QUOTE : Because it wasn’t enough to be accompanied by the beast who scared the crap out of every god in Heaven, Xuanzang was assigned a few more traveling companions. The gluttonous pig-man Zhu Baijie. Sha Wujing, the repentant sand demon. And the Dragon Prince of the West Sea, who took the form of a horse for Xuanzang to ride. The five adventurers, thusly gathered, set off on their—<br /><br />“Holy ballsacks!” I yelped. I dropped the book like I’d been bitten.<br /><br />“How far did you get?” Quentin said.<br /><br />He was leaning against the end of the nearest shelf, as casually as if he’d been there the whole time, waiting for this moment.<br /><br />I ignored that he’d snuck up on me again, just this once. There was a bigger issue at play.<br /><br />In the book was an illustration of the group done up in bold lines and bright colors. There was Sun Wukong at the front, dressed in a beggar’s cassock, holding his Ruyi Jingu Bang in one hand and the reins of the Dragon Horse in the other. A scary-looking pig-faced man and a wide-eyed demon monk followed, carrying the luggage. And perched on top of the horse was . . . me.<br /><br />The artist had tried to give Xuanzang delicate, beatific features and ended up with a rather girly face. By whatever coincidence, the drawing of Sun Wukong’s old master could have been a rough caricature of sixteen-year-old Eugenia Lo from Santa Firenza, California.<br /><br />“That’s who you think I am?” I said to Quentin.<br /><br />“That’s who I know you are,” he answered. “My dearest friend. My boon companion. You’ve reincarnated into such a different form, but I’d recognize you anywhere. Your spiritual energies are unmistakable.”<br /><br />“Are you sure? If you’re from a long time ago, maybe your memory’s a little fuzzy.”<br /><br />“The realms beyond Earth exist on a different time scale,” Quentin said. “Only one day among the gods passes for every human year. To me, you haven’t been gone long. Months, not centuries.”<br /><br />“This is just . . . I don’t know.” I took a moment to assemble my words. “You can’t walk up to me and expect me to believe right away that I’m the reincarnation of some legendary monk from a folk tale.”<br /><br />“Wait, what?” Quentin squinted at me in confusion.<br /><br />“I said you can’t expect me to go, ‘okay, I’m Xuanzang,’ just because you tell me so.”<br /><br />Quentin’s mouth opened slowly like the dawning of the sun. His face went from confusion to understanding to horror and then finally to laughter.<br /><br />“mmmmphhhhghAHAHAHAHA!” he roared. He nearly toppled over, trying to hold his sides in. “HAHAHAHA!”<br /><br />“What the hell is so funny?”<br /><br />“You,” Quentin said through his giggles. “You’re not Xuanzang. Xuanzang was meek and mild. A friend to all living things. You think that sounds like you?”<br /><br />It did not. But then again I wasn’t the one trying to make a case here.<br /><br />“Xuanzang was delicate like a chrysanthemum.” Quentin was getting a kick out of this. “You are so tough you snapped the battleaxe of the Mighty Miracle God like a twig. Xuanzang cried over squashing a mosquito. You, on the other hand, have killed more demons than the Catholic Church.”<br /><br />I was starting to get annoyed. “Okay, then who the hell am I supposed to be?” If he thought I was the pig, then this whole deal was off.<br /><br />“You’re my weapon,” he said. “You’re the Ruyi Jingu Bang.”<br /><br />I punched Quentin as hard as I could in the face.