Output:
“Well then,” said Sanzang, “if money won’t buy them, ‘decent behavior is worth a thousand pieces of gold,’ as the saying goes. I’ll make them apologize to you, and that will be that. Besides, we still don’t know whether they did it.”

“Of course they did,” retorted Bright Moon. “They’re still quarrelling in there because they were divided unfairly.”

“Come here, disciples,” called Sanzang.

“We’ve had it,” said Friar Sand when he heard Sanzang calling. “The game’s up. Our master is calling us and the young Taoists are swearing and cursing. The cat must be out of the bag.”

“How disgraceful,” said Monkey, “all that fuss about some food. But if we confess it, they’ll say it was stealing food; the best thing is not to admit it at all.”

“Quite right, quite right, we’ll cover it up,” said Pig, and three of them went from the kitchen to the hall.

If you don’t know how they denied it, listen to the explanation in the next installment.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The Immortal Zhen Yuan Captures the Pilgrim Priest


Output:
Monkey Makes Havoc in the Wuzhuang Temple

“The meal is cooked,” the three disciples said as they entered the hall, “what did you call us for?”

“I’m not asking about the meal, disciples,” said Sanzang. “This temple has things called manfruit or something that look like babies. Which of you stole and ate some?”

“I don’t know anything about it, honest I don’t—I never saw any,” said Pig.

“That grinning one did it,” said Pure Wind, “that grinning one.”

“I’ve had a smile on my face all my life,” shouted Monkey. “Are you going to stop me smiling just because you can’t find some fruit or other?”

“Don’t lose your temper, disciple,” said Sanzang. “As men of religion we should control our tongues and not eat food that befuddles our minds. If you ate their fruit you should apologize to them, instead of trying to brazen it out like this.”


Output:
Seeing that his master was talking sense, Brother Monkey began to tell the truth. “I didn’t start it, master,” he said. “Pig heard the Taoist boys eating something called manfruit next door to him and wanted to try one himself. He made me go and get three so that we three disciples could have one each. But now they’ve been eaten, there’s no point in waiting around here.”

“How can these priests deny that they are criminals when they’ve stolen four of our manfruits?” said Bright Moon.

“Amitabha Buddha,” exclaimed Pig, “if he pinched four of them why did he only share out three? He must have done the dirty on us.” He continued to shout wildly in this vein.


Output: Now that they knew that the fruit really had been stolen, the two boys started to abuse them even more foully. The Great Sage ground his teeth of steel in his fury, glaring with his fiery eyes and tightening his grip on his iron cudgel. “Damn those Taoist boys,” he thought when he could restrain himself no longer. “If they’d hit us we could have taken it, but now they’re insulting us to our faces like this, I’ll finish their tree off, then none of them can have any more fruit.”


Output: Splendid Monkey. He pulled a hair out from the back of his head, breathed a magic breath on it, said “Change,” and turned it into an imitation Monkey who stayed with the Tang Priest, Pig and Friar Sand to endure the cursing and swearing of the Taoist boys, while the real Monkey used his divine powers to leap out of the hall by cloud. He went straight to the garden and struck the manfruit tree with his gold-banded cudgel. Then he used his supernatural strength that could move mountains to push the tree over with a single shove. The leaves fell, the branches splayed out, and the roots came out of the ground. The Taoists would have no more of their “Grass-returning Cinnabar.” After pushing the tree over Monkey searched through the branches for manfruit, but he could not find a single one. These treasures dropped at the touch of metal, and as Monkey’s cudgel was ringed with gold, while being made of iron, another of the five metals, one tap from it brought them all tumbling down, and when they hit the ground


Output: all tumbling down, and when they hit the ground they went straight in, leaving none on the tree. “Great, great, great,” he said, “that’ll make them all cool down.” He put the iron cudgel away, went back to the front of the temple, shook the magic hair, and put it back on his head. The others did not see what was happening as they had eyes of mortal flesh.


Output:
A long time later, when the two Taoist boys felt that they had railed at them for long enough, Pure Wind said to Bright Moon, “These monks will take anything we say. We’ve sworn at them as if we were swearing at chickens, but they haven’t admitted anything. I don’t think they can have stolen any, after all. The tree is so tall and the foliage is so dense that we may well have miscounted, and if we have, we shouldn’t be cursing them so wildly. Let’s go and check the number again.” Bright Moon agreed, and the pair of them went back to the garden. When they saw that the tree was down with its branches bent out, the leaves fallen, and the fruit gone, they were horror-struck. Pure Wind’s knees turned soft and he collapsed, while Bright Moon trembled and shook. Both of them passed out, and there is a verse to describe them:

When Sanzang came to the Mountain of Infinite Longevity,

Monkey finished the Grass-returning Cinnabar.

The branches were splayed out, the leaves fallen, and the tree down.


Output:
Bright Moon and Pure Wind’s hearts both turned to ice.

The two of them lay in the dirt mumbling deliriously and saying, “What are we to do, what are we to do? The elixir of our Wuzhuang Temple has been destroyed and our community of Immortals is finished. Whatever are we going to say to the master when he comes back?”


Output: “Stop moaning, brother,” said Bright Moon. “We must tidy ourselves up and not let those monks know anything’s wrong. That hairy-faced sod who looks like a thunder god must have done it. He must have used magic to destroy our treasure. But it’s useless to argue with him as he’ll deny everything, and if we start a quarrel with him and fighting breaks out, we two haven’t a chance against the four of them. We’ll have to fool them and say that no fruit is missing. We’ll pretend we counted wrong before, and apologize to them. Their rice is cooked, and we can give them a few side dishes to eat with it. The moment they’ve each got a bowl of food you and I will stand on either side of the door, slam it shut, and lock it. After that we can lock all the gates, then they won’t be able to get away. When our master comes back he can decide what to do with them. That old monk is a friend of his, so our master may want to forgive him as a favour. And if he doesn’t feel forgiving, we’ve got the criminals under arrest and may


Output: we’ve got the criminals under arrest and may possibly not get into trouble ourselves.”


Output:
“Absolutely right,” said Pure Wind.

The two of them pulled themselves together, forced themselves to look happy, and went back to the front hall. “Master,” they said, bowing low to Sanzang, “we were extremely rude to you just now. Please forgive us.”

“What do you mean?” asked Sanzang.

“The fruit is all there,” they replied. “We couldn’t see it all before as the tree is so tall and the foliage so thick but when we checked just now the number was right.”

“You’re too young to know what you’re doing,” said Pig, taking the chance to put the boot in. “Why did you swear and curse at us, and try to frame us up? You bastards.”

Monkey, who understood what the boys were up to, said nothing and thought, “Lies, lies. The fruit is all finished. Why ever are they saying this? Can it be that they know how to bring the tree back to life?”

“Very well then,” Sanzang was saying meanwhile, “bring our rice in and we’ll be off after eating it.”


Output:
Pig went off to fill their bowls and Friar Sand arranged a table and chairs. The two boys hurried out and fetched some side dishes—salted squash, salted eggplant, turnips in wine-lees, pickle bean, salted lettuce, and mustard plant, some seven or eight plates in all. These they gave to the pilgrims to eat with their rice, and then they waited on them with a pot of good tea and two cups. As soon as the four pilgrims had their ricebowls in their hands, the boys, who were on either side of the doorway, slammed the doors to and locked them with a double-sprung bronze lock.

“You shouldn’t do that, boys,” said Pig with a smile. “Even if the people round here are a bit rough there’s no need to shut the doors while we eat.”

“Yes, yes,” said Bright Moon, “we’ll open them after lunch.” Pure Wind, however, was abusive.


