Journey West 5000

Chapter 25 - Maiden-Defiling Demon of Gao Village

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.