Tales of the Monkey Princess

The Great Tang Man 🧧

Summary:
In order to find Tang, the heroes must find monk Sangzang

"Dumplings! Get your delicious dumplings here! Very nice today. Hey, I got dumplings for sale, ya! Over here!" A shop keeper from nearby yelled.

Mk was in awe as she walked around the beautiful village. She still couldn't believe they were actually in the Past. This reminded her of a dream she had when she was little. Looking around the old village, Mei grumbled at the lack of cell service. "Ugh, what a buzzkill." She grumbled.

"WOAH!!!' Bai-He yelled excitedly looking around, "We're in the past! which means..." She slides up to a shop owner and slams down whatever she had in her pockets: 2 paperclips, an old piece of candy, a pigsy toy, and 5 coins.

"One ancient souvenir for me and my siblings please."

"Wait...these aren't chickens," the owner said narrowing his eyes at the items. "And what are.." He gasps.

"DEMONS AND DEMONIC ACCESSORIES!!" He yells pointing at the three children, guards nearby came and glare at them.

Bai-He chuckles nervously, sweating a bit while her sister and brother glares at her annoyed, "nice going ya ding dong." Savage whispered to her. He summons a shadow portal underneath his feet and quickly pulls them down.

Mei slides up Mk. "What do we do?" She whispers  to her, scared. "Uhhh...." She looks around trying to come up with a distraction. Buuuut, she couldn't.

"Run!!"

Mei and Mk screamed as they all ran away, Mk accidentally knocking over a vegetable stall. The shop keeper screams in shock. "Sorry!" She apologized.

"M-My cabbages!" The merchant wailed, falling to his knees.

The two continued running until they reached a dead end at an alleyway. Mei and Mk stopped to catch their breath. "Whoo, that was close." Mei panted.

"I'll say..." Savage agreed, coming out from the shadow portal, alongside Bai-He and Rumble.

"You all made it in safely, great!" The gang twisted around to see an astral projection of Azure grinning at them. "Welcome to 7th Century Chang'an. I trust you've experienced astral projection before?"

"Yep." MK nodded.

"No!" Mei, and the trio stared at them both like they'd gone crazy.

"Are we dead?" Bai-He panicked.

"Is this what dying is like?" Mei added, also panicking.

"Eh, a little astral projection never hurt anyone." Azure shrugged nonchalantly, "Listen, I don't have much time. Remember how I told you the scroll has a protective curse?"

"And that it'll try to find and destroy us. Uh-huh, yeah. Wasn't really gonna forget that part." MK shuddered.

"Good. Try not to draw too much attention to yourself. The curse will be drawn to any imperfections it detects within its stories. So for starters, we need to do something about those." The lion demon gestured at their clothes.

Mei gasped excitedly. "New outfits!?"

"You betcha. I found some duds about your size over there in that trash pile." Azure gestured at a nearby pile of junk. "Eww, Gross." Bai-He gagged, covering her nose. The other's didn't seem to mind as they cannonball into the pile of junk.