Wheel of Topics #22b

Sun Wukong was now out of reach from death(or the spirits that represented it in chinese mythos), but could still be killed. His many actions had attracted the attention of the Jade Emperor, ruler of the Heaven Kingdom. In an attempt to control him, they invited him to heaven and proposed him a divine title. Thinking that it could give him immortality, he went to the Heaven Kingdom. But he never expected this. He was appointed as the divine stable boy. He felt so insulted that he went on a rampage, set the horses free, defeated the entire army of heaven and bested all its generals. When he calmed down, he asked to be given the title of Qitian Dasheng(great sage, equals to heaven). The Jade Emperor agreed to give him this title but without any actual power, and to make sure Sun Wukong wouldn't create more havock in the Heaven, he gave him some occupation. The Emperor asked Wukong to guard the heavenly peach garden.

Although they did give Wukong a position of power(the peach garden is among the most important area of the Heaven Kingdom, being his guardian is a high position) they didn't gave much consideration. When Wukong discovered that the immortals didn't invited him to a banquet where all immortals of Heaven were invited, he started to spread chaos again. He went to the banquet room before anyone else and drank all the alcohol, then, completely inebriated, ate all the magic peach of the peach garden and stole the mystical golden pills of Lao Tzu. When he woke up of his stupor, he knew they wouldn't forgive him for this, so he fled the Heaven and return to his own kingdom. Heaven's army, with the help of Taoist and Buddhist forces(allies change from stories to stories, but they are the most common), layed siege to Wukong's kingdoms and managed to capture him.

They attempted to execute him, but all his power, combined with the mystical peach he ate, made him invulnerable to all the executions method the Heavens knew. In a last attempt to get rid of him, they placed him in a chinese alchemist pot and placed the pot in the strongest fire they could for 49 days, hoping to turn him into an elixir. When they openned the pot, Wukong escaped. Not only did he survived this treatment, but it gave another power. His eyes were now golden and emit a slight light, and with them he could see through almost any illusion and see evil in all its form, but they also had a weakeness. Any smoke, normal or magic, could blind him. Out of options, the Jade Emperor asked for the help of the Power that exist over Heaven(most of the stories I found called him the Great Buddha).

The Buddha didn't want to use violence, so he challenged Sun Wukong with something looking so easy that it was impossible to fail. The chalenge was to escape the Buddha's open palm. Thinking it would be easy, Sun Wukong took the challenge. He went to the Buddha and standed on the Buddha's palm, then, using is power to travel by the clouds, he jumped far away from the Buddha. He travelled for thousands of miles before stoping to rest at the foot of five stone pillar. With a desire to humiliate the Buddha, Sun Wunkong wrote "the Great Sage, Equals to Heaven was here" on one of the pillar and peed on another. He then returned to the Buddha to tell him what he did. But the Buddha told him that he never left his palm, and to prove it he showed Sun Wukong the grafiti and the area where he peed on his hand. Having lost the bet, Sun Wukong tried to escape, but he was imprisonned under a mountain.

The adventure of Sun Wukong will end in "Journey to the West", where he will be freed and become the body guard of a monk. I will tell you more about this in another Wheel of topics.

Grim the pirate