It was a warm day on Mount Yuelu.
To the monkey, it was simply a warm day. His world encompassed but one mountain; its brothers were mere hills. The idea that other places might have other weathers was one he'd never considered.
The monkey had no name. Monkeys did not have names as men understood them. Yet, all seeing things remembered the shape of what they witnessed. Even without true words, monkeys knew their brothers and rivals. But rather than adopt names, they simply called them what they were.
If a great master who knew the secret of monkey speech were to ask this monkey's fellows, they would say this he was orange-crest. Not that he was named orange-crest. It was not a name, for it was no more true than a dozen others labels might be. Orange-crest is simply what his fellows called him, for the little puff of hair upon his brow gleamed like the setting sun. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novel{f}ire.net
Orange-crest had a secret. Not a little secret, like how pie-bald knew of a hollow tree on the most verdant hill, where he stored many kinds of nuts, treasures for the icy season. Orange-crest had a deep secret, one that was hard to know in its fullness. He'd never tried share the secret with his brothers. Yet, some of them had shadowed him anyway, seeking the red-golden bounty the secret yielded. They had watched him as he made strange preparations and mashed up many fruits. But when they tried to mimic him, their brews had soured, rotting as fallen fruit was wont to do.
It was a good secret, brewing. Even orange-crest didn't know all of it. That was how he knew it was good.
Since it was the right sort of warm day, orange-crest decided to make wine. The trees were heavy with many sorts of stone fruits, the bounty of dying summer. His brothers had already eaten their fill. They now laid about listlessly, sunning themselves. The birds circled closely, impatient. The more daring of them dipped low, feigning dives. The stuffed monkeys grumbled, palming stones, but none of them roused themselves to protect their trees.
There was food enough for all, in these lazy days. But appearances had to be kept. The birds could feast while the monkeys napped, not a moment sooner.
And only after orange-crest had finished his harvest.
Big-butt and red-eyes watched as orange-crest scampered about, gathering an armful of stone fruits. They'd thought him a fool in years past. Now they grasped the shape of his secret. They'd even attempted it themselves, but their mashes had soured, or been eaten by birds.
So now they contented themselves to watch. Sometimes they bartered with orange-crest. Other times, red-eye stalked him like a wolf, waiting for him to visit one of his wine-trees. Red-eye was short of temper and terribly strong, it was rarely worth seeking strife with him. In other times, big-butt would tell a story. Reminisce about the several times orange-crest had nearly starved as a youngling. Or about the time an eagle had sought to carry the young monkey off, only to discover the massive big-butt was far quicker than his bulk and indolence suggested. Orange-crest would get the message, and lead his biggest brother to a tree of suitable size to let him drink himself into a stupor.
If the great master who spoke monkey had asked about these exchanges, if this state of affairs was just, the pack would have been confused by the question. The fruits of the orchard belonged to all monkeys. But every monkey knew that the only way a single fruit could belong to two monkeys at once is if they each ate half of it.
Monkeys did not know the word fair, after all. It was not an idea that thrived in wild places.
And so often, orange-crest brewed without concern for gain or loss, or worry for the eventual disposition of his wine. It would be good or it would be bad. He would drink it or someone else would. When there was fruit in excess, it was a thing worth doing.
On that warm day, orange-crest gathered as many stone fruits as he could carry. It was not many. He was not very large, or very strong. Only enough for one small tree. He could not make a big tree with the fruits of the orchard. His brothers would see him making repeated trips, and almost certainly steal the fruits of his labor.
But orange-crest was not satisfied with another small tree this day.
He needed something new. He'd made many wines with the stone fruit. Sometimes the fruits were red as meat, flush with a juice almost like wine. He liked those best, but more often the fruits were pale, harder. Monkeys were not patient orchardists.
These fruits were good. But he wanted wine that was great.
Trying new things had given him his greatest secret. All the monkeys knew the green-skin fruits were bad for one's poops. Eating one would make a monkey's leavings runny and white and make them feel like their belly was trying to escape their body through their butt. But orange-crest knew something else about those unpleasant fruits.
