That would happen if... in Peach Soup, the Meng Po Soup did more than just erase the memory? After all, it is menat to help with the reincarnation process by reverting a soul back to its blank self... what it interacts weirdly with Wukong, and instead of finding a full-grown but still young enough to be a possible teen or early twenties monkey with no memory cradling a newborn... Pigsy found an actual toddler with a newborn?
Wukong struggles and chirps as his memories flutter away to the Underworld (Scroll of Memory gotta store past life data somewhere), too focused on the crying infant before him to notice that his own hands are getting smaller and smaller...
Pigsy just slams on the breaks when he sees two tiny furry lumps on the side of the road. His brain tries to assure him; its just cats, maybe a dog, maybe just a fur coat.
He finds a terrified toddler monkey carrying a newborn barely smaller than itself.
Can wild macaques be ginger? He's pretty sure they can but - oh no wait, it's wearing ragged clothes too big for it. It's two lost demon babies. This has "trouble" written all over it.
Pigsy scoops up the two screeching/chirping cubs in their red blanket-thing and just books it home. He's not even thinking. He needs to call someone. Pick up infant formula (wait, do demon monkeys have that?) and diapers for babies with long tails.
The ginger toddler is combative at first, but quickly calms down when presented with some cut-up fruit - cautiously sniffing the contents before quickly consuming their weight in peach slices. There's odd marks on the cub's skin; not only a heart-shaped face mask, but also odd ring around their skull. Pigsy honestly can't tell if its a birthmark or a scar.
It takes a while for the toddler to trust Pigsy enough to relinquish the newborn so that the pig can feed them a bottle. But considering what they might have just went through, it's understandable.
The newborn is tiny. Covered in dark brown fuzz caked with clay mud.
After both cubs are fed, they get a lukewarm sink bath. The toddler panics when Pigsy tries to lower him into the water, so he's cleaned with a damp towel instead. Pigsy's heart breaks to think what must have happened to make the cub terrified of a little warm water.
Tang rushes over moments after Pigsy sends him a rambling, worried message. His "aww" at the pair of infants is only broken by the thought of "Wait, where did they come from?"
Pigsy and Tang hash out theories, each with a cub clinging to their chests.
Their leading theory is abandonment. Perhaps a poor demon family couldn't cope with the burden of two young children, and chose to dump them on the side of the road. A darker theory is that they lost their parent(s) very recently. Perhaps in a violent manner. This convinces the pair to contact the local authorities...
The cubs have no matches in the genetic database, not even amongst the colony of monkey demons outside the city limits. The village elders insist that there hasn't been any recent disappearances or transisients to explain the cubs existance.
The decision to keep both cubs was pretty easy. Peaches and MK (Tang: "Piggy! You can't name them that! How about Taozi and Xiaotian?") would literally scream if parted for too long. And they very quickly gained an attachment to the cook and scholar.
During the adoption process, a lawyer with fiery red hair and a celestial manner gives them their card in case of further legal help. What sort of name is Fire Star?
Peaches and MK have as normal a childhood as the two men can provide.
Peaches is a brilliant little boy who dreams of healing people with medicine. It's a passion sparked by listening to Dadsy explain all of his grandmother's home remedies and how just a bowl of the best noodle soup on earth can cure almost anything ailing little monkeys.
MK grows up idolizing his big brother. Very rarely do you see Peaches without a little brown fluff trailing behind him. He's an energetic and artful soul, drawing up an official logo for the restaurant when he was barely able to walk. And is absolutely as obsessed with the Monkey King as much as his dear Papa Tang.
Of course there are speed-bumps along the way. The older cub's strength increases dramatically as he gets older, necessitating help from an estranged friend to help him control it. MK has issues making friends as a child until he met a protective dragon pup as hyper as he was.
In the modern day, Pigsy and Tang are proud to have raised two fine young boys. Even if fate seemed to have dropped them in their lap, they wouldn't change a thing.
Peaches, bursting through the door holding a red-gold staff: "DADS I THINK I MESSED UP!!!"
Ok, maybe they'd change the fact that Peaches is apparently a de-aged Sun Wukong with no memory of his previous 2000 years of life.
This is a super cute idea for the peach soup au. I can imagine this change only makes the Noodle Family even more defensive of Peaches once Macaque is revived. 2000+ years old or not! He's their baby boy!
