laugh at Gold Horn's accusation.
"If you want me dead, just say so. I'm tired. I've watched my master, my seniors, my juniors, even little White, all fall to the torment of the Ominous. Some shattered. Others just... disappeared.
"And me? I couldn't lift a finger to help. Back then, at least I could joke, pretended that I want to part ways. Then, they would all vent it out on me. The stress, the pain, the despair. And after that, we could push forward together.
Now? There's no one left to tease, no one left to scold me for my lousy jokes. I don't want to endure this alone anymore."
He turned upward and shouted:
"Hey! Thunderclap Pagoda! You hear me? I've broken all eight precepts! Kill me already!"
But only silence answered.
The monk shook his head, eyes bleak.
"Must I do it myself, then? Fine. Listen, you three. I'm only still alive because I stole two days of someone else's lifespan. I'm finished. I'm going to split myself open. And something foul may crawl out - something Ominous. Keep your distance, if you can.
"Once I'm dead, the trial of thievery will be over. If you find a golden cicada husk in the main temple, bury it for me. I can't enter that place."
With that, he drew a nine-toothed rake from gods-know-where, and drove it into his own skull.
Blood burst forth. His body split cleanly in two, falling apart at the ox's flanks.
Tô Mạc Tà stood frozen.
Gold Horn and Silver Horn stared in mute shock.
Was that it? Had the trial of thievery truly ended? Since when did trials - deadly, sacred, cruel - end so abruptly?
It felt too easy. Too clean.
Then, the voice of Thunderclap Pagoda returned:
"Congratulations. The three of you have passed the precept: thievery. Please proceed to the main temple."
As the voice faded, the monk's split body began to stir.
There were no bones. No organs. Only mold.
Gray, threadlike tendrils of decay writhed from within - like billions of worms - twisting, knotting, and knitting the two halves back together.
The monk's eyes flew open, streaming tears the color of fresh blood.
"Stop it! Please! I want to die! Why won't you let me die?"
He clawed at his chest, raking away at the mold with frenzied hands. But no matter how much he tore, it only regrew... faster and thicker.
Soon, his body was whole again. He collapsed at the feet of the wooden ox.
He cradled his head in his hands and wept.
His snout began to stretch. His nose curled. His ears grew large, like the palms of a grown man.
A monk's body. A pig's head. A swollen, sagging belly.
And there he sat, sobbing alone in the courtyard of Thunderclap Pagoda.