As a young monkey orange-crest had been small. Even after taking his youth into account. One summer, the great fire in the sky had blazed especially hot, scorching the land. The trees of the orchard had only borne hard, shriveled little nubbins, more stone than fruit. All the monkeys had begun setting food aside for the cold season even earlier than normal. Some of them had spent their days digging for grubs. Others had climbed high on Mount Yuelu, looking for bird nests high on the cliffs, and the eggs within them. All to save more of the normally abundant fruit for the cold times.
Orange-crest had gathered green skin-fruits along with grubs. They were not good eating, but he was small and weak, his larger brothers would not let him have any of the orchard fruit. Better bad fruit, than none at all. Runny white poops were better than an empty belly.
And then winter had come, and it had been warm. A second sky-fire had joined the first in the heavens, and Mount Yuelu saw no snows that year. It was no season of plenty, but no monkey starved. Orange-crest had forgotten about his tree full of green skin-fruit.
When he'd found the tree again almost a season later, the hollow within within was filled with mush. Green and white mush. Wiggly mush. Fat worms, with hides of verdant leafy-green and odd white-markings had wriggled all throughout. They were livelier than any ground-worms orange-crest had ever seen.
White was a dangerous color. High variance. Sometimes very good. Sometimes very bad.
Orange-crest had tried eating the worms anyway. In his substantial experience eating worms, he'd found there to be no such thing as bad worms. Only good worms and better worms.
And these, he had discovered, were the very best worms.
His secret worms.
The worms that, when added to a pile of fruit, prevented it from rotting. Instead, they made delicious delicious wine. Better than bloody stone-fruit. Better than eggs with fat orange yolks. And as an added bonus, they made more worms in the process! The worms were almost as good as the wine! He would slurp up the sweet and pungent chunky soup and it would make him feel warm and fuzzy and happy, as if his head could soar with the birds.
On a steady diet of wine and worms, orange-crest had grown up big and strong. Almost as strong as big-butt and red-eyes. Well, not quite as strong. Not even close, really. Red-eyes was old, with muscles like gnarled trees. And big-butt was so large his hands could wrap all the way around orange-crest's head. Those two were both freakishly strong. But orange-crest had grown to become the strongest monkey of his size! Being big or old was just cheating.
Orange-crest wiped his mouth. The thought of wine had made it run wet. Silly mouth. Today wasn't a drinking day, it was a making day. Orange-crest deposited his stone fruit in a testing-tree. It had previously made one good batch, and one bad one. He would discover if it was a good tree or not. Any tree that made two bad batches in a row was a bad brewing tree, and would only produce worms for him, not wine.
Some trees killed even the worms, but this wasn't one of those. He could tell the poison-trees by their scent now.
He had fruit and he had a tree. He always had spare worms in one tree or another. It wouldn't do to run out. But he still needed a new thing. Orange-crest scratched his eponymous crest.
He'd tried other bugs. Beetles and dragonflies. Mixed results. They all kept dying and some of them made the wine taste weird.
He'd tried other fruits too. Of the Seven Fruits of Mount Yuelu, stone fruit was the best. For eating and brewing alike. This was a well known truth among monkeys. Orange-flesh fruit was a close second, but mixing fruits didn't do anything too interesting. It just mixed tastes, which was good, but not great.
Worms were normally ground things. Wine-worms were not ground things, but they made good wine. Maybe other ground things would make greater wine? Maybe rocks? Normal rocks were bad for wine, but maybe a special rock?
With an enthusiastic hoot, orange-crest set off down Mount Yuelu.
He turned over every rock he saw. When he found tiny wriggling white worms, he ate those on the spot. Never waste a snack. He found some thin-hard-finger-roots, but they did not want to come out of the ground. Too much work to harvest, and not very tasty. Only worth eating in bad years. He found many rocks, none of them were good rocks.
Orange-crest was wise in the way of rocks, and knew of several legendary rocks. The white-ocean-gem that tasted good when you licked it. The bound-gleaming-sunfire that the Monkey King had twisted and woven to make his crown. Even the cold-fire-within-stone that the hairless ones and great-ancestor-beasts coveted with hot blood and cold eyes.
