(My POV)

A few years went by and eventually, we did finish the journey. During that time, me and my friends along with that darn monk all ran into my old friend, DBK and his wife. At the time princess iron fan was still pregnant, so yeah now I have a nephew. Since the journey was practically over, that meant, I would no longer have to deal with this stupid circlet anymore. However, there was still the matter of making sure the monk got home safely, which means I would have to wait until after. I had gotten him back home before I could get this stupid thing removed from my head and finally return home to flower fruit Mountain.

Wujing is actually a really sweet guy, despite the fact that he has a temper and thankfully he's willing to work on it as me and the others have been helping him improve and have better control over his temper despite the way everyone has treated him in the past. Wujing seems to really like Bajie's cooking just like the rest of us. As we continued on our journey, we eventually came across another village. It wasn't too hard to realize they were preparing for some form of a celebration.

Apparently, they were celebrating how many years it had been since their village had first been built. It reminded me of the Fourth of July, considering I was American in my past life. Fourth of July was basically the birthday of America and how Americans celebrated the day America first came to be. I asked the monk if we could stay for the celebration and my brothers even joined me and asking the monk to let us stay. The monk was hesitant at first, but eventually agreed saying that if we were going to stay for the celebration, then we would need to stay at an Inn. Especially since the celebration lasts a week.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After we got settled into one of the  Inns we went out to prepare to go enjoy the celebration, but when I heard the monk mention splitting up, that's when I actually got concerned and confused. Because honestly, as much as I hate the monk, I know that he can't easily protect himself and it's my job to make sure he doesn't end up becoming some demons next meal however, despite his embarrassment evident by the small cough and the fact that he looked away, he did say that if he gets in trouble or kidnapped again, then he'll just scream loud enough for us to hear. With that reassurance, we immediately went to have fun and enjoy our time while we can.

Before we left to do our own thing, we all agreed to meet up at the Inn by either sundown or dinner time at the latest. Eventually, something caught my eye. It was one of those games where an item would be placed under one of 3 cups and the cups would be moved around for a bit and then afterwards you'd have to figure out which cup the item was hidden under. The item in question that I would have to find would be the very prize that I would win, which was a gold colored heart shaped locket that looked very similar to the heart locket that Azrael and Chara from the video game Undertale would wear in the cut scenes and fan comics. At least that's what I remember from my previous life.

I really like lockets and it would be a great way to keep a picture of Macaque and I that I drew on a piece of paper near the beginning of the journey when it was just me the monk and Ao lie. So I decided to play the game and when I pointed at one of the cups, I unfortunately got it wrong, but then a man wearing a suspiciously familiar cloak, walked up to the stand right next to me and pointed to the far left cup, and right underneath the cup was the locket that I was aiming to hopefully get. I looked between the locket and the person wearing the cloak with shock. The reason why I was simply guessing, and didn't actually know the answer was because I decided not to cheat and use my gold vision. I wanted to try and win fairly. Honestly though who is this guy and why does he seem so familiar?

(Me)- You're good at this.

(cloaked man)- thank you, lovely lady.

He then presented the locket to me, but I insisted that he keep it since he was the one who won the prize, fair and square. However, he insisted that I keep it as he proceeded to hang the necklace around my neck, saying how a beautiful lady deserves a beautiful necklace to match her beauty. It kind of made me blush to be honest.

(Me)- Okay, I don't know if you're trying to flirt with me or if you want something from me.

(cloaked man)- I do not want anything from you. I simply just find you absolutely stunning and beautiful.

I tried to shake off my blush as I thanked him and told him I needed to be on my way before proceeding to move onto another part of the village or maybe to see if I could find one of my brothers or even the monk, even if I don't really wanna be around the monk. Honestly, it's sad how a grown man like the monk needs a babysitter just to stay alive.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eventually, we all met up at the Inn and after having dinner, which was amazingly made by Bajie, we all went to our own separate rooms, and once I reached my room, the first thing I did was collapse on my bed, completely unaware that there was another person in the room, watching me from the shadows. Before I could take notice of the person that was watching me, I suddenly found myself  falling into some form of a shadow portal and then when I finally came out of the shadow portal, I heard a rather familiar laughter as I noticed that I was being held in the arms of a very familiar, black monkey.

(Me)- M-Macaque?

