That day, the sky was perfectly clear. Not a single mass of black clouds marred it or threatened to bring rain. The only clouds around were the ever-faithful white ones, billowing together as they drifted slowly across the plains.
Even so, something unusual happened that day. Someone ... hm ... a creature? Something? What should we call it? Whatever it was, it fell from that blue sky. Suddenly, amid the white clouds drifting past one another, someone came crashing down onto the earth.
"AAAAAA!!!" it screamed.
It didn't take long for it to slam into the dust and dirt. In fact, the hard, dry ground stamped out the shape of its prone body—hands, feet, torso, and head. Yet it didn't die, despite suffering such a painful impact. It was far too powerful for that. As soon as its face struck the ground, it lifted its head and found that, for all its power, it looked like a loser.
Dust sprayed from its mouth and lips. Its head almost looked like a cockroach, complete with two antennae that kept twitching and curling. It was still wearing a full suit of armor—lamellar armor assembled from small plates of hard material like metal, bound and sewn together with sturdy cords and thread. It also wore a golden crown, from which a pair of extremely long red-gold feather whiskers rose a meter above its head.
It could sense something else about to attack. It quickly rolled over. Its eyes flew wide in shock. From the sky, a gigantic right hand made of massive boulders came hurtling down at incredible speed, slamming directly into it.
"AAAAKK!" It raised both hands and screamed. Perhaps, for a fraction of a second, it hoped it could stop the stone's descent and escape.
Unfortunately, it wasn't powerful enough to withstand such immense force. The stone crushed it with tremendous force. It was helpless, but it still wasn't dead. Massive boulders covered its entire body, leaving only its head exposed. Its crown and two whiskers could still wave back and forth. Its restless head struggled to move its body.
Unfortunately, the stones began pressing down on it even faster. Gradually, they seemed to come alive, ensnaring its legs, arms, and entire body. Without realizing it, it was being crushed beneath a hundreds-of-feet-tall stone. A massive mountain of solid rock had fallen on it. From the sky, golden rays appeared one after another, blasting into the rocks and carving what looked like a powerful magical seal into them.
In the midst of its confusion, it heard a voice echoing from the clear sky.
"Sun Wukong, you caused chaos in Heaven. Your offense is grave and unforgivable. I sentence you to confinement beneath Five-Finger Mountain. Once you have served your sentence, someone will come to save you."
Its head now craned toward the sky from the base of the solid-rock mountain. It stared upward at the figure it could no longer see.
"All right, Buddha! All right! I was wrong! Now I truly understand!" Sun Wukong shouted.
It hoped Buddha could hear its voice from between these mountains. Although its own voice echoed back and forth through the valleys, it received no reply from the figure in the sky.
Months and years passed, and tiny seedlings grew tall. Who knew how long Sun Wukong had been there? Little by little, grass covered the mountain rocks. Moss spread across the shaded surfaces. Bushes grew thicker, and trees began to sprout and mature. Small animals and fungi made the mountain livelier and livelier. Sun Wukong wasn't spared their company, either. All that time, it could only eat plants that grew close enough to its mouth, small insects that happened to pass over its head, and rainwater from the sky that dripped from between the leaves onto its lips.