30.i The Golden-Hooped Rod of Compliance

Brace yourself, Dear Traveler, because we are nearing the end. Yes, all pitiful god king tales must stop somewhere. Thankfully this one will be over soon because I grow bored with it. This is the final arc: The Golden-Hooped Rod of Compliance. It’s a name that shouldn’t sound new to you. We’ve come across it before.

If you are willing, I can provide a bit of verse to help jog your memory on the events so far. It’ll be a nice refresher since we are so close to the end. We’ll go by the major arcs in the tale, starting with the Noodle House arc. Then we’ll move through the Peach Festival, The Heavenly River, and The Hall of Perfect Light before we dive into the telling of the Golden-Hooped Rod of Compliance.

When we met our mediocre monkey king, he was nothing more than a waiter doomed to serve rude and rowdy customers at some sweaty noodle house in the backwaters of the Horse Province.

A series of Lucky events brought our hero, Sun Ritsu, in contact with some sweet immortal peaches, which allowed him to break out of that greasy hellhole. But it left him with a pig with a big mouth and a monk who would sell their companions out for a barrel of wine if they had the chance. In fact, Dear Traveler, that’s exactly what the monk did at the Peach Festival! Thanks to the help of Anari the spider spirit, Ritsu and Bodhi were able to reclaim their porky compadre as well as earn themselves a ride across The Heavenly River to an entirely different province.

After all this time, Sun Ritsu learned a few things. One being that the Ninth Heaven was home to a lot of greedy spirits. Secondly, compared to the rest of his kind, Ritsu was quite strange. He wasn’t obsessed with rank and he seemed to have a natural leaning towards helping other spirits rather than helping himself. This, Dear Traveler, confused the hell out of the monk and if we’re being honest, unsettled the otherwise unruffled spideress. Ham Song was truly the only one who came close to embracing Sun Ritsu for his peculiarities, but one could argue that the pig was only doing so to protect his own juicy hide.

Anyway, each of the three spirits had agreed to help Sun Ritsu locate his staff for their own reasons. Although, when it came to Bodhi and Anari, let’s just be honest. Those two were simply looking for excuses to spend time with this idiot monkey. They would never admit it though.

So now our spiritual cadre is meandering about through Kawaii Village, a place that criminalizes anything that the collective conscious doesn’t regard as adorable. The cadre has split up – Ritsu and Anari have gone to explore the nearby fairgrounds for Ritsu’s staff. Meanwhile Ham Song and Bodhi are playing a dangerous game, trying to get their hands on something that can substitute for alcohol. The latter have earned themselves an audience with yet another sun clone. A local celebrity who goes by the stage name Sailor Sun.

Finally, the two halves come together at the threshold of the Hall of Perfect Light, where a wasting immortal phoenix has blessed Sun Ritsu with something not even Anari and her eight eyes could perceive. Sun Ritsu still has not recovered his staff, but upon meeting another sun clone, he might have one more chance at completing this very simple, holy immortal, godforsaken task.

But…

Given how painfully stupid of a monkey king we have on our hands, I sincerely doubt any real progress will come to pass.