Most heroes are carefully and traditionally born, but Sun Wukong, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, was hatched. He was a stone egg perched precariously on a remote mountaintop, soaking up the heat of the sun and the silver of the moon until he finally cracked open and immediately offended heaven.
Sun Wukong didn't just step into the world; he exploded into it, stretching his stone-hewn limbs before immediately screaming at a passing cloud for moving too slowly. The cloud, indifferent to the demands of a newborn monkey, simply drifted on, which was perhaps the first time Wukong had his pride wounded—though certainly not the last.
He was a king among his own kind on the Flower-Fruit Mountain, but being a king of monkeys wasn't enough for a spirit that had been forged in the womb of a mountain. He learned magic from a reclusive sage because immortality sounded like a useful party trick to pull on the inevitable boredom of eternity. He learned to cloud-hop because he felt that traditional walking was meant for the more pedestrian, less divine creatures of the earth. He even mastered the art of the 72 transformations, which allowed him to become anything from a mighty temple to a tiny mosquito—though he never quite figured out how to hide his tail, which often made for a very suspicious and furry flagpole.
Heaven, unfortunately for its own peace and quiet, didn't quite know what to do with a creature that held the power of a god but the impulse control of a toddler. They invited him up to the celestial halls, hoping that a steady government job would calm his frantic spirit.
They made him the Stable Master. He felt insulted and let all the immortal horses loose to graze on the stars.
They made him the Guardian of the Peach Orchard. He proceeded to eat every single one of the peaches of immortality, leaving nothing but pits and a very satisfied burp.
"You are completely and utterly unmanageable!" the Jade Emperor roared, his voice shaking the pillars of heaven.
"I am great!" Wukong corrected, pointing his magical, size-changing staff at the Emperor’s nose. "I am the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven! I believe it’s written quite clearly on my new business cards!"
He fought the entire army of heaven single-handedly. He engaged in a legendary shapeshifting duel with Erlang Shen that involved becoming a fish, a bird, and eventually a very confused water snake. He was winning the war of nerves until the Buddha himself decided to intervene.
"I bet you can't even jump out of the palm of my hand," the Buddha challenged, his expression one of perfect, irritating calm.
"Child's play," Wukong said, and with a single massive leap, he reached the very edge of the universe. He saw five great pillars standing at the limit of creation. To mark his victory, he peed on the central pillar and scribbled his name in the stone before jumping back.
"Done," Wukong smirked, landing back in the center of the palm.
The Buddha smiled a sad, knowing smile. "Look down, little monkey."
On the base of the Buddha’s middle finger, there was a tiny, monkey-sized puddle and a messy scribble of ink. Wukong had never even left the palm.
The tiny mark looked almost comical against such vastness.
Five hundred years spent under the weight of a magical mountain will give even the most energetic monkey a very stiff neck. Wukong was bored. He was mossy. He was covered in centuries of dirt and regret.
Then came the monk, Tang Sanzang. He was mortal, he was fragile, and he was annoyingly pacifist, but he held the key to Wukong’s potential future.
"I will free you from this stone prison," the monk said softly. "But only if you swear to protect me on my sacred journey to the Western Heaven to retrieve the scriptures of enlightenment."
