Verdant Great Sun's smile, still sticky with the sugar of the East, faltered.
Wisdom Gu had spoken, and its word was the law of his journey. Go West.
Verdant Great Sun turned his back on the sunrise. He turned his back on the lush, forgiving paradise of the Honey Peach Monkeys. He took his first step toward the land of the setting sun, where the shadows stretch long and the light goes to die.
The transition was violent. It was not a gradual fading of green to brown; it was an assault on the senses.
As he walked, the moisture was sucked from the air. The humid, fragrant breeze of the East died, replaced by a dry, rasping wind that tasted of grit and ancient dust. The soft, rolling hills that had cradled his feet hardened into jagged ridges. The emerald grass withered into brown straw, then into gray ash, and finally into nothing but cracked, baked clay.
This was the proto-Western Desert. It was a land of Metal and Earth, a place where the soft flesh of life was stripped away to reveal the hard bones of reality.
The sun beat down without mercy. In the East, the sun was a nurturer; here, it was a tyrant. It baked the ground until heat waves shimmered like mirages of water that would never exist.
Verdant Great Sun walked for weeks. His golden robes, once bright and flowing, became heavy with gray dust. His lips, recently stained with pink nectar, cracked and bled. His throat felt like it was filled with sand.
The wind here did not sing. It howled through the sandstone canyons like a grieving widow keening for a husband who would never return. It whispered names he wanted to forget. Ren Zu... Ancient Moon... Failure...
Finally, he came to a range of sheer cliffs that rose up like the tombstones of giants. The rock was dark red and gray, unforgiving and vertical.
High up on the cliff face, he saw openings—dark, narrow mouths leading into the belly of the mountain.
He climbed. His golden boots scrambled on loose shale. He cut his hands on the sharp rocks. There were no helpful branches to hold him here, only the indifference of stone.
He pulled himself onto a ledge and entered the caves of the Psychic Monkeys.
The atmosphere inside was suffocating. It was cool, but it was the damp, stale chill of a crypt, not the refreshing cool of a shade tree. The air smelled of wet soil, old iron, and silence.
These monkeys were the antithesis of their Eastern cousins.
They were thin, skeletal creatures, their limbs like brittle sticks wrapped in loose, gray skin. But their heads were massive, bulbous and heavy, covered in pulsating veins. Their foreheads were wrinkled with the deep valleys of excessive thought.
They did not rush to greet him. They did not squeak or play.
They sat in circles on the cold stone floor, illuminated only by the dim, phosphorescent moss on the ceiling. They held their oversized heads in their hands, as if the weight of their own minds was too much to bear.
They were Thinking.
They were the keepers of memory. They remembered every mistake they had ever made. They remembered every fruit that had rotted before they could eat it. They remembered every family member who had died. They ruminated on the futility of existence, turning their pain over and over in their minds like a polished stone.
Verdant Great Sun stood in the entrance, his golden aura dim and flickering in the gloom. The joy of the peach wine was a distant memory now, crushed by the gravity of this place.
"I seek the taste of life," he whispered.
His voice echoed in the silence, bouncing off the damp walls. Life... life... life... The echo sounded mocking.
One of the Psychic Monkeys slowly raised its head. Its eyes were incredibly sad—large, watery, and filled with a knowledge that burdened the soul. It looked at Verdant Great Sun, and the human felt naked. Those eyes saw past his golden skin; they saw the insecurity, the vanity, and the loneliness beneath.
The monkey did not speak. It simply reached behind itself and produced a cup.
It was not a smooth stone bowl like in the East. It was a cup made of dark, unpolished clay, rough and jagged to the touch. It looked like it had been shaped by hands that were trembling.
The monkey held it out.
Verdant Great Sun stepped forward and took it. He looked at the liquid inside.
It was black as ink. It was viscous, thick like oil or coagulated blood. It reflected no light. It seemed to absorb the dim glow of the cave, pulling everything into its darkness.