Output: “I’ll get you, you greedy, bald-headed food-thief,” he said. “You ate our immortal fruit and deserve to be punished for the crime of stealing food from fields and gardens. On top of that you’ve pushed our tree over and ruined our temple’s source of immortality. How dare you argue with us? Your only chance of reaching the Western Heaven and seeing the Buddha is to be reborn and be rocked in the cradle again.” When Sanzang heard this he dropped his ricebowl, feeling as if a boulder was weighing down his heart. The two boys went and locked the main and the inner gates of the temple, then came back to the main hall to abuse them with filthy language and call them criminals and bandits till evening, when they went off to eat. The two of them returned to their rooms after supper.


Output:
“You’re always causing trouble, you ape,” grumbled Sanzang at Monkey. “You stole their fruit, so you should have let them lose their temper and swear at you, then that would have been the end of it. Why on earth did you push their tree over? If they took this to court you wouldn’t be able to get off even if your own father were on the bench.”

“Don’t make such a row, master,” said Monkey. “Those boys have gone to bed, and when they’re asleep we can do a midnight flit.”

“But all the gates have been locked,” said Friar Sand, “and they’ve been shut very firmly, so how can we possibly get away?”

“Don’t let it bother you,” said Monkey, “I have a way.”

“We weren’t worried that you wouldn’t have a way,” said Pig. “You can turn yourself into an insect and fly out through the holes in the window lattice. But you’ll be leaving poor old us, who can’t turn ourselves into something else, to stay here and carry the can for you.”


Output:
“If he does a trick like that and doesn’t take us with him I’ll recite that old sutra—he won’t get away scot-free then.”

Pig was both pleased and worried to hear this. “What do you mean, master?” he said. “I know that the Buddha’s teachings include a Lankavatara Sutra, a lotus Sutra, a Peacock Sutra, an Avalokit esvara Sutra, and a Diamond Sutra, but I never heard of any Old Sutra.”

“What you don’t know, brother,” said Monkey, “is that the Bodhisattva Guanyin gave this band I have round my head to our master. He tricked me into wearing it, and now it’s virtually rooted there and I can’t take it off. The spell or sutra for tightening this band is what he meant by the ‘old surra’. If he says it, my head aches. It’s a way he has of making me suffer. Please don’t recite it, master. I won’t abandon you. I guarantee that we’ll all get out.

It was now dark, and the moon had risen in the East. “It’s quiet now,” said Monkey, “and the moon is bright. This is the time to go.”


Output:
“Stop fooling about, brother,” said Pig. “The gates are all locked, so where can we possibly go?”

“Watch this trick,” said Monkey, and gripping his cudgel in his hand he pointed at the doors and applied unlocking magic to them. There was a clanking sound, and the locks fell from all the doors and gates, which

he pushed them open.

“Not half clever,” said Pig. “A locksmith with his skeleton keys couldn’t have done it anything like as fast.”

“Nothing difficult about opening these doors,” said Monkey. “I can open the Southern Gates of Heaven just by pointing at them.” Then he asked his master to go out and mount the horse. Pig shouldered the luggage, Friar Sand led the horse, and they headed West. “You carry on,” Monkey said, “while I go back to make sure that those two boys will stay asleep for a month.”

“Mind you don’t kill them, disciple,” said Sanzang, “or you’ll be on a charge of murder in the pursuit of theft as well.”


Output:
“I’m aware of that,” replied Monkey and went back into the temple. Standing outside the door of the room where the boys were sleeping, he took a couple of sleep insects from his belt. These were what he had used when he fooled the Heavenly King Virudhaka at the Eastern Gate of Heaven, and now he threw them in through a gap in the window lattice. They landed straight on the boys’ faces, and made them fall into a deeper sleep from which they would not wake up for a long time. Then he streaked back by cloud and caught up with Sanzang. They headed West along the main road.

That night the horse never stopped, and they kept on till dawn. “You’ll be the death of me, you ape,” said Sanzang. “Because of your greed I’ve had to stay awake all night.”


Output:
“Stop grumbling,” said Monkey. “Now that it’s light you can rest in the forest beside the road and build your strength up before we move on.” Sanzang obediently dismounted and sat down on the roots of a pine tree, using it as a makeshift meditation platform. Friar Sand put down the luggage and took a nap, while Pig pillowed his head on a rock and went to sleep. Monkey, the Great Sage, had his own ideas and amused himself leaping from tree to tree.

After the lecture in the palace of the Original Celestial Jade Pure One the Great Immortal Zhen Yuan led his junior Immortals down from the Tushita Heaven through the jade sky on auspicious clouds, and in a moment they were back at the gates of the Wuzhuang Temple. The gates, he saw, were wide open, and the ground was clean.


Output:
“So Pure Wind and Bright Moon aren’t so useless after all,” he said. “Usually they’re still in bed when the sun is high in the sky. But now, with us away, they got up early, opened the gates, and swept the grounds.” All the junior Immortals were delighted. Yet when they went into the hall of worship there was no incense burning and nobody to be seen.

Where were Bright Moon and Pure Wind, they wondered. “They probably thought that with us not here they could steal some stuff and clear out.”


Output: “What an outrageous idea,” said the Great Immortal. “As if men cultivating immortality could do anything so evil! I think they must have forgotten to shut the gates before they went to sleep last night and not have woken up yet.” When the Immortals went to look in their room they found the doors closed and heard the boys snoring. They hammered on the doors and shouted for all they were worth, but the boys did not wake up. They forced the doors open and pulled the boys from their beds: the boys still did not wake up. “Fine Immortal boys you are,” said the Great Immortal with a smile. “When you become an Immortal your divine spirit should be so full that you do not want to sleep. Why are they so tired? They must have been bewitched. Fetch some water at once.” A boy hastily handed him half a bowl of water. He intoned a spell, took a mouthful of the water, and spurted it on their faces. This broke the enchantment. The two of them woke up, opened their eyes, rubbed their faces, looked around them, and saw the


Output: their faces, looked around them, and saw the Great Immortal as well as all their Immortal brothers. Pure Wind bowed and Bright Moon kowtowed in their confusion, saying, “Master, that old friend of yours, the priest from the East…a gang of bandits… murderous, murderous....”


Output:
“Don’t be afraid,” said the Great Immortal with a smile. “Calm down and tell us all about it.”

“Master,” said Pure Wind, “the Tang Priest from the East did come. It was quite soon after you had left. There were four monks and a horse—five of them altogether. We did as you had ordered us and picked two manfruits to offer him, but the venerable gentleman was too vulgar and stupid to know what our treasures were. He said that they were newborn babies and refused to eat any, so we ate one each. Little did we imagine that one of his three disciples called Brother Sun Wukong, or Monkey, would steal four manfruits for them to eat. We spoke to him very reasonably, but he denied it and secretly used his magic. It’s terrible....” At this point the two boys could no longer hold back the tears that now streamed down their cheeks. “Did the monk strike you?” asked the immortals. “No,” said Bright Moon, “he only felled our manfruit tree.”


Output:
The Great Immortal did not lose his temper when he heard their story, “Don’t cry,” he said, “don’t cry. What you don’t realize is that Monkey is an Immortal of the Supreme Monad, and that he played tremendous havoc in the Heavenly Palace. He has vast magic powers. But he has knocked our tree over. Could you recognize those monks?”

“I could recognize all of them,” replied Pure Wind.

“In that case come with me,” said the Great Immortal. “The rest of you are to prepare the instruments of torture and be ready to flog them when we come back.”


Output:
The other Immortals did as they were told while the Great Immortal, Bright Moon and Pure Wind pursued Sanzang on a beam of auspicious light. It took them but an instant to cover three hundred miles. The Great Immortal stood on the edge of the clouds and gazed to the West, but he did not see Sanzang; then he turned round to look East and saw that he had left Sanzang over two hundred and fifty miles behind. Even riding all night that venerable gentleman had covered only forty miles, which was why the Great Immortal’s cloud had overshot him by a great distance.

“Master,” said one of the Immortal boys, “there’s the Tang Priest, sitting under a tree by the side of the road.”