Truly, he was a wise monkey. Unfortunately, he didn't find any of those. They were legendary after all.
Orange-crest searched all day, eating worms and grubs as he went. A few good beetles, for spice. One spider because it looked at him funny. Never trust a spider. Spare one's life and you'd find it creeping around in your fur later. He hated spiders almost as much as he hated caves.
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When the sky-fire was low in the sky, he finally found a new thing.
The root was wiggling. Orange-crest tilted his head to the side. Roots did not locomote independently. Every-monkey knew that. It was a... worm-root? Worms were good. Roots were okay. Some were good, but most of the good roots were thick and fat. This wasn't very fat, more gnarled and knobby. He pulled the wiggling root free. It felt funny struggling in his hand, as he clenched it tightly enough to squish a normal worm.
He sniffed it, licked it. It tasted like fire. Plant-fire. The burning plants that only birds seemed to eat. Not cold-fire or fire-fire.
Monkeys did not shrug. Shrugging was a thing socialized beasts did, and they were social beasts. Important difference. But orange-crest's mind did the same thing a man's does when his shoulders shrug. Information was evaluated, and discarded as inconsequential. This seemed to him as good a new thing as any other, so he snuck back to his tree, and added it to the mash.
He watched for a while to make sure the worm-root could not wiggle out, then capped the end of the hollow. Bark artfully angled to allow in just enough rain and air. Leaves arranged to conceal the depth of the hollow.
Orange-crest went to bed satisfied, and slept the sleep of a stone-monkey-sage. Wise and virtuous, industrious and fed. This was a plentiful year, and so life was good upon Mount Yuelu. He thought no more of the matter. Most monkeys rarely thought when they did not need to.
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A year passed, before orange-crest remembered the tree. It had been a quiet year. The birds had warred with the bees, after the latter had found a new king. The Monkey King had brokered peace by driving the Bee King from the mountain. It hadn't been much of a fight, not like when he'd struck down the Tiger King. The Bee King had turned stinger and flown the moment the Monkey King commanded it.
Quick-fingers had borne a child, who was very annoying. Orange-crest did like not being the youngest anymore though. Red-eyes had red-eyes again, and snapped at anyone who poked at him. He and big-butt had fought viciously, whenever he snapped at the little one.
They were fighting a lot these days. Strife between brothers was a shame. But neither of them were in the mood for peace or wisdom, so orange-crest decided to get drunk about it.
Orange-crest usually drank alone, and today was no exception. His brothers were his brothers, but they were also lazy gluttons. Only in good years and bad years did he freely share.
He didn't really remember this tree. He knew it was a testing tree, because he remembered all the good trees. The wine smelled sweet and strong as he uncovered it, a frothy chunky pool of crimson nectar. He mentally upgraded this tree to a good tree.
He stuck a hand in to taste-test the wine. He knew he did something new with this one, but he couldn't quite remember what.
Orange-crest felt something move. With a fisher-monkey's keen reflexes, he grabbed it. His eyes widened as he withdrew a paw clenching the fattest worm he'd ever seen. It was twice as long as his hand! Almost as fat around as the little one's head had been when quick-fingers announced him! The worm was so fat it wouldn't even all fit in orange-crest's mouth! The one strange thing is that it was blue. Orange-crest couldn't remember what he'd put in this tree, but he was pretty sure he usually used the green worms. He'd never seen a blue one before.
Orange-crest beheld this king among wine-worms, and his monkey brain made an executive decision.
He chomped down on its head.
Worm-juice, no, worm-wine, splattered all over his fur. It tasted like wine and plant-fire and meaty worm. Sweet and sour and flesh-savory all at once. He ate it in three great bites. It was the best thing he'd ever tasted. Orange-crest moaned in satisfaction, leaning back against the tree. His body felt warm and tingly and he hadn't even started slurping wine yet!
Flush with vigor and wild energy, orange-crest forwent a paw-ladle and stuck his whole head in the tree. He licked and slurped and gulped, gorging himself on wine and smaller worms until his stomach felt like it could burst.
