Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 3 2018 | Page 296

“As I know, you are expected to spend around 16 years before returning to Tang, but by taking the UFO,
it’ll only take less than one minute to reach India! So you can feel free to stay here for years and learn more
in different aspects. The Buddha will be happy with that. You can share your experiences with the emperor
and you’ll be so much appreciated. You can even organize courses to teach the people in Tang what you
have learnt here so that they can become more educated, making Tang more prosperous, while you can
probably earn some living too!”
“Amitābha! It sounds good. Thank you.”
“But wait…” David put on a headset with optical head-mounted display, and spoke ‘Buddhist sutras’ into
the mic. “You can actually find thousands of Buddhist sutras on the internet. Put this headset on and you’ll
see it. You can ‘scroll’ down for more sutras or ‘click’ in for more details with your finger movement in the
air.”
“Oh dear! I want to try it too! That’s so convenient and we don’t need to bother to go to such a distant
place for the sutras!” exclaimed Pigsy.
The abundant information about Buddhism made Xuanzang over the moon but as he scrolled in the air,
another concern emerged from his mind, “How can I be sure that these are the original, true sutras that
follow the Buddhist ideas?”
“Then you can join some courses about Buddhism! There are many choices but you have to apply for a
job first so that you can earn enough money for the courses!”
“Amitābha! Very good indeed! Thank you so much for your help!”
After that, Xuanzang, Monkey King, Pigsy and Friar Sand applied for jobs, attended many courses
including those about Buddhism, Cantonese, English, etc. Together, they read plenty of books, toured
around Hong Kong and learned to live a modern life of quick pace for three years. Still, Xuanzang decided
to pursue further studies in India, as he had learnt a saying, “It is better to travel far than to read
voluminously.” After all, India was the origin of Buddhism and what he could experience there would be
the most orthodox.
Again, the four of them got on the UFO with Yulong, setting off to India. With their knowledge gained
in Hong Kong, they were qualified to study at Nalanda, a university there, and could even skip two grades.
“Now we’ve returned to you, after living in such a competitive city,” Xuanzang handed in the sutras to
the Buddha.
“What have you learnt?” asked the Buddha.
“To win at the starting line. That’s why we only took eight years to complete the task.”
“And that’s why you haven’t acquired the sutras of ‘transcendence and persuasion for good will’ I want—
you need another eight years to truly experience the meaning of ‘life’.”
The sunlight dimmed. With the “loss” of their achievement, the four of them suddenly found out that
they had long forgotten about the goal of the journey and the lessons that they should have learnt …