(Macaque)- Hey Peaches~

I immediately hugged him without hesitation. I was just way too happy to see him too not give him a hug. I couldn't even stop the tears from falling. I couldn't stop crying about how much I missed him and he even whispered into my ear about how much he missed me too. After a while, I did calm down, but he decided to move behind me and grab my chest, which honestly surprised me since he hasn't done that since before I got trapped under the mountain 500 years ago.

(Me)- M-Macaque... 😳

(Macaque)- We don't have to do this you know... if you ever want me to stop all you have to do is say so and I will stop

With that, I let him continue and well one thing led to another and let's just say things got really heated really fast! When I woke up the next morning, I noticed that he wasn't in the bed with me and in his place was a note sitting on the pillow. The note said that he had left to go for a walk, but that didn't stop me from being cautious. I may have not read the book in my previous life, but one thing I knew about his chapter in the book was the fact that he did not survive combined that with the falling out between him and my male counterpart in the original show, and that just set me up for plenty of worry.

I decided to keep my guard up and pray, and hope that I could avoid making the same mistake that my male counterpart made even if the chances of me, avoiding that are slim. Regardless, I climbed out of bed, got dressed and tried my best to make myself look presentable despite the fact that I could barely walk after what me and Mac did last night. Honestly, despite my reaction, I wasn't really that surprised when everyone, including the monk, and my friends started accusing me of attacking them in the village, even when I tried to tell them that I didn't do that.

I then got on my somersault cloud and left the village in tears. There was only one person that I knew of that would have taken the role of disguising himself as me and accusing me of attacking everyone and that was unfortunately the one person I love the most... Macaque.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I did eventually run into  Macaque, believe me when I say that I was not happy when he admitted to me the reason why he posed as me and attacked my friends and the village. I understand that he wants to help me and free me from his control, but I am not going to be able to be free from this darn circlet until I complete this journey. And unfortunately, now I have to figure out how I'm gonna escape from these shadow ropes that he used to tie me to a tree before he hurts the monk and the others. Maybe if I'm lucky I might be able to stop him without killing him, but I have to be careful. When I got there, I saw him attacking my friends disguised as me, and I immediately jumped between them!

(Me)- Macaque, that's enough!

(Bajie)- There's two of them!?

I snapped my fingers allowing the disguise that Macaque had on to drop revealing his true form. Of course he got mad at me and asked me what the heck I was doing well also stating the fact that he was trying to free me, which led me to remind him once again that I won't be free if he kills the monk. A battle in sued, but despite that I tried to get him to see reason believe me I really tried.

(Me)- Macaque, Stop! Don't make me do this!

As the battle continued, the monk used the circlet and because of that I was struggling to keep my actions under control and avoid fatally wounding Macaque. Despite my best efforts, I did end up getting. Macaque in his right eye, although somehow I managed to avoid killing him despite that as it didn't go any further than the eye it went to his eye, but it didn't go through his head. I immediately dropped my staff, not caring about the blood that ended up on me or my staff, and only focused on trying to attend to Macaque's injury. He was bleeding from his right eye and would no doubt go blind in the eye. I couldn't stop the tears from falling from my own eyes though.

Before I could figure out a way to bandage his injury, I felt a hand on my shoulder and when I looked up, I saw Ao Lie standing there beside me with a sad look on his face as he presented me with a small cloth. The cloth wasn't super big, but it was enough to act as a bandage for Macaque's injury. After I wrapped the cloth around his injury like a bandage, I lifted him into my arms and used my somersault cloud to take him to flower fruit Mountain. As much as I wanted to keep an eye on him myself, I need to focus on keeping the monk alive and I can't do that and look after Macaque at the same time.

Once I got back to flower fruit Mountain I immediately pressed my ear to his chest, and thankfully, I could still hear a heartbeat and he was still breathing. As soon as I was done, checking to make sure he was still alive. I immediately took him to the healer of the mountain. General Ma was also there which I found to be a good thing considering she was one of my most trusted soldiers. She and the healer asked me what happened and I explained everything to them before asking them to keep an eye on him as I can't look after him and keep that stupid monk safe at the same time.

After the healer and General Ma reassured me that they would watch over Macaque for me I left to return with the group. When I got there, my friends tried to comfort me as best they could, and despite how hard I tried to hold back the tears it didn't change how much pain I felt inside. I can only hope that he will be okay... as soon as the journey was over and I finally got the monk back to where he needed to be after the journey the monk finally removed that damn circlet and as soon as it was removed, I immediately made my way to flower fruit Mountain only to feel pain and heartbreak when I was told that Macaque had disappeared soon after waking up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh my great sage 2197 words!!!!