“Yes, I’d seen him myself,” the Great Immortal replied. “You two go back and get some ropes ready, and I’ll catch him myself.” Pure Wind and Bright Moon went back.

The Great Immortal landed his cloud, shook himself, and turned into and itinerant Taoist. Do you know what he looked like?

He wore a patchwork gown,


Output:
He wore a patchwork gown,

Tied with Lu Dongbin sash,

Waving a fly-whisk in his hand

He tapped a musical drum.

The grass sandals on his feet had three ears,

His head was wrapped in a sun turban.

As the wind filled his sleeves

He sang The Moon Is High.

“Greetings, venerable sir,” he called, raising his hands. “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t notice you before,” replied Sanzang hastily.

“Where are you from?” the Great Immortal asked. “And why are you in meditation during your journey?”

“I have been sent by the Great Tang in the East to fetch the scriptures from the Western Heaven,” Sanzang said, “and I’m taking a rest along the way.”

“You must have crossed my desolate mountain if you have come from the East.”

“May I ask, Immortal sir, which mountain is yours?”

“My humble abode is the Wuzhuang Temple on the Mountain of Infinite Longevity.”

“We didn’t come that way,” said Monkey, who realized what was happening. “We’ve only just started out.”


Output:
The Great Immortal pointed at him and laughed. “I’ll show you, you damned ape. Who do you think you’re fooling? I know that you knocked our manfruit tree down and came here during the night. You had better confess: you won’t get away with concealing anything. Stay where you are, and give me back that tree at once.” Monkey flared up at this, and with no further discussion he struck at the Great Immortal’s head with his cudgel. The Great Immortal twisted away from the blow and went straight up into the sky on a beam of light, closely pursued by Monkey on a cloud. In mid-air the Great Immortal reverted to his true appearance, and this is what he looked like:

A golden crown on his head,

A No-worries cloak of crane’s down on his body.

A pair of turned-up sandals on his feet,

And round his waist a belt of silk.

His body was like a child’s,

His face was that of a beautiful woman.

A wispy beard floated down from his chin,

And the hair on his temples was crow-black.

He met Monkey unarmed


Output:
He met Monkey unarmed

With only a jade-handled whisk in his hands.

Monkey struck wildly at him with his club, only to be parried to left and right by the Great Immortal’s whisk. After two or three rounds the Great Immortal did a “Wrapping Heaven and Earth in His Sleeve” trick, waving his sleeve gently in the breeze as he stood amid the clouds, then sweeping it across the ground and gathering up the four pilgrims and their horse in it.

“Hell,” said Pig, “We’re all caught in a bag.”

“It isn’t a bag, you idiot,” said Monkey, “he’s caught us all in his sleeve.”

“It doesn’t matter, anyhow,” said Pig. “I can make a hole in it with a single blow of my rake that we can all get through. Then we’ll be able to drop out when he relaxes his grip on us.” But however desperately he struck at the fabric he could make no impression on it: although it was soft when held in the hand it was harder than iron when hit.


Output:
The Great Immortal turned his cloud round, went straight back to the Wuzhuang Temple, landed, sat down, and told his disciples to fetch rope. Then, with all the junior Immortals in attendance, he took the Tang Priest out of his sleeve as if he were a puppet and had him tied to one of the pillars of the main hall. After that he took the other three out and tied each of them to a pillar. The horse was taken out, tethered, and fed in the courtyard, and their luggage he threw under the covered walk.

“Disciples,” he said, “these priests are men of religion, so we cannot use swords, spears or axes on them. You’d better fetch a leather whip and give them a flogging for me—that will make me feel better about the manfruit.” The disciples immediately produced a whip—not an oxhide, sheepskin, deerskin or calfskin whip, but a seven-starred dragon-skin one—and were told to soak it in water. A brawny young Immortal was told to take a firm grip on it. “Master,” he said, “which of them stall I flog first?”


Output:
“Sanzang is guilty of gross disrespect,” the Great Immortal replied, “flog him first.”

“That old priest of ours couldn’t stand a flogging,” thought Monkey when he heard this, “and if he died under the lash the fault would be mine.” Finding the thought of this unbearable, he spoke up and said, “You’re wrong, sir. I stole the fruit, I ate the fruit, and I pushed the tree over. Why flog him first when you ought to be flogging me?”

“That damn monkey has a point,” said the Great Immortal with a smile, “so you’d better flog him first.”

“How many strokes?” the junior Immortal asked.


Output:
“How many strokes?” the junior Immortal asked.

“Give him thirty,” the Great Immortal replied, “to match the number of fruits.” The junior Immortal whirled the lash and started to bring it down. Monkey, frightened that the Immortal would have great magical powers, opened his eyes wide and looked carefully to see where he was going to be hit, and it turned out to be on his legs. He twisted at the waist, shouted “Change!” turned them into a pair of wrought-iron legs, and watched the blows fall. The junior Immortal gave him thirty lashes, one after the other, until it was almost noon.

“Sanzang must be flogged too,” the Great Immortal commanded, “for training his wicked disciple so slackly and letting him run wild.”


Output:
The junior Immortal whirled the lash again and was going to strike Sanzang when Monkey said, “Sir, you’re making another mistake. When I stole the fruit, my master knew nothing about it—he was talking to those two boys of yours in the main hall of the temple. This plot was hatched by us three disciples. Anyhow, even if he were guilty of slackness in training me, I’m his disciple and should take the flogging for him. Flog me again.”

“That damn monkey may be cunning and vicious, but he does have some sense of his obligations to his master. Very well then, flog him again.” The junior Immortal gave him another thirty strokes. Monkey looked down and watched his legs being flogged till they shone like mirrors but still he felt no pain.

It was now drawing towards evening, and the Great Immortal said, “Put the lash to soak. We can continue that flogging tomorrow.” The junior Immortal took the lash away to be soaked while everyone retired to their quarters, and after supper they all went to bed.


Output:
“It was because you three got me into this trouble that I was brought here to be punished,” moaned the venerable Sanzang to his three disciples as tears streamed down from his eyes. “Is that how you ought to treat me?”

“Don’t grumble,” Monkey replied. “I was the one to be flogged first, and you haven’t felt the lash, so what have you got to groan about?”

“I may not have been flogged,” Sanzang replied, “but it’s agony being tied up like this.”

“We’re tied up too to keep you company,” said Friar Sand. “Will you all stop shouting?” said Monkey, “then we can be on our way again when we’ve taken a rest.”

“You’re showing off again, elder brother,” said Pig. “They’ve tied us up with hempen ropes and spurted water on them, so we’re tightly bound. This isn’t like the time we were shut in the hall of the temple and you unlocked the doors to let us out.”


Output:
“I’m not boasting,” said Monkey. “I don’t give a damn about their three hempen ropes sprayed with water. Even if they were coconut cables as thick as a ricebowl they would only be an autumn breeze.” Apart from him speaking, all was now silence. Splendid Monkey made himself smaller, slipped out of his bonds, and said, “Let’s go, master.”

“Save us too, elder brother,” pleaded a worried Friar Sand. “Shut up, shut up,” Monkey replied, then freed Sanzang, Pig and Friar Sand, straightened his tunic, tightened his belt, saddled the horse, collected their luggage from under the eaves, and went out through the temple gates with the others. “Go and cut down four of the willow-trees by that cliff,” he told Pig, who asked, “Whatever do you want them for?”

“I’ve got a use for them,” Monkey replied. “Bring them here immediately.”


Output: The idiot Pig, who certainly had brute strength, went and felled each of them with a single bite, and came back holding them all in his arms. Monkey stripped off their tops and branches and told his two fellow-disciples to take the trunks back in and tie them up with the ropes as they themselves had been tied up. Then Monkey recited a spell, bit the tip of his tongue open, and spat blood over the trees. At his shout of “Change!” one of the trees turned into Sanzang, one turned into Monkey, and the other two became Friar Sand and Pig. They were all perfect likenesses; when questioned they would reply, and when called by their names they responded. The three disciples then hurried back to their master, and once more they traveled all night without stopping as they fled from the Wuzhuang Temple.


