Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4 - 7 2018 | Page 170

Tang Ling woke up once more to the feeling of cold water being splashed onto her. “What…? Is this the
Underworld? I never knew it would be this pretty….” She whispered to herself. “Xuan Zang! It’s about
time you woke up! Come clean the yards!” Yelled a monk. “Alright, I’ll be…..wait…Xuan Zang? My
name’s Tang Ling!” she replied, confused. The same monk gave a hearty laugh. “You must’ve gotten too
much sleep! Why would a monk have such a girlish name? Are you kidding me?” Other monks who heard
him also laughed, as they stared at Tang Ling strangely, as though she had gotten some kind of disease.
“What? What’s wrong?” Tang Ling questioned them.
“Ah! Xuan Zang! There you are!” An older monk cried as he came forward, while everyone else bowed to
him. Tang Ling stood shocked. What was going on? A knowing twinkle in the monk’s eye confirmed
something for her, this definitely wasn’t where people went after they die! “ Someone is here to see you.
They say that it’s important! Quick! Don’t have them wait!” The old monk smiled kindly at Tang Ling, as
Tang Ling followed him to the entrance of the monastery.
As the younger monk approached the trio, Sun Wukong immediately felt something familiar about the
person walking towards them, as if they had met before. But it clearly couldn’t be the case, since he had just
left the mountains to search for this Xuan Zang person by the Gods’ orders.
“Sun Wukong? Zhu Bajie? Sha Wujing?” The young monk questioned with excitement. This left Sun
Wukong in a phase of confusion.
“Have we met before?” He asked carefully.
The young monk only replied with a mysterious smile, “Well, shall we get going then?” She asked the trio,
“Lead the way. You have to find the Book of the West, don’t you?”
Sun Wukong, examined the monk standing in front of him,shocked. “ How…How did you know…?”
“I just do,” Tang Ling shrugged, smiling kindly as she started to walk away from the monastery into the
unknown, the trio following behind confused.
“A new journey, a new beginning,” Tang Ling thought to herself, “This time, I’m not going to fail.”