"I will use all my strength to ruin your reputation and your reputation, so that you will never be able to rise again!"
"What can you do to me? Heh!"
"To oppose me is truly courting death!"
With a few casual words, Wang Mang reduced Sun Wukong to the dust, from the omnipotent Great Sage Sun to a beast no different from a wild animal!
Even more insidious is the idea of hiring someone to write a biography to spiritually destroy the monkey and completely reduce him to trash.
That's poison, it's incredibly vicious!
Sun Wukong's face froze, like a powder keg about to explode, but suddenly the fire went out, his monkey face turning red.
"Aa ...
Sun Wukong let out a loud shout.
"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!..."
It was panting heavily, clearly enraged by Wang Mang's words. Anyone else might have been terrified.
However, Wang Mang was familiar with everything about Sun Wukong and knew that it was impossible for him to emerge from under the Five Elements Mountain. He confronted him without any scruples and met his gaze without the slightest fear.
They stared at each other, like a human staring at a monkey.
"You... won!"
After a long while, like a deflated balloon, Sun Wukong closed his eyes in pain, remained silent for a long time, and finally uttered these three words.
It simply couldn't imagine that 500 years later, when it emerged from under the Five Elements Mountain, it would be pointed at and ridiculed by the world, who would say, "Hey, look! This is the monkey that was locked under the Five Elements Mountain and ate excrement and urine for 500 years!"
This is practically a massive social disaster.
At that time, what use would it have been to exhume Wang Mang's grave and dump his body?
Even if all those who know the truth are killed, what good will it do?
And does it dare?
Do you really think all the gods and Buddhas in the sky are just for show?
What do all the gods and Buddhas rely on to live?
It relies on a massive number of ordinary people.
These ordinary people are the source of their faith and the source of their blessings. How could they possibly stand by and watch Sun Wukong slaughter humans and destroy their foundation?
This is precisely why Wang Mang dared to act so recklessly.
Moreover, in the past five years, with Xiao Ning's help, Wang Mang has successively developed papermaking and printing techniques.
Papermaking, using readily available materials such as rice straw and wild grass, produced thin, white paper, replacing the heavy and cumbersome bamboo slips.
Movable type printing made books much cheaper, reducing the cost of reading and writing, so that even a well-off family could afford to support a reader.
These two factors alone greatly improved the literacy rate of the people in the Great Xin Kingdom. As a result, Emperor Wang Mang of the Great Xin Kingdom became a wise and sage in the eyes of 300 million people.
Wang Mang now has the ability and the prestige to crush Sun Wukong into the dust, condemning him to eternal damnation.
"Speak, mortal, what exactly do you want? I, Old Sun, admit defeat!"
After saying this, Sun Wukong seemed to have used up all his strength, and he lay dejectedly on the ground, unwilling to raise his head again.
It felt ashamed to be forced to bow its head by a mere mortal, and it had no face to see its elders in Jiangdong.
"Divine weapons and magical treasures, spiritual fruits and elixirs, and divine skills and techniques are all acceptable. I have a good appetite and am never picky about food!"
Hearing Sun Wukong's words of submission, Wang Mang was overjoyed. He said with a beaming smile, "Give me a few divine weapons and magical treasures, the more the better; I won't be picky about spiritual fruits and elixirs, give me a little of each; and even better, give me a copy of all the divine skills and techniques you've learned!"
He knew that Sun Wukong was actually very wealthy; not to mention anything else, his personal magic weapon, the Ruyi Jingu Bang, was an extraordinary treasure.
And there must still be some of the peaches, spiritual fruits, and elixirs it stole from Heaven.
As for divine skills and techniques, there are even more, such as the "Great Celestial Immortal Technique", "Somersault Cloud", "Seventy-Two Transformations Technique", and so on.
In Wang Mang's eyes, all of this made him a prime target for exploitation, a fat sheep that he felt he should fleece thoroughly.
"Divine weapons...magic treasures...spiritual fruits...elixirs...divine skills...magic formulas..."
The monkey pondered for a while, then a thought struck it, as if it had considered a possibility. Its face remained expressionless, but it was muttering to itself in its mind.
"I, Old Sun, have nothing but the Ruyi Jingu Bang (Golden Cudgel) as my divine weapon, so don't count on it!"
"As for spirit fruits... elixirs... I still have some in stock, I can give them all to you!"
"Divine skills... techniques... I, Old Sun, learned them from my master. Without my master's permission, I dare not presume to give them to you!"
"Therefore, I can only give you some spiritual fruits and elixirs!"
"However, you cannot insult me like this again, otherwise, I, Old Sun, will risk my life, destroy my physical body, and even send my primordial spirit out of my body to kill you on the spot!"
After analyzing the situation for a while, Sun Wukong slowly presented Wang Mang with the condition of surrender, which is commonly known as "buying his life with money".
"Ah... are there only spirit fruits and elixirs? What I want is a cultivation technique! What good are spirit fruits and elixirs alone? You should understand the principle of teaching a man to fish rather than giving him a fish!"
Wang Mang was quite disappointed upon hearing this.
He also wanted to live forever, but without cultivation techniques, wouldn't he have no hope?