Output:
By the time it was dawn the venerable Sanzang was swaying to and fro as he dozed in the saddle. “Master,” called Monkey when he noticed, “you’re hopeless. You’re a man of religion—how can you be finding it so exhausting? I can do without sleep for a thousand nights not feeling a bit tired. You’d better dismount and spare yourself the humiliation of being laughed at by a passer-by. Take a rest in one of the places under this hill where the wind is stored and the vapours gather before we go any further.”

We shall leave them resting beside the path to tell how the Great Immortal got up at dawn, ate his meatless breakfast, and went to the hall. “Today Tang Sanzang is to be whipped,” he announced as he sent for the lash. The junior whirled it around and said to the Tang Priest, “I’m going to flog you.”

“Flog away,” the willow tree replied.

When he had given it thirty resounding lashes he whirled the whip around once more and said to Pig, “Now I’m going to flog you.”

“Flog away,” the willow tree replied.


Output:
“Flog away,” the willow tree replied.

When he came to flog Friar Sand, he too told him to go ahead. But when he came to flog Monkey, the real Monkey on the road shuddered and said, “Oh, no!”

“What do you mean?” Sanzang asked.

“When I turned the four willow trees into the four of us I thought that as he had me flogged twice yesterday he wouldn’t flog me again today, but now he’s lashing the magic body, my real body is feeling the pain. I’m putting an end to this magic.” With that he hastily recited an incantation to break the spell.

Look at the terror of the Taoist boys as they throw down their leather whips and report, “Master, at first we were flogging the Priest from the Great Tang, but all we are flogging now are willow trunks. The Great Immortal laughed bitterly on hearing this and was full of admiration.


Output:
“Brother Monkey really is a splendid Monkey King. I had heard that when he turned the Heavenly Palace upside-down, he could not even be caught with a Heaven and Earth Net, and now I see it must be true. I wouldn’t mind your escaping, but why did you leave four willows tied up here to impersonate you? He shall be shown no mercy. After him!” As the words “After him” left his mouth, the Great Immortal sprang up on a cloud and looked West to see the monks carrying their bundles and spurring their horse as they went on their way. Bringing his cloud down he shouted, “Where are you going, Monkey? Give me back my manfruit tree.”

“We’re done for,” exclaimed Pig, “our enemy’s come back.”


Output:
“Put all your piety away for now, master,” said Monkey, “while we finish him off once and for all with a bit of evil; then we’ll be able to escape.” The Tang Priest shivered and shook on hearing this, and before he could answer, the three disciples rushed forward, Friar Sand wielding his staff, Pig with his rake held high, and the Great Sage Monkey brandishing his iron cudgel. They surrounded the Great Immortal in mid-air and struck wildly at him. There are some verses about this terrible fight:

Monkey did not know that the Immortal Zhen Yuan,

The Conjoint Lord of the Age, had even deeper powers.

While the three magic weapons fiercely whirled,

His deer-tail fly-whisk gently waved.

Parrying to left and right, he moved to and fro,

Blocking blows from front and back he let them rush around.

When night gave way to dawn they still were locked in combat.

If they tarried here they would never reach the Western Heaven.


Output:
The three of them went for him with their magic weapons, but the Great Immortal kept them at bay with his fly-whisk. After about an hour he opened wide his sleeve and caught up master, disciples, horse, and baggage in it once more. Then he turned his cloud around and went back to his temple, where all the Immortals greeted him. After taking his seat in the hall he took them out of his sleeve one by one. He had the Tang Priest tied to a stunted locust tree at the foot of the steps, with Pig and Friar Sand tied to trees next to him. Monkey was tied up upside-down, which made him think that he was going to be tortured and interrogated. When Monkey was tightly bound, the Great Immortal sent for ten long turban-cloths.

“What a kind gentleman, Pig,” said Monkey, “he’s sent for some cloth to make sleeves for us—with a bit less he could have made us cassocks.” The junior Immortals fetched home-woven cloth, and on being told by the Great Immortal to wrap up Pig and Friar Sand with it, they came forward to do so.


Output:
“Excellent,” said Monkey, “excellent—you’re being encoffined alive.” Within a few moments the three of them were wrapped up, and lacquer was then sent for. The Immortals quickly fetched some lacquer that they had tapped and dried themselves, with which they painted the three bandaged bodies all over except for the heads.

“Never mind about our heads, sir,” said Pig, “but please leave us a hole at the bottom to shit through.”

The Great Immortal then sent for a huge cauldron, at which Monkey said with a laugh, “You’re in luck, Pig. I think they must have brought the cauldron out to cook us some rice in.”

“Fine,” said Pig, “I hope they give us some rice first—we’ll make much better-looking ghosts if we die with our bellies full.”


Output: The Immortals carried out the large cauldron and put it under the steps, and the Great Immortal called for dry wood to be stacked up round it and set ablaze. “Ladle it full of pure oil,” he commanded, “and when it is hot enough to bubble, deep-fry Monkey in it to pay me back for my manfruit.”


Output:
Monkey was secretly delighted to hear this. “This is just what I want,” He thought. “I haven’t had a bath for ages, and my skin’s getting rather itchy. I’d thoroughly appreciate a hot bath.” Very soon the oil was bubbling and Monkey was having reservations: he was afraid that the Immortal’s magic might be hard for him to fathom, and that at first he might be unable to use his limbs in the cauldron. Hastily looking around him, he saw that there was a sundial to the East of the dais and a stone lion to the West. Monkey rolled towards it with a spring, bit off the end of his tongue, spurted blood all over the stone lion, and shouted “Change,” at which it turned into his own image, tied up in a bundle like himself. Then he extracted his spirit and went up into the clouds, from where he looked down at the Taoists.

It was just at this moment that the junior Immortals reported, “The oil’s boiling hard.”


Output: “Carry Monkey down to it,” the Great Immortal ordered, but when four of them tried to pick him up they could not. Eight then tried and failed, and four more made no difference. “This earth-infatuated ape is immovable,” they said. “He may be small, but he’s very solid.” Twelve junior Immortals were then told to pick him up with the aid of carrying-poles, and when they threw him in there was a loud crash as drops of oil splashed about, raising blisters all over the junior Immortals’ faces. “There’s a hole in the cauldron—it’s started leaking,” the scalded Immortals cried, but before the words were out of their mouths the oil had all run out through the broken bottom of the cauldron. They realized that they had thrown a stone lion into it.


Output: “Damn that ape for his insolence,” said the Great Immortal in a terrible rage. “How dare he play his tricks in my presence! I don’t mind so much about your getting away, but how dare you wreck my cauldron? It’s useless trying to catch him, and even if you could it would be like grinding mercury out of sand, or trying to hold a shadow or the wind. Forget about him, let him go. Untie Tang Sanzang instead and fetch another pot. We can fry him to avenge the destruction of the tree.” The junior Immortals set to and began to tear off Sanzang’s lacquered bandages.


Output:
Monkey could hear all this clearly from mid-air. “The master will be done for,” he thought. “If he goes into that cauldron it’ll kill him. Then he’ll be cooked, and after four or five fryings he’ll be eaten as a really tender piece of monk. I must go back down and save him.” The splendid Great Sage brought his cloud down to land, clasped his hands in front of him, and said, “Don’t spoil the lacquered bands, and don’t fry my master. Put me in the cauldron of oil instead.”

“I’ll get you, you baboon,” raged the Great Immortal in astonishment. “Why did you use one of your tricks to smash my cooking pot?”