This wine was not brewed from fruit. The Psychic Monkeys brewed it from the Bitter Roots of the Iron-Wire Grass that clung to the cliffs—tough, stringy plants that tasted of metal. They mixed it with the stagnant water found deep in the earth, water that had never seen the sun, water that had sat in the dark for a thousand years.
Verdant Great Sun hesitated. His body screamed at him to throw it away. But the quest drove him.
He lifted the rough clay to his cracked lips.
He took a sip.
"Gah!"
He gagged violently, doubling over, clutching his stomach. His face twisted into a mask of absolute, primal disgust.
It was Bitter.
It was a bitterness that defied description. It curled his tongue and constricted his throat. It felt like he had swallowed a mouthful of gall, ash, and rusted nails. It sucked every drop of moisture from his mouth, leaving him dry and rasping.
He wanted to spit it out. He wanted to vomit.
But the Psychic Monkey watched him silently. It did not mock him. It did not encourage him. It simply witnessed his struggle.
Shame forced him to swallow.
The black wine slid down his throat like liquid lead, heavy and toxic.
But then, the transformation happened.
As the heavy, bitter sludge settled in the pit of his stomach, the nausea faded. In its place, a cold, sharp shockwave spread through his nervous system.
The fuzzy, warm intoxication of the Sweet Wine vanished instantly. The haze of the East was blown away by a freezing wind of reality.
The illusion that "everything is fine" shattered like glass.
The wine triggered a hallucination of truth.
Verdant Great Sun closed his eyes, and the darkness of his eyelids became a screen.
He saw Desolate Ancient Moon. He didn't see her as the prize he wanted; he saw her back as she walked away. He felt the coldness of her rejection, not as a challenge to be overcome, but as a fact to be accepted. She does not want me.
He saw his father, Ren Zu. He saw the empty, bleeding eye sockets. He tasted the guilt of abandoning a blind old man on a mountain top just so he could chase butterflies. I am a bad son.
He saw himself. He saw that he was not just the glorious Sun. He was a man made of dust, walking toward a grave.
He realized he was alone.
He realized he was mortal.
He realized that sweetness is a lie we tell ourselves to keep on living, but bitterness is the truth that waits at the end.
The wine did not make him drunk; it made him Sober. It made him hyper-aware of every flaw, every danger, and every sorrow in the world.
Verdant Great Sun gasped, dropping the clay cup. It shattered on the stone floor, the sound sharp and final.
He backed away from the monkeys. They did not stop him. They returned to their meditation, clutching their heads, lost in their own bitter brews.
Verdant Great Sun walked out of the cave and back into the blinding sun of the West. But the sun felt different now. It didn't feel like glory. It felt like a countdown.
He walked all the way back to the Valley of Flowers. His step was heavy. He did not run. He did not smile. He walked with the posture of an old man carrying a heavy load.
When he arrived at the tree where Wisdom Gu waited, he did not beam. He did not brag.
He looked up at the Gu, his eyes clear and full of pain.
"Love is Bitter," Verdant Great Sun said, his voice rough as gravel.
He rubbed his chest, where the ache lingered. "It hurts. It is hard to swallow. It is full of sharp edges and cold nights. It forces you to look at things you want to ignore. Why? Why would anyone want this? Why not stay in the East forever?"
Wisdom Gu nodded slowly, its wings creating a soft breeze.
"Life is sweet, and life is bitter," Wisdom Gu intoned. "Love is the same. You cannot have the fruit without the root. Sweetness gives you the energy to move, but bitterness gives you the reason to stop and think."
"You cannot appreciate the warmth of the sun without the cold of the night," Wisdom Gu explained. "Bitterness cleanses the spirit of illusion. It grounds you. It makes you real."
Wisdom Gu looked at the man. He was no longer the naive child of the East, nor the broken wretch of the West. He was becoming complex.
"But," Wisdom Gu said, lifting a wing to point toward the frozen horizon where the aurora danced, "you are still missing the fire. You have tasted being the child and the Sage. Now you must taste being the Warrior."
"Go North."