It had been several days since Wukong had been inspired by Trip’s story about Little Dragon, and the saying about the value of focused practice.

Every day, they continued their journey along the increasingly desolate path that they had followed ever since leaving the monastery. At first, there were still trees and assorted greenery. As they continued, trees became sparse, giving way to grassy clearings among the valleys and ever-present, yet distant, mountains. Eventually, they trudged through a land where no grass grew. Only the occasional thorny bush could be seen, growing on hard sterile dirt.

Every morning, Trip would find Wukong greeting the dawn, perched upon the highest place he could find or conveniently make within sight of the camp. A tree, a rock, a mound of dirt, it didn’t matter. On it he would stand, soaking up the sun, his fur growing more golden by the day.

After they had broken camp to continue on their way to Gao Village, Wukong would busy himself with scaled-up versions of exercises he had seen Trip perform every night. Exercises that he could do as they walked. He would select a large log or rock, and lug it along, lifting it in various ways, squatting with it, even jumping or sprinting with it.

There were times when he grew too exhausted to even walk. It was then that he would ask to be allowed a ride on White Dragon. Those rides were never long ones. Wukong would drape himself on White Dragon’s back, almost instantly start snoring, then in a short while, jump back down and be ready to run back down the path to retrieve his rocky or woody weight for the day.

Every night, Wukong would accompany Trip’s exercises, imitating her as best as he could. On the first night, it was clear that he had not performed such exercises before, imitating the movement without comprehending the purpose, while letting his usual enthusiasm get in the way.

When he had, while using a heavy rock as a weight, accidentally hit himself in the head for the upteenth time, Trip finally couldn’t take it anymore. She began instructing him as best as she could, even coming up with exercises to accommodate his greater strength. Which led to his daytime antics with rocks or logs.

Later in the night, when Trip would continue to practice her firing technique with the single-shot pistols, Wukong would practice with his quarterstaff. By then, he had progressed from re-enacting the fight with the Black Wind Demon, trying to figure out what he could have done to make the fight go better, how he could be faster, more efficient, better. Instead, he would practice the same specific strikes, or combination of spinning blocks and counters, again and again. It seemed that he was taking her story about Little Dragon very seriously. “Fear the one who practices one kick 10,000 times”, indeed.

It could be said that every night, Trip and Wukong left their marks on the many trees and rocks they encountered along the way, as proof of their efforts..

***

About a week after leaving the monastery, the dreary brown landscape finally gave way to greenery again. It was just some sparse grass growing here and there, but it was a welcome change.

In the distance, they saw a large village that seemed like a jade sculpture, shining a vibrant green against the generally brown surroundings. It was surrounded with tall bamboo fences. Above that, they saw thatched roofs and fruit-bearing trees. As they drew closer to the village, the colours and scents of flowers filled the air, as did the sounds of chickens, sheep and pigs.

When they reached the open village gate, a large bamboo sign above proclaimed it to be Gao Village. On both sides of the sign, a familiar “0” with two horns was emblazoned. The symbol of the Crimson Bull. It was likely because of that openly-displayed symbol, that the unguarded village gate was wide open. There were two watchtowers behind the gate, but both seemed to be empty. It was only upon moving nearer, that faint snoring could be heard from one of them.

Walking further into the village, Trip observed that all the villagers she saw were quite well-fed, even plump. Instead of wells, water pumps had been built. The streets were clean, and outhouses could be seen, completely separate from the houses. There were several shops selling food, and business was good. Based on the sounds, she estimated that there were a few separate pig pens, and possibly an entire herd of sheep. It seemed to be quite an extraordinarily prosperous village, especially considering the surroundings.

She noticed a certain pattern in the names of businesses, prominently displayed on signposts above the shops. Gao’s Groceries, Gao’s Prosperity Diner, Gao’s Snacks and Buns… all of them bore the name “Gao”. It seemed the villagers of Gao Village had a rather limited naming sense.

It was only after they had entered the village for quite a while, that she realised something had been bothering her. She had seen many adults, but too few children. Those that she had seen, were almost all toddlers and deformed in some way. Club feet, fused limbs, hands that looked more like birds feet, misshapen heads… she had yet to see a completely normal child.

As they rode on, they heard loud, pained cries, alternating with the sounds of sobbing and pleading. Following the sounds, they reached the village square, a wide empty space, surrounded by shops, houses, and other large buildings. In the middle of a square, a long-snouted, floppy-eared, pig hybrid with a thick, plump body was tied spread-eagled to a sturdy X-shaped wooden frame. The pained cries, sobbing and pleading were coming from him.

Standing before the pig hybrid were two middle-aged humans who bore an obvious familial resemblance to each other. The older one was holding a large cudgel, standing stoically to one side. The younger one was furiously cursing and slashing at the pig hybrid’s body with a machete, wielding it with great force. Curiously, the wounds it produced were incongruously shallow. Some slashes only produced white scratches upon the pig hybrid’s skin, while other slashes left small cuts that leaked a few drops of blood.

“Ungrateful pig! Evil demon! My father made the worst mistake, taking you in! We’ve fed you, clothed you all these years, for WHAT? In the end, you DEFILED our Gao Xin! DEFILED and MURDERED her!”

“It wasn’t me! I swear! She was always so kind to me! I wouldn’t hurt her! It wasn’t me!” said the pig hybrid between sobs, tears dripping down its face.

A deep frown creasing her brow, Trip suddenly dashed forward. Just as another slash was about to land, Trip caught the man’s wrist, stopping it in its tracks.

The man turned to look at Trip, trying to dislodge Trip’s grip, but Trip’s hand did not budge even an inch.

“Who are you? Do you know who I am? I’m Lord Gao’s son, and you’re obstructing the course of justice! Let go before I call the guards!”

“I don’t care who you are. I want to know what’s going on.”

Finally, the older man with the cudgel finally spoke.

“Gao Tian, that’s enough. You can’t call it justice when we don’t have any proof. I’ve let you vent yourself, but it’s time to stop. Our orders were only to keep Bajie here, not to punish him.”

Gao Tian sneered. “Gao Cai, do you think my father is unaware of what I intended to do? Silence means consent! By not forbidding me to punish this demon, he gave his tacit approval!”

Gao Cai lifted his cudgel, tapping it into the palm of his other hand. His expression didn’t change, but somehow, he began to give off an intimidating aura. An aura that said “I could beat you up without breaking a sweat, with this calm expression on my face the entire time.”

In contrast with this aura, Gao Cai’s tone was measured and friendly. “Let’s agree to disagree. For now, just go home, Ah Tian. Comfort your family. I’m starting to get irritated with all this noise, so if you stay, I’ll need your help to relieve some of that irritation.”

“Humph! Fine!” Gao Tian gave a mighty snort, tugged his hand out of Trip’s grip which she had finally loosened, and left.

Gao Cai turned to Trip, lowering his cudgel to give a palm salute.

“This Miss, how may I address you?”

“I’m Trip. This is Wukong.”

“Thank you for giving me the chance to stop Gao Tian. The whole situation was getting out of hand.”

“Can you tell me what the whole situation is?”

Gao Cai sighed heavily and lowered his head. His entire being seemed to deflate a bit. After a moment of silence, he said, “It’s like this. Two days ago, Gao Xin, Lord Gao’s most favoured niece, went missing. The whole village did a search. Yesterday, we found her… well, what remained of her… right next to some fields.” He nodded at Bajie, who had stopped crying out, but was still sobbing softly, hanging limp against the restraints on the wooden frame.

“Those fields… Bajie was the only one working in them.”

-- Chapter 25, End --