Output:
“You must expect to be smashed up if you meet me—and what business is it of mine anyhow? I was going to accept your kind offer of some hot oil, but I was desperate for a shit and a piss, and if I’d done them in your cauldron, I’d have spoilt your oil and your food wouldn’t have tasted right. Now I’ve done my stuff I’m ready for the cauldron. Please fry me instead of my master.” The Great Immortal laughed coldly, came out of the hall, and seized him.

If you don’t know how the story goes or how he escaped, listen to the explanation in the next installment.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Sun Wukong Looks for the Formula in the Three Islands

Guanyin Revives the Tree with a Spring of Sweet Water

As the poem goes,

When living in the world you must be forbearing;

Patience is essential when training oneself.

Although it’s often said that violence is good business,

Think before you act, and never bully or be angry.

True gentlemen who never strive are famed for ever;

The virtue-loving sages are renowned to this day.


Output:
Strong men always meet stronger than themselves,

And end up as failures who are in the wrong.

The Great Immortal Zhen Yuan held Monkey in his hand and said, “I’ve heard about your powers and your fame, but this time you have gone too far. Even if you manage to remove yourself, you won’t escape my clutches. You and I shall argue it out as far as the Western Heaven, and even if you see that Buddha of yours, you’ll still have to give me back my manfruit tree first. Don’t try any of your magic now.”

“What a small-minded bloke you are, sir,” Monkey replied with a laugh. “If you want your tree brought back to life, there’s no problem. If you’d told me earlier we could have been spared all this quarrelling.”

“If you hadn’t made trouble I’d have forgiven you,” said the Great Immortal.

“Would you agree to release my master if I gave you back the tree alive?” Monkey asked.


Output:
“If your magic is strong enough to revive the tree,” the Great Immortal replied, “I shall bow to you eight times and take you as my brother.”

“That’s easy then,” said Monkey. “Release them and I guarantee to give you back your tree alive.”

Trusting him not to escape, the Great Immortal ordered that Sanzang, Pig and Friar Sand be set free. “Master,” said Friar Sand, “I wonder what sort of trick Monkey is up to.”

“I’ll tell you what sort of trick,” retorted Pig. “A pleading for favour trick. The tree’s dead and can’t possibly be revived. Finding a cure for the tree is an excuse for going off by himself without giving a damn for you or me.”

“He wouldn’t dare abandon us,” said Sanzang. “Let’s ask him where he’s going to find a doctor for it. Monkey,” he continued, “why did you fool the Immortal elder into untying us?”

“Every word I said was true,” Monkey replied. “I wasn’t leading him on.”

“Where will you go to find a cure?”


Output:
“Where will you go to find a cure?”

“There’s an old saying that ‘cures come from over the sea’. I’ll go to the Eastern Sea and travel round the Three Islands and Ten Continents visiting the venerable Immortals and sages to find a formula for bringing the dead back to life. I promise that I’ll cure that tree.”

“When will you come back?”

“I’ll only need three days.”

“In that case I’ll give you three days. If you are back within that time, that will be all right, but if you are late I shall recite that spell.”

“I’ll do as you say,” said Monkey.


Output:
“I’ll do as you say,” said Monkey.

He immediately straightened up his tiger-skin kilt, went out through the door, and said to the Great Immortal, “Don’t worry, sir, I’ll soon be back. Mind you look after my master well. Give him tea three times a day and six meals, and don’t leave any out. If you do, I’ll settle that score when I come back, and I’ll start by holing the bottoms of all your pans. If his clothes get dirty, wash them for him. I won’t stand for it if he looks sallow, and if he loses weight you’ll never see the back of me.”

“Go away, go away,” the Great Immortal replied. “I certainly won’t let him go hungry.”

The splendid Monkey King left the Wuzhuang Temple with a bound of his somersault cloud and headed for the Eastern Sea. He went through the air as fast as a flash of lightning or a shooting star, and he was soon in the blessed land of Penglai. As he landed his cloud he looked around him and saw that it was indeed a wonderful place. A poem about it goes:


Output:
A great and sacred land where the Immortal sages

Still the waves as they come and go.

The shade of the jasper throne cools the heart of the sky;

The radiance of the great gate-pillars shimmers high above the sea.

Hidden in the coloured mists are flutes of jade;

The moon and the stars shine on the golden leviathan.

The Queen Mother of the Western Pool often comes here

To give her peaches to the Three Immortals.

Gazing at the enchanted land that spread out before him, Brother Monkey entered Penglai. As he was walking along, he noticed three old men sitting round a chess table under the shade of a pine tree outside a cloud-wreathed cave. The one watching the game was the Star of Longevity, and the players were the Star of Blessings and the Star of Office.

“Greetings, respected younger brothers,” Monkey called to them, and when they saw him they swept the pieces away, returned his salutation, and said, “Why have you come here, Great Sage?”

“To see you,” he replied.


Output:
“To see you,” he replied.

“I’ve heard,” said the Star of Longevity, “that you have given up the Way for the sake of the Buddha, and have thrown aside your life to protect the Tang Priest on his journey to fetch the scriptures from the Western Heaven. How can you spare the time from your endless crossings of waters and mountains just to see us?”

“To tell you the truth,” said Monkey, “I was on my way to the West until a spot of bother held us up. I wonder if you could do me a small favour.”

“Where did this happen?” asked the Star of Blessings, “what has been holding you up? Please tell us and we’ll deal with it.”

“We’ve been held up because we went via the Wuzhuang Temple on the Mountain of Infinite Longevity,” said Monkey.

“But the Wuzhuang Temple is the palace of the Great Immortal Zhen Yuan,” exclaimed the three Immortals with alarm, “don’t say that you’ve stolen some of his manfruit!”

“What if I had stolen and eaten some?” asked Monkey with a grin.


Output:
“You ignorant ape,” the three Immortals replied. “A mere whiff of that fruit makes a man live to be three hundred and sixty, and anyone who eats one will live forty-seven thousand years. They are called ‘Grass-returning Cinnabar of Ten Thousand Longevities,’ and our Way hasn’t a patch on them. Manfruit makes you as immortal as Heaven with the greatest of ease, while it takes us goodness knows how long to nourish our essence, refine the spirit, preserve our soul, harmonize water and fire, capture the kan to fill out the li. How can you possibly ask whether it would matter? There is no other miraculous tree like it on earth.”

“Miraculous tree,” scoffed Monkey, “miraculous tree! I’ve put an end to that miraculous tree.”

“What? Put an end to it?” the three Immortals asked, struck with horror.


Output: “When I was in his temple the other day,” Monkey said, “the Great Immortal wasn’t at home. There were only a couple of boys who received my master and gave him two manfruits. My master didn’t know what they were and said that they were newborn babies; he refused to eat them. The boys took them away and ate them themselves instead of offering them to the rest of us, so I went and pinched three, one for each of us disciples. Those disrespectful boys swore and cursed at us no end, which made me so angry that I knocked their tree over with a single blow. All the fruit disappeared, the leaves fell, the roots came out, and the branches were smashed up. The tree was dead. To our surprise the two boys locked us in, but I opened the lock and we escaped. When the Great Immortal came home the next day, he came after us and found us. Our conversation didn’t go too smoothly and we started to fight him, but he dodged us, spread his sleeve out, and caught us all up in it. After being tied up then flogged and interrogated


Output: After being tied up then flogged and interrogated for a day, we escaped again, but he caught up with us and captured us again. Although he had not an inch of steel on him, he fought us off with his whisk, and even with our three weapons we couldn’t touch him. He caught us the same way as before. He had my master and two brothers wrapped up in bandages and lacquered, and was going to throw me into a cauldron of oil, but I used a trick to take my body away and escape, smashing that pan of his. Now that he has realized he can’t catch me and keep me he’s getting a bit scared of me, and I had a good talk with him. I told him that if he released my master and my brothers I’d guarantee to cure the tree and bring it back to life, which would satisfy both parties. As it occurred to me that ‘cures come from over the sea,’ I came here specially to visit you three brothers of mine. If you have any cures that will bring a tree back to life, please tell me one so that I can get the Tang Priest out of trouble as quickly as


Output: get the Tang Priest out of trouble as quickly as possible.”


