Silent Ark

Chapter 44: Heart Imprint

I don't know how much time has passed.

Time is not a reliable factor here.

Wukong walked out from the direction of the cave.

The pace was different from when it came.

They came in a hurry, with a specific purpose—they had important business to attend to and would leave once they were done.

It's slow now.

It's not the slowness of being tired—it's the slowness of not rushing.

He was taken aback when he saw Yao Chong still sitting on the rock.

Why haven't you left yet?

"Some things you don't need to see to know, don't you think, senior brother?"

Wukong glanced at him.

That glance carried more weight than any conversation.

Wukong saw something in Yao Chong.

It's not a mental imprint, nor is it an ability.

It was something he was familiar with.

He was the same way in front of Bodhi back then.

They saw the truth, endured it, and then chose to move forward.

He thought that only he possessed this quality.

Now he saw it in someone else.

"You little brat..."

He didn't finish speaking.

He shook his head and smiled.

He stopped laughing after only half a second.

Because Wukong isn't the type of person who would show that kind of expression.

The two walked back.

"My master—Bodhi," Wukong suddenly spoke as he walked, "what did he say to you?"

"Brother Wukong, Master didn't say anything, he just told me to look."

"What are you looking at?"

"The laws of physics are real."

Wukong remained silent for a while.

He showed it to me back then too.

"and then?"

"Then I went crazy."

It was said very casually, like saying, "Then I ate a bowl of noodles."

"I see—it's all fake, everyone is code, and so am I." Wukong used his golden cudgel to push aside a tree branch blocking his path. "Do you know what that feels like?"

Yao Chong did not answer.

"It's like you've lived your whole life, and suddenly someone tells you that you're not human. You're an ant. Everything about you—your name, your memories, your friends, every battle you've fought—occurred in an anthill. There's a vast world outside that you can never reach."

He kicked a pebble.

The pebble rolled out, hit another pebble, and stopped.

"My immediate reaction was—to flip it over."

"So you caused havoc in the Heavenly Palace."

"No, the havoc in Heaven happened before that. The havoc in Heaven was because they didn't give me face." Wukong paused for a moment, "The overturning of the chessboard happened after I saw the truth, or more precisely, after the journey to the West was over."

We walked for a while longer.

"My master drove me away not because I showed off my seventy-two transformations in front of my fellow disciples. It was because he saw that I wasn't ready. I saw the truth, but my mind couldn't handle it. I would become a pure destroyer. Not just overturning the chessboard—but burning it. Burning the chess pieces, the chessboard, and the table together."

"So after erasing some of your memories, he drove you away... to protect you."

"I didn't know at the time; I thought he didn't want me anymore."

The tone was very soft.

"Later, I made a scene in Heaven, was imprisoned under the Five Fingers Mountain, went on the journey to the West, wore the golden headband, became a Buddha, and then removed the golden headband. I thought I was choosing every step of the way. But then I realized—every step was arranged by someone else. The golden headband is a physical control, while the Victorious Fighting Buddha is another kind of spiritual golden headband. I broke free from one cage only to enter another, and that's when this long-buried memory was reawakened."

"So you flipped the chessboard."

"I overturned all the chessboards."

He looked at Yao Chong.

Do you know why I brought you here?

"Brother Monkey, after you awaken, you can find the entrance to Lingtai Fangcun Mountain again, and then Master sent you here."

"He sent me, but I came; these two things are different."

He paused for a moment.

"He sent me here because Eden is collapsing. He needs someone to anchor the laws of physics from within. You are the only one who can activate the Heart Seal."

"Then why did you come?"

Wukong looked at him.

"Because I see my younger self in you, and I don't want you to become like me."

silence.

"I, Old Sun, have been orchestrated my entire life. Patriarch Bodhi arranged for me to learn skills, Buddha arranged for me to retrieve the scriptures, and the Heavenly Court arranged for me to become a Buddha. Every step I took was someone else's move. It took me five hundred years to understand this, and several hundred more years to stand up from the chessboard."

"You have just activated your heart seal. From now on, many people—gods, sovereign entities, even your own master—will try to arrange things for you. They will make you do this, do that, be this pawn, and make that move."

He patted Yao Chong on the shoulder.

It's very light.

As if afraid of breaking something.

"Every step you take is your own. Even if someone paves the way for you, you still have to walk it yourself. Only by walking it can you make it yours. If you don't, it becomes someone else's game."

The two continued walking.

"You and Bodhi... are you done?" Yao Chong asked.

Wukong remained silent for a while.

"He owes me an explanation, first he dragged it out for five hundred years, then for another thousand."

"Did he explain?"

"……Um."

"What did he say?"

Wukong did not answer.

I took a few steps.

He said, "You got here before me."

"What do you mean?"

"What he means is—I went crazy, overturned the chessboard, and broke free from all the cages after I saw the truth back then. It took him thousands of years to achieve 'not making choices for others,' and I got there before him."

He chuckled.

"Old man, your consciousness spanning hundreds of millions of years has been surpassed by a monkey a few thousand years old. He's probably been holding back this thought for thousands of years."

Yao Chong did not respond.

But he realized—this wasn't modesty.

Wukong is never humble.

This is a statement of fact.

When Bodhi drove Wukong away, his approach was to "make a choice for Wukong"—I judged that you were not ready, so I drove you away.

Wukong spent thousands of years breaking free from all the predetermined fates and becoming someone who was truly himself at every step.

Bodhi has only now learned "I won't choose for you".

Wukong arrived first.

One student surpassed the teacher.

But the teacher wasn't jealous—he had waited thousands of years just to admit it himself.

"So now you..."

"We're like teacher and friend. I learn from him, and he learns from me. We don't arrange things for each other."

He thought about it.

"If you ever have any questions in the future—about the Heart Seal, about reality, about the bottom line of those sovereign entities—you can use the Heart Seal to enter the Lingtai Fangcun Mountain to find him."

This was the first time Wukong openly acknowledged that Bodhi was his master.

It's not about saying it directly—it's about showing it through actions.

Sending Yao Chong to learn from Bodhi is tantamount to acknowledging that Bodhi has something to teach.

A man who overturned all the chessboards admitted that he still needed to learn.

This is the greatest respect he can offer.

"What about you, senior brother? Aren't you going?"

"I've been there. Some doors only need to be pushed once."

This sentence is exactly the same as the one at the cave entrance.

But the weights are completely different.

Previously, it was avoidance.

And now it's finished.

The two reached the foot of the mountain.

The sky had changed at some point.

In the gray sky, the sovereign entity's enormous form still floated slowly, and the surveillance grid continued to operate.

Nothing has changed.

But Yao Chong's feelings changed.

He closed his eyes.

The imprint of his mind exists quietly in his consciousness—like a stamp on a piece of paper.

He tried to perceive the physical laws around him.

It's not done with instruments.

It's about using consciousness directly.

He sensed it.

Physical laws decay outside the physical world.

It's not a uniform decay—it decays faster in some areas and slower in others.

The regions where the sovereign entity is active decline more rapidly.

The edges of water-stained areas decay the slowest.

He can now see the decay gradient.

It's not visual—it's an intuitive spatial perception.

It's like a thermometer, but it doesn't measure temperature; it measures "accuracy."