Sun Wukong

North colonnade, eastern administrative precincts · the fifth door from the west end

Sun Wukong

The Comprehensive Account

An Archivist, a Monkey King, and Testimonies That Refuse to Agree

A novel by Chisato Funabashi

The gap is two inches wide at the top and three-quarters of an inch at the bottom. Hold Space or Enter to look with the keyboard.

What it is about

What the book is about

The Monkey King’s rebellion, from the desk of the scribe who has to file it.

The introduction The paintings and moving pictures were made for this site; the narrator is a generated voice.
Read the narration, picture by picture13 lines

  1. 0:01 Four hundred years ago, a stone on Flower-Fruit Mountain cracked open, and something small stepped out.

  2. 0:08 The Court made him Great Sage Equal to Heaven, then left him off the guest list for the Peach Festival.

  3. 0:15 Eleven years ago, he went anyway. He ate the peaches, emptied the elixirs, and passed through Heaven’s armies as if they were weather.

  4. 0:25 The Buddha sealed him under Five Elements Mountain, for five hundred years.

  5. 0:31 Now the Court wants the final word: a Comprehensive Account, in forty days.

  6. 0:37 The commission goes to Wei Mingzhen, Celestial Scribe Sixth Class. Four hundred years in the Archive. Never an incorrect document.

  7. 0:47 But no two witnesses saw the same event. Soldiers say the weather looked at them.

  8. 0:53 A guard says the light grew interested. A records officer timed him eating five hundred and twenty-two pills of immortality, in perfect order.

  9. 1:03 Then a letter comes from the Bodhisattva Guanyin. One word. Come.

  10. 1:10 Beyond the edge of Heaven’s map, Wei learns the difference between ranking a being and recognizing one.

  11. 1:17 And at the mountain, through the stone of the seal, a voice answers him.

  12. 1:22 The Court wants one account. The evidence gives him two.

  13. 1:28 Sun Wukong. The Comprehensive Account. Part One is free to read.

Woodblock print: the Monkey King in a phoenix-feather cap and golden armour sits in a peach tree in Heaven, eating the pink peaches of immortality.

The legend

In the classic Journey to the West, a monkey born from a stone declares himself Great Sage Equal to Heaven, eats the peaches of immortality, fights Heaven’s armies to a standstill and is sealed under Five Elements Mountain. The Celestial Court would like the matter closed.

Ink painting on silk: a slight scribe in dark navy robes sits at a plain desk, brush in hand over an open book, a small lamp burning beside him and shelves of scrolls fading into mist.

The commission

This novel follows the official who has to close it. Wei Mingzhen, Celestial Scribe Sixth Class, has never produced an incorrect document. He is given forty days to write the Comprehensive Account: the final word on what happened.

Ink painting: a great mountain face split by glowing red fissures, the character 封 in gold carved across it, still cloud around the summit, and a small monk on the road at its foot.

The investigation

The evidence will not agree. Following it takes Wei out of the Archive, past the edge of Heaven’s map to the Bodhisattva Guanyin, down the road west and at last to Five Elements Mountain, where the subject of his report answers him through the stone.

Meet the characters How it differs from Journey to the West

Senior Scrivener Hong Jingbao’s office · the first morning

Three pages for forty‑eight hours.

Wei Mingzhen, Celestial Scribe Sixth Class, has never filed an incomplete record. He is handed a summary that says order was restored. Every document he pulls after it says something else.

“You have been assigned the Comprehensive Account of the Great Sage Equal to Heaven Incident … The commission will be filed in the permanent archive. The deadline is forty days from today.”
Senior Scrivener Hong Jingbao · Chapter 9
“The official summary is three pages … The engagement lasted forty-eight hours. I will need access to the complete damage reports and all interview logs currently held by the Military Administration.”
Wei Mingzhen · Chapter 9

Hong heard: thoroughness.

The ratio of documentation to event was, before a single witness was called, the first finding.

Accept the commission Read Part One free
The cover of Sun Wukong by Chisato Funabashi: an orange brush stroke circles the title on a dark ground of faded calligraphy, with a brush at upper right.

What the file contains

Every witness is accurate. No two of them saw the same event.

Long after the Havoc in Heaven, the Celestial Court runs exactly as it did before, and a scribe is ordered to close the file. The soldiers say the weather looked at them. A records officer timed him eating the pills of immortality, one every four and a half seconds, in perfect order. The keeper of the Peach Garden says he was not destroying anything. He was eating.

Under Five Elements Mountain, the being at the centre of it all answers five questions through stone. Then the scribe writes two accounts with the same facts and opposite conclusions, and files one.

  • Form A novel in five parts and fifty chapters
  • Kind Literary horror; a myth told from the filing room
  • Status Not on sale yet. Read Part One here, free.
The book, and how to share it Browse the fifty chapters

Six rooms, in the order the novel tells it

Open the investigation.

Each room is one part of the novel, built around the thing the Court could not file. Evidence you gather is laid on your desk and waits for you at the filing.

  1. Part One · The System and the StoneThe archiveSeven kinds of documents, and the stone that was older than all of them.
  2. Part Two · The Havoc in HeavenThe testimonyEvery witness is accurate. No two of them saw the same event.
  3. Part Three · The MountainThe journeyThe only interview he conducts with the brush put down.
  4. Part Four · The Pilgrimage as ProcessThe western roadThe seal is released by design. The scribe follows anyway.
  5. Part Five · The Two DocumentsThe mountainFive lines, spoken through stone.
  6. Part Five · The Two DocumentsThe filingTwo scrolls. One is filed, one is kept. Nobody asks which.

The mountain is warm. The mountain is still. Five hundred years remain.

Climb the mountain