Output:
“You ape,” the Three Stars said gloomily when they heard this. “You don’t know who you’re up against. That Master Zhen Yuan is the Patriarch of the Immortals of the earth, and we are the chiefs of the divine Immortals. Although you have become a heavenly Immortal, you are still only one of the irregulars of the Great Monad, not one of the elite. You’ll never be able to escape his clutches. If you’d killed some animal, bird, insect or reptile, Great Sage, we could have given you some pills made from sticky millet to bring it back to life, but that manfruit tree is a magic one and can’t possibly be revived. There’s no cure, none at all.” When he heard that there was no cure, Monkey’s brows locked in a frown, and his forehead was creased in a thousand wrinkles.

“Great Sage,” said the Star of Blessing, “even though we have no cure here, there may be one somewhere else. Why be so worried?”


Output:
“If there were anywhere else for me to go,” Monkey replied, “it would be easy. It wouldn’t even matter if I had to go to the furthest corner of the ocean, or to the cliff at the end of the sky, or if I had to penetrate the Thirty-sixth Heaven. But the trouble is that the Tang Patriarch is very strict and has given me a time-limit of three days. If I’m not back in three days he’ll recite the Band-tightening Spell.”

“Splendid, splendid,” laughed the three stars. “If you weren’t restricted by that spell you’d go up to Heaven again.”

“Calm down, Great Sage,” said the Star of Longevity, “there’s no need to worry. Although that Great Immortal is senior to us he is a friend of ours, and as we haven’t visited him for a long time and would like to do you a favour we’ll go and see him. We’ll explain things for you and tell that Tang monk not to recite the Band-tightening Spell. We won’t go away until you come back, however long you take, even if it’s a lot longer that three to five days.”


Output:
“Thank you very much,” said Monkey. “May I ask you to set out now as I’m off?” With that he took his leave.

The Three Stars went off on beams of auspicious light to the Wuzhuang Temple, where all present heard cranes calling in the sky as the three of them arrived.

The void was bathed in blessed glow,

The Milky Way heavy with fragrance.

A thousand wisps of coloured mist enveloped the feather-clad ones;

A single cloud supported the immortal feet.

Green and red phoenixes circled and soared,

As the aroma in their sleeves wafted over the earth.

These dragons leant on their staffs and smiled,

And jade-white beards waved before their chests.

Their youthful faces were untroubled by sorrow,

Their majestic bodies were rich with blessing.

They carried star-chips to count their age,

And at their waists hung gourds and talismans.

Their life is infinitely long,

And they live on the Ten Continents and Three Islands.

They often come to bring blessings to mortals,


Output:
They often come to bring blessings to mortals,

Spreading good things a hundred-fold among humans.

The glory and blessings of the universe

Come now as happiness unlimited.

As these three elders visit the Great Immortal on auspicious light,

There is no end to good fortune and peace.

“Master,” the immortal youths rushed to report when they saw them, “the Three Stars from the sea are here.” The Great Immortal Zhen Yuan, who was talking with the Tang Priest, came down the steps to welcome them when he heard this.

When Pig saw the Star of Longevity he went up and tugged at his clothes. “I haven’t seen you for ages, you meat-headed old fellow,” he said with a grin. “You’re getting very free and easy, turning up without a hat.” With these words he thrust his own clerical hat on the star’s head, clapped his hands, and roared with laughter. “Great, great. You’ve been ‘capped and promoted’ all right.” Flinging the hat down, the Star of Longevity cursed him for a disrespectful moron.


Output:
“I’m no moron,” said Pig, but you’re all slaves.”

“You’re most certainly a moron,” the Star of Blessing replied, “so how dare you call us slaves?”

“If you aren’t slaves then,” Pig retorted, “why do people always ask you to ‘bring us long life,’ ‘bring us blessings,’ and ‘bring us a good job?’”

Sanzang shouted at Pig to go away, then quickly tidied himself up and bowed to the Three Stars. The Three Stars greeted the Great Immortal as befitted members of a younger generation, after which they all sat down. “We have not seen your illustrious countenance for a long time,” the Star of Office said, “which shows our great lack of respect. The reason we come to see you now is because the Great Sage Monkey has made trouble in your immortal temple.”

“Has Monkey been to Penglai?” the Great Immortal asked.


Output:
“Yes,” replied the Star of Longevity. “He came to our place to ask for a formula to restore the elixir tree that he killed. As we have no cure for it, he has had to go elsewhere in search of it. We are afraid that if he exceeds the three-day time-limit the holy priest has imposed, the Band-tightening Spell may be said. We have come in the first place to pay our respects and in the second to ask for an extension of the limit.”

“I won’t recite it, I promise,” answered Sanzang as soon as he heard this.

As they were talking Pig came rushing in again to grab hold of the Star of Blessing and demand some fruit from him. He started to feel in the star’s sleeves and rummage round his waist, pulling his clothes apart as he searched everywhere.

“What sort of behavior is that?” asked Sanzang with a smile.


Output:
“I’m not misbehaving,” said Pig. “This is what’s meant by the saying, ‘blessings wherever you look.’” Sanzang shouted at him to go away again. The idiot withdrew slowly, glaring at the Star of Blessing with unwavering hatred in his eyes.

“I wasn’t angry with you, you moron,” said the star, “so why do you hate me so?”

“I don’t hate you,” said Pig. “This is what they call ‘turning the head and seeing blessing.’” As the idiot was going out he saw a young boy came in with four tea ladles, looking for bowls in the abbot’s cell in which to put fruit and serve tea. Pig seized one of the ladles, ran to the main hall of the temple, snatched up a hand-bell, and started striking it wildly. He was enjoying himself enormously when the Great Immortal said, “This monk gets more and more disrespectful.”

“I’m not being disrespectful,” Pig replied. “I’m ‘ringing in happiness for the four seasons.’”


Output:
While Pig was having his jokes and making trouble, Monkey had bounded away from Penglai by auspicious cloud and come to the magic mountain Fangzhang. This was a really wonderful place. As the poem goes,

The towering Fangzhang is another heaven,

Where gods and Immortals meet in the Palace of the Great Unity.

The purple throne illuminates the road to the Three Pure Ones,

The scent of flowers and trees drifts among the clouds.

Many a golden phoenix comes to rejoice around its flowery portals;

What makes the fields of magical mushrooms glisten like jade?

Pale peaches and purple plums are newly ripened,

Ready to give even longer life to the Immortals.

But as Monkey brought his cloud down he was in no mood to enjoy the view. As he was walking along he smelt a fragrance in the wind, heard the cry of the black stork, and saw an Immortal:

The sky was filled with radiant light,

As multicolored clouds shone and glowed.

Red phoenixes looked brighter than the flowers in their beaks;


Output:
Sweetly sang green ones as they danced in flight.

His blessings were as great as the Eastern Sea, his age that of a mountain;

Yet his face was a child’s and his body was strong.

In a bottle he kept his pills of eternal youth,

And a charm for everlasting life hung from his waist.

He had often sent blessings down to mankind,

Several times saving mortals from difficulties.

He once gave longer life to Emperor Wu,

And always went to the Peach Banquets at the Jade Pool.

He taught all monks to cast off worldly fates;

His explanations of the great Way were clear as lightning.

He had crossed the seas to pay his respects,

And had seen the Buddha on the Vulture Peak.

His title was Lord Emperor of Eastern Glory,

The highest-ranked Immortal of the mists and clouds.


