The first deviation was unremarkable.
A desolate village.
Built beside a cracked riverbed, its houses low and blackened by neglect. We arrived early, yet no smoke rose.
The villagers hid indoors.
I heard their heartbeats.
Not fear, but restrained hesitation—they did not know whether to ask us for help.
At the village entrance lay a corpse.
Not slain by monsters.
Starvation.
I stood there a long time.
"Master," I said. "We should stop."
Tang Sanzang followed my gaze, expression unchanged.
"Not our karma," he said.
His tone was not cold—almost apologetic, like reciting a memorized clause.
"The sutras must not be interrupted."
I did not respond immediately.
My six ears filled with unfiltered sound: children crying, elders gasping, muffled pleas. These sounds were unnamed, unclassified.
"We can help them," I said.
Tang Sanzang looked at me.
Not reproach—evaluation.
"If we help them," he said, "we must take responsibility for every such village thereafter."
"Then we will," I said.
His chanting paused—for just an instant.
In that instant, I knew:
I had touched a forbidden zone.
We stopped.
Not because of my insistence, but because Zhu Bajie had already begun distributing rations.
"Food's food," he said. "Dying on the road is bad luck."
Sha Wujing quietly built a stove.
Everything seemed natural.
But I heard something being recorded.
When we left, no one mentioned it.
Tang Sanzang resumed chanting.Bajie complained of fewer rations.Sha Wujing repacked the empty bags.
Everything returned to alignment.
Except me.
That night, I was summoned.
No rebuke. No interrogation.
Only an invitation to a quiet room.
No Buddha image. No incense.
Just a low table.
On it lay a thin booklet.
Tang Sanzang sat opposite me, not looking up.
"Today's incident," he said, "has been recorded."
"Recorded as what?" I asked.
"Deviation," he said.
I realized then:
There was no right or wrong.
Only occurrenceand registration.
"What are the consequences?" I asked.
"None for now," he said.
"And later?"
"Dependent on circumstances."
Fear took hold.
Not fear of punishment—but of its indefinite deferral.
I could not gauge the weight of this deviation, nor know when it would be invoked.
It was evidence stored in an archive, ready to be retrieved.
After that, I became cautious.
Not from remorse, but from understanding:
Judgment itself was becoming a risk.
I stopped asking questions.Stopped analyzing anomalies.I preemptively suppressed reactions.
Efficiency improved.
The journey proceeded more smoothly than ever.
No further deviations occurred.
At least, on the surface.
Until one day, I realized:
My six ears had not heard unprocessed sound in a long time.
Only permitted fragments reached me.
As though someone had begun filtering on my behalf.
That night, I dreamed.
I stood in a vast archive.
Shelves filled with thin booklets, each labeled:
Deviation.
They lay quietly—not destroyed, not resolved.
Waiting.
I awoke at dawn.
Tang Sanzang waited ahead.
"Wukong," he said. "Let us go."
I answered.
My voice was steady.