Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 3 2018 | Page 244

You are just an animal
St Margarets Co-Educational Secondary and Primary School, Wu, Edison - 13
T
hroughout the story of the monkey king, there have been many excerpts, little details of great
significance, that have been left out of this legendary tale. Today I will present one of these
instances. Vital to the understanding of the literature itself.
After the monkey king beat the Red Boy and saved his master, The Tang Priest, their group decided to
camp north in a steep plateau next to Brokeback mountain where they will meet their next foe, the 3
headed fish spirit.
The Tang Priest sent monkey to fetch some holy water, which he obeyed readily. And he set off from the
very edge of the cliff to the waterfall. Monkey was walking in the forest connecting to the spring when he
sensed a disturbance. The hustle of wind gives it away. He wasn’t alone. Monkey whipped out his Iron
Cudgel from his ear and pointed it at the direction of the mist. Amongst the trees and the ferns stood a
shadow of a hand. Monkey was alert, ready to strike at the shadow at any moment when it cleared,
revealing a rock shaped like a hand. Essentially this could all be in monkey’s head, as he was feeling a bit
unwell after clashing with the red boy, who had several mind tricks up his sleeve, but monkey was sure that
he didn’t imagine it. On the stone was an ancient scripture carved by the Tian Tan Buddha “A man’s
greatest power is his humility, his greatest weakness his pride.”
Monkey smirked at the rock, thinking that it was only a road block and cracked it with a devastating blow
from his Iron Cudgel.
Then his head split open in pain as the stone turned into flesh and the hand connected to an arm, and then a
body. The Tian Tan Buddha was standing before monkey. He muttered enchantments as monkey twisted
and turned in pain, and after he finished, he said to him “The principle of a man’s personality is the way in
which he acts.”
“Well you’re just an animal.”