Output:
When Brother Monkey saw him he hailed him with the words, “I salute you, Lord Emperor.” The Lord Emperor hastened to return his greeting and say, “I should have welcomed you properly, Great Sage. May I ask you home for some tea?” He led Monkey by the hand to his palace of cowrie-shells, where there was no end of jasper pools and jade towers. They were sitting waiting for their tea when a boy appeared from behind

an emerald screen. This is how he looked:

A Taoist robe that sparkled with color hung from his body,

And light gleamed from the silken sash round his waist.

On his head he wore a turban with the sign of the stars of the Dipper,

And the grass sandals on his feet had climbed all the magical mountains.

He was refining his True Being, shuffling off his shell,

And when he had finished he would reach unbounded bliss.

His understanding had broken through to the origins,

And his master knew that he was free from mistakes.

Avoiding fame and enjoying the present he had won long life


Output:
And did not care about the passing of time.

He had been along the crooked portico, climbed to the precious hall,

And three times received the peaches of Heaven.

Clouds of incense appeared to rise from behind the emerald screen;

This young Immortal was Dongfang Shuo himself.

“So you’re here, you young thief,” said Monkey with a smile when he saw him. “There are no peaches for you to steal here in the Lord Emperor’s palace.”

Dongfang Shuo greeted him respectfully and replied, “What have you come for, you old thief? My master doesn’t keep any pills of immortality here for you to pinch.”

“Stop talking nonsense, Manqian,” the Lord Emperor shouted, “and bring some tea.” Manqian was Dongfang Shuo’s Taoist name. He hurried inside and brought out two cups of tea.

When the two of them had drunk it, Monkey said, “I came here to ask you to do something for me. I wonder if you’d be prepared to.”

“What is it?” the Lord Emperor asked. “Do tell me.”


Output:
“I have been escorting the Tang Priest on his journey to the West,” Monkey replied, “and our route took us via the Wuzhuang Temple on the Mountain of Infinite Longevity. The youths there were so ill-mannered that I lost my temper and knocked their manfruit tree over. We’ve been held up for a while as a result, and the Tang Priest cannot get away, which is why I have come to ask you, sir, to give me a formula that will cure it. I do hope that you will be good enough to agree.”

“You thoughtless ape,” the Lord Emperor replied, “you make trouble wherever you go. Master Zhen Yuan of the Wuzhunang Temple has the sacred title Conjoint Lord of the Age, and he is the Patriarch of the Immortals of the Earth. Why ever did you clash with him? That manfruit tree of his is Grass-returning Cinnabar. It was criminal enough of you to steal some of the fruit, and knocking the tree over makes it impossible for him ever to make it up with you.”


Output:
“True,” said Monkey. “When we escaped he caught up with us and swept us into his sleeve as if we were so many sweat-rags, which made me furious. However, he had to let me go and look for a formula that would cure it, which is why I’ve come to ask your help.”

“I have a nine-phased returning pill of the Great Monad, but it can only bring animate objects back to life, not trees. Trees are lives compounded of the Wood and Earth elements and nurtured by Heaven and Earth. If it were an ordinary mortal tree I could bring it back to life, but the Mountain of Infinite Longevity is the blessed land of a former heaven, the Wuzhuang Temple is the Cave Paradise of the Western Continent of Cattle-gift, and the manfruit tree is the life-root from the time when Heaven and Earth were separated. How could it possibly be revived? I have no formula, none at all.”


Output:
“In that case I must take my leave,” replied Monkey, and when the Lord Emperor tried to detain him with a cup of jade nectar he said, “This is too urgent to allow me to stay.” He rode his cloud back to the island of Yingzhou, another wonderful place, as this poem shows:

Trees of pearls glowed with a purple haze;

The Yingzhou palaces led straight to the heavens.

Blue hills, green rivers, and the beauty of exquisite flowers;

Jade mountains as hard as iron.

Pheasants called at the sunrise over the sea,

Long-lived phoenixes breathe in the red clouds.

People, do not look so hard at the scenery in your jar:

Beyond the world of phenomena is an eternal spring.

On reaching Yingzhou he saw a number of white-haired Immortals with the faces of children playing chess and drinking under a pearl tree at the foot of a cinnabar cliff. They were laughing and singing. As the poem says, there were

Light-filled auspicious clouds,

Perfume floating in a blessed haze.

Brilliant phoenixes singing at the mouth of a cave,


Output:
Black cranes dancing on a mountain top.

Pale green lotus-root and peaches helped their wine down,

Pears and fiery red dates gave them a thousand years of life.

Neither of them had ever heard an imperial edict,

But each was entered on the list of Immortals.

They drifted and floated with the waves,

Free and easy in unsullied elegance.

The passage of the days could not affect them;

Their freedom was guaranteed by Heaven and Earth.

Black apes come in pairs,

Looking most charming as they present fruit;

White deer, bowing two by two,

Thoughtfully offer flowers.

These old men were certainly living a free and happy life. “How about letting me play with you?” Monkey shouted at the top of his voice, and when the Immortals saw him they hurried over to welcome him. There is a poem to prove it that goes:

When the magic root of the manfruit tree was broken;

The Great Sage visited the Immortals in search of a cure.

Winding their way through the vermilion mist, the Nine Ancients


Output:
Came out of the precious forest to greet him.

Monkey, who knew the Nine Ancients, said with a smile, “You nine brothers seem to be doing very nicely.”

“If you had stayed on straight and narrow in the old days, Great sage,” they replied, “and not wrecked the Heavenly Palace you would be doing even better that we are. Now we hear that you have reformed and are going West to visit the Buddha. How did you manage the time off to come here?” Monkey told them how he was searching for a formula to cure the tree.

“What a terrible thing to do,” they exclaimed in horror, “what a terrible thing. We honestly have no cure at all.”

“In that case I must take my leave of you.”


Output:
“In that case I must take my leave of you.”

The Nine Ancients tried to detain him with jasper wine and jade lotus-root, but Monkey refused to sit down, and stayed on his feet while he drank only one cup of wine and ate only one piece of lotus-root. Then he hurried away from Yingzhou and back to the Great Eastern Ocean. When he saw that Potaraka was not far away, he brought his cloud down to land on the Potara Crag, where he saw the Bodhisattva Guanyin expounding the scriptures and preaching the Buddha’s Law to all the great gods of heaven, Moksa, and the dragon maiden in the Purple Bamboo Grove. A poem about it goes:

Thick the mists round the lofty city of the sea’s mistress,

And no end to the greater marvels to be seen.

The Shaolin Temple really has the true flavor,

With the scent of flowers and fruit and the trees all red.


Output:
The Bodhisattva saw Monkey arrive and ordered the Great Guardian God of the Mountain to go and welcome him. The god emerged from the bamboo grove and shouted, “Where are you going, Monkey?”

“You bear monster,” Monkey shouted back, “how dare you address me as ‘Monkey’? If I hadn’t spared your life that time you’d have been just a demon’s corpse on the Black Wind Mountain. Now you’ve joined the Bodhisattva, accepted enlightenment, and come to live on this blessed island where you hear the Law being taught all the time. Shouldn’t you address me as ‘sir?’”


Output:
It was indeed thanks to Monkey that the black bear had been enlightened and was now guarding the Bodhisattva’s Potaraka as one of the great gods of heaven, so all he could do was to force a smile and say, “The ancients said, Great Sage, that a gentleman does not bear grudges. Why should you care about what you’re called? Anyhow, the Bodhisattva has sent me to welcome you.” Monkey then became grave and serious as he went into the Purple Bamboo Grove with the Great God and did obeisance to the Bodhisattva.

“How far has the Tang Priest got, Monkey?” she asked.

“He has reached the Mountain of Infinite Longevity in the Western Continent of Cattle-gift,” Monkey replied.

“Have you met the Great Immortal Zhen Yuan who lives in the Wuzhuang Temple on that mountain?” she asked.


Output:
“As your disciple didn’t meet the Great Immortal Zhen Yuan when I was in the Wuzhuang Temple,” replied Monkey, bowing down to the ground, “I destroyed his manfruit tree and offended him. As a result my master is in a very difficult position and can make no progress.”

“You wretched ape,” said the Bodhisattva angrily now that she knew about it, “you have no conscience at all. That manfruit tree of his is the life-root from the time when Heaven and Earth were separated, and Master Zhen Yuan is the Patriarch of the Earth’s Immortals, which means even I have to show him a certain respect. Why ever did you harm his tree?”


Output: Monkey bowed once more and said, “I really didn’t know. He was away that day and there were only two immortal youths to look after us. When Pig heard that they had this fruit he wanted to try one, so I stole three for him and we had one each. They swore at us no end when they found out, so I lost my temper and knocked the tree over. When he came back the next day he chased us and caught us all up in his sleeve. We were tied up and flogged for a whole day. We got away that night but he caught up with us and put us in his sleeve again. All our escape attempts failed, so I promised him I’d put the tree right. I’ve been searching for a formula all over the seas and been to all three islands of Immortals, but the gods and Immortals are all useless, which is why I decided to come and worship you, Bodhisattva, and tell you all about it. I beg you in your mercy to grant me a formula so that I can save the Tang Priest and have him on his way West again as soon as possible.


Output:
“Why didn’t you come and see me earlier instead of searching the islands for it?” the Bodhisattva asked.

“I’m in luck,” thought Monkey with delight when he heard this, “I’m in luck. The Bodhisattva must have a formula.” He went up to her and pleaded for it again.

“The ‘sweet dew’ in this pure vase of mine,” she said, “is an excellent cure for magic trees and plants.”

“Has it ever been tried out?” Monkey asked.

“Yes,” she said. “How?” he asked.

“Some years ago Lord Lao Zi beat me at gambling,” she replied, “and took my willow sprig away with him. He put it in his elixir-refining furnace and burnt it to a cinder before sending it back to me. I put it back in the vase, and a day and a night later it was as green and leafy as ever.”


Output:
“I’m really in luck,” said Monkey, “really in luck. If it can bring a cinder back to life, something that has only been pushed over should be easy.” The Bodhisattva instructed her subjects to look after the grove as she was going away for a while. Then she took up her vase, and her white parrot went in front singing while Monkey followed behind. As the poem goes,

The jade-haired golden one is hard to describe to mortals;

She truly is a compassionate deliverer.

Although in aeons past she had known the spotless Buddha,

Now she had acquired a human form.

After several lives in the sea of suffering she had purified the waves,

And in her heart there was no speck of dust.

The sweet dew that had long undergone the miraculous Law

Was bound to give the magic tree eternal life.


Output:
Was bound to give the magic tree eternal life.

The Great Immortal and the Three Stars were still in lofty conversation when they saw Monkey bring his cloud down and heard him shout, “The Bodhisattva’s here. Come and welcome her at once.” The Three Stars and Master Zheng Yuan hurried out with Sanzang and his disciples to greet her. On bringing her cloud to a stop, she first talked with Master Zhen Yuan and then greeted the Three Stars, after which she climbed to her seat. Monkey then led the Tang Priest, Pig, and Friar Sand out to do obeisance before the steps, and all the Immortals in the temple came to bow to her as well.

“There’s no need to dither about, Great Immortal,” said Monkey. “Get an incense table ready at once and ask the Bodhisattva to cure that whatever-it-is tree of yours.” The Great Immortal Zhen Yuan bowed to the Bodhisattva and thanked her:

“How could I be so bold as to trouble the Bodhisattva with my affairs?”


Output:
“The Tang Priest is my disciple, and Monkey has offended you, so it is only right that I should make up for the loss of your priceless tree.”

“In that case there is no need for you to refuse,” said the Three Stars. “May we invite you, Bodhisattva, to come into our orchard and take a look?”


Output: The Great Sage had an incense table set up and the orchard swept, then he asked the Bodhisattva to lead the way. The Three Stars followed behind. Sanzang, his disciples, and all the Immortals of the temple went into the orchard to look, and they saw the tree lying on the ground with the earth torn open, its roots laid bare, its leaves fallen and its branches withered. “Put your hand out, Monkey,” said the Bodhisattva, and Brother Monkey stretched out his left hand. The Bodhisattva dipped her willow spray into the sweet dew in her vase, then used it to write a spell to revive the dead on the palm of Monkey’s hand. She told him to place it on the roots of the tree until he saw water coming out. Monkey clenched his fist and tucked it under the roots; before long a spring of clear water began to form a pool.


Output:
“That water must not be sullied by vessels made of any of the Five Elements, so you will have to scoop it out with a jade ladle. If you prop the tree up and pour the water on it from the very top, its bark and trunk will knit together, its leaves will sprout again, the branches will be green once more, and the fruit will reappear.”

“Fetch a jade ladle this moment, young Taoists,” said Monkey. “We poor monks have no jade ladle in our destitute temple. We only have jade tea-bowls and wine-cups. Would they do?”


Output:
“As long as they are jade and can scoop out water they will do,” the Bodhisattva replied. “Bring them out and try.” The Great Immortal then told some boys to fetch the twenty or thirty teabowls and the forty or fifty wine-cups and ladle the clear water out from under the roots. Monkey, Pig and Friar Sand put their shoulders under the tree, raised it upright, and banked it up with earth. Then they presented the sweet spring water cup by cup to the Bodhisattva, who sprinkled it lightly on the tree with her spray of willow and recited an incantation. When a little later the water had all been sprinkled on the tree the leaves really did become as dense and green as ever, and there were twenty-three manfruits growing there.

Pure Wind and Bright Moon, the two immortal boys, said, “When the fruit disappeared the other day there were only twenty-two of them; so why is there an extra one now that it has come back to life?”


Output: ”‘Time shows the truth about a man,’” Monkey replied. “I only stole three that day. The other one fell on the ground, and the local deity told me that this treasure always entered earth when it touched it. Pig accused me of taking it as a bit of extra for myself and blackened my reputation, but at long last the truth has come out.”


Output:
“The reason why I did not use vessels made from the Five Elements was because I knew that this kind of fruit is allergic to them,” said the Bodhisattva. The Great Immortal, now extremely happy, had the golden rod fetched at once and knocked down ten of the fruits. He invited the Bodhisattva and the Three Stars to come to the main hall of the temple to take part a Manfruit Feast to thank them for their labors. All the junior Immortals arranged tables, chairs, and cinnabar bowls, The Bodhisattva was asked to take the seat of honour with the Three Stars on her left, the Tang Priest on her right, and Master Zhen Yuan facing her as the host. They ate one fruit each, and there are some lines about it:

In the ancient earthly paradise on the Mountain of Infinite Longevity

The manfruit ripens once in nine thousand years.

When the magic roots were bared and the branches dead,

The sweet dew brought leaves and fruit back to life.

The happy meeting of the Three Stars was predestined;


Output:
It was fated that the four monks would encounter one another.

Now that they have eaten the manfruit at this feast,

They will all enjoy everlasting youth.

The Bodhisattva and the Three Stars ate one each, as did the Tang Priest, who realized at last that this was an Immortal’s treasure, and Monkey, Pig and Friar Sand. Master Zhen Yuan had one to keep them company and the Immortals of the temple divided the last one between them. Monkey thanked the Bodhisattva, who went back to Potaraka, and saw the Three Stars off on their journey home to the island of Penglai.

Master Zhen Yuan set out some non-alcoholic wine and made Monkey his sworn brother. This was a case of “if you don’t fight you can’t make friends,” and their two households were now united. That night Sanzang and his disciples went to bed feeling very happy. That venerable priest had now

Been lucky enough to eat the Grass-returning Cinnabar,

Gaining long life