Wukong continued training with his master becoming stronger and stronger each day. After learning the 72 transformations and becoming an immortal there was little that the master could teach him. However, he stayed and continued to train soaking up all of his master’s teachings. One day as the insults and bullying from his peers became too much Wukong decided that he would return home. He made his goodbyes to his master and set off in the direction of the Mountain of Fruit and Flowers. It did not take as long for Wukong to reach home as it did for him to originally leave. One of the things he had learned from his master was the magic of a somersault. With a single turn he could travel hundreds of miles and it took him just a few flips to arrive back at his mountain. Upon arriving home Wukong found his mountain in ruins. There were clear signs of a battle and after he rounded up the monkeys that were left he found out what had happened.
“My dear monkeys, what has happened to our mountain and our home?” cried out Wukong.
“You were gone too long! In your absence these clay soldiers came into our homes and abducted our children. They only left those too old and sick to work in their factories,” replied the monkeys.
“My old master had mentioned that the current emperor of China was creating a terracotta army to serve him in the afterlife. These must be the same ones. Our home under the waterfall must have been one of their storage depots. I alone must go and rescue our children, as it is my fault that they are in this situation,” said Wukong.
And with that Wukong was off to find the production site of the terracotta army. Taking the advice of the monkeys that were left he followed the river up north. After a half somersault he discovered the terracotta army base camp. What he discovered shocked and disgusted him. They were using his monkeys as slaves in the production of their terracotta army! He saw his monkey brothers and sisters slaving away at making the emperor’s terracotta army. After staking out the camp for a day Wukong made a plan to save them.
To destroy the soldiers and rescue his brothers and sisters Wukong knew he would need help. There were too many people for him to go at it alone. Wukong grabbed a fistful of hairs from his body and turned them into copies of himself. After doing that a few times Wukong had a sizable army. First he sent a few of his copies to sneak into camp and rescue the monkeys held prisoner. Next he sent a few more monkeys to wreak havoc in the camp far away from the monkeys he was trying to rescue. He essentially created a diversion for the monkeys trying to escape. Finally he took the rest of the copies and completely devastated the camp. He destroyed every terracotta soldier and burned the camp to the ground.
After returning home with the freed monkeys Wukong realized that his people would never be left in peace. They would need to arm themselves if they wanted to protect themselves. Wukong also realized that he would need a weapon and some armor that would be worthy of him to carry. Thankfully he remembered from the time with his master that the Dragon King specialized in magical weapons and armor.
Author’s Note: In the original story when Wukong returns home he finds that the nearby demon king has kidnapped a lot of the monkeys. He travels over to the mountain by himself and fights the demon king with copies of himself. The demon king grows to the size of a mountain and then so does Wukong. After returning home Wukong decides that he needs a weapon and some armor.
In my version I wanted the terracotta army to be the antagonist and not the demon king. In my first story I alluded to the monkeys settling in a terracotta storage area and I wanted to bring that back in this story. So I made the terracotta army kidnap some of the monkeys so that they could use them as slaves in making more terracotta soldiers. I didn’t think Wukong needed to grow in size to fight the terracotta soldiers so instead I made him create copies of himself to show off some of the powers he learned with his master. I also used Wukong’s time with the master as a plot device twice to make assumptions to help the reader understand what was going on. Once with the terracotta soldiers Wukong just happened to have heard from his master that the emperor was making them, and again with the Dragon King possessing magical weapons and armor.
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