Had a great master of wine brewing come upon orange-crest in prior years, he would have snorted, and proclaimed the monkey a rank amateur at brewing. Sure, it was impressive for a monkey to brew wine at all, but even calling it wine would have been a great stretch. Even after fermenting for a year, it was often quite sweet. The spiritual worms the monkey added were more responsible for preserving the mixture than the alcohol was!
Monkeys, he would have said, were clearly lightweights, if they thought that they could get drunk on something barely stronger than a watery wheat beer. This batch though, he would have said, this batch had potential. Even if it was a grievous waste of a ginseng root over a century old.
Orange-crest knew none of this. He probably would not have cared about this master-brewer's opinion if he did. What he did know, is that his head felt good-funny. The world swam in meaning and danced in moonlight. He'd thought himself a connoisseur of the many mental states wine could introduce, a veritable libationist among monkeys. He now understood that there were heavens above heaven, levels of bibulousity he could scarcely have comprehended before this auspicious eve.
Orange-crest knew none of these words either, but his newly liberated mind was making the mental twists and turns that would approximate them, freed from the confines of monkey-speech and human language alike.
Suffice it to say, any with eyes to see could have looked upon this monkey, and declared with all the authority of a heavenly edict, that it was a very drunk monkey.
Orange-crest stumbled down the mountain, enjoying the way he could tilt the world by tilting his head. Profound nonsense streamed through his monkey-brain, fueled by the fire in his belly. Guided by this wisdom, he took many turns with the bold certainty of a man or monkey who had no idea where he was trying to go. After all, one can't make a wrong turn if there are no wrong destination.
Then, just as he was about to lie down to watch the stars, he stumbled upon something new.
The new thing was white. Blindingly white. White as fresh fallen snow, with a black crest. It was shaped like a monkey, but its fur was beyond strange. Flowing and shifting, seemingly detached from its skin, yet clinging all the same. Orange-crest tried to track its arcane geometry.
He blinked. A spark flickered in orange-crest's drunken mind. This was a hairless one! Normally they had short gray or brown spotted fur, but this one had strange long white hair-stuff. But they were hairless ones, so it wasn't hair at all. Maybe hairless one was a bad name. This one had hair on its head, strange and long and bound up as it was.
"How dare they, the obstinate fools! A single failure, and they deny me any further disciples! I told them that idiot was unsuitable! Who are they to declare that I am unfit to teach! I'll kill them all!" The hairless one hooted.
Orange-crest watched him from a tree. That was a lot of hooting.
"One idiot fails to leave the tempering bath at the appropriate hour and suddenly my entire bodily cultivation practice is proscribed because he can't lift his arms above his head anymore? How is that supposed to be my fault! How can a man hope to challenge the heavens if he cannot follow simple written directions!"
Oh dear. Had the hairless one lost his mate? That was a lot of hooting. Well adjusted monkeys usually did not hoot that much when they were alone.
"A little is good so a lot must be better? Are you retarded? Did your mother try to drown you as an infant and give up halfway through? Maybe you should have drunk the tempering solution and let it temper your innards then! Did your grandfather copulate with a pig? I'll poison that eggless merchant prince! I'm a daoist and he thinks gold can dictate my future? I'll poison his whole worthless family!"
It sounded like angry hooting, but orange-crest was a kind and generous monkey in a good mood. Maybe he would share his wine with the angry hairless one. Oh, wait. He'd already drunk it all. Oops.
"Ooo! Ooh! Ek kek! Ooh! Oooooook ek!" Orange-crest hooted back. He was normally very eloquent, but these noises were mostly nonsense. Just like what the hairless one was spouting.
"Can't lift his arms above his head! I'll give him something to cry about! I'll-" The hairless one cut itself off, looking for orange-crest.
"Oo! Oo!" The monkey hooted, hopping on his branch. He waved politely at the newcomer.
"You dare mock me monkey! Don't think I won't kill you too!"
The branch wiggled like a worm, and orange-crest wobbled atop it. Why was the world so wobbly?
Orange-crest fell, hitting the soft loam with a dull plop.
"Oo." Orange-crest intoned weakly. He was alright. The earth loved him, even if the heavens were being mean and wiggly.
"Are you... drunk?" The hairless one frowned, looming over him. "What am I doing, talking to a monkey. A drunken monkey. I am being mocked by a drunken monkey."
Orange-crest cooed. Yes, hairless one, let go of your anger. There was no reason to be angry on such a beautiful night.
"Perhaps I deserve the jeering of a drunken monkey. Where did I go wrong?" He mused in a softer tone. "I dedicated my life to the dao of medicine, but now I spent all my hours making the same six pills and teaching spoiled brats how to temper their skin? No, teaching is too kind a word. If Disciple Zhang had ever learned anything from me, he would have known better than to blindly alter dosages. Perhaps it is I who strayed from the path, treasuring luxury above virtue. But I need the support of the sect to acquire ingredients, and disciples to test my new formulae upon. Is it truly arrogance to be unsatisfied with merely retreading paths walked by our ancestors, to wish to offer the world something new and marvelous?"
Orange-crest stood carefully. Even the earth was betraying him now, dodging and weaving beneath his feet like the littlest-one when he wanted something you held. But he was a monkey whose heart could encompass all things, and he loved it still. He wanted to pet the earth, reassure it that it was loved, but the hairless one needed his wisdom more urgently!
He growled. How dare his legs deny his will? They were his legs! He owned them like he did his secrets! He commanded them, marshalled the fire in his gut to spread forth and burn out their unsteadiness.
The daoist fell silent, as he beheld something even more unexpected than a drunken monkey. That was qi. And a not insubstantial volume of it. It was uncultivated, not properly bound to the monkey's spirit in the form of a cultivation base, but the creature was manipulating it all the same.
"No. It cannot be! A monkey, sure. Drunken, I can accept. Monkey-wine is a rare but known phenomena. A daoist among monkeys? A bridge too far!"
More hooting. Couldn't the hairless one see orange-crest was busy wrestling with the recalcitrant wine?
He'd made it! It made him feel warm and good! How dare it disobey him and make him feel wobbly now! Bad wine! But also good wine? Maybe it was like green skin-fruit wine? Bad to drink, but good for making wine worms? Bad-good? But it tasted so good it had to be good! Orange-crest's drunken monkey brain strove mightily with the dao, and in fighting became aligned with it.
The fire moved in strange patterns, and did as he bid it. His legs obeyed, and he rose and toddled over towards the hairless one. He would show it to another wine tree and they could become brothers!
The Monkey King said hairless ones could be dangerous, but so could half his brothers. They couldn't be any worse than an angry red-eyes.
"The beast cycles qi! A cultivating monkey! The heavens do not mock me, they show me the way! The dao does not abide in the minds of men alone, disciples are everywhere for those with eyes to see!"
The hairless one really liked the sound of his own voice. Melodious as they were compared to his brothers, this was far too much hooting.
"How hard can it be to teach a monkey that already discovered cultivation? Men take years to learn what he already has, surely a daoist of my surpassing knowledge can teach him words and manners? The mortals of the emperor's court dress monkeys in robes and teach them simple tricks. What limits are there on what a true master could accomplish?"
The hairless one smiled at him like a strong monkey might at a female in heat, eyes hot, all teeth and non-food-hunger. Orange-crest shivered. He didn't like that expression.
"Rejoice, little one. This is the start of a partnership that will shake the very heavens. Together, we will show them all. These fools who mock me will discover that they are less even than common monkeys, unfit for their human incarnations!"
"Ook?" Orange-crest cooed uncertainly.
The daoist made a two-fingered gesture, his digits sweeping like they sought to cut the wind. Suddenly, orange-crest's limbs refused to move. They leapt to his sides, and remained stuck there. Uh oh. This was a new thing, and it did not seem at all like a good one. He hoped it was one of those bad-good things, not a bad-bad thing.
Orange-crest marshalled the fire in his blood, but he could hardly breathe, let alone move or cry out. Panic filled him. He remembered the Monkey King's warnings. The hairless ones were mighty and capricious, driven by strange hungers. He struggled, but how did you fight against something you could not see? Escape bindings you could not touch?
"Come along, little monkey." Daoist Scouring Medicine said. "A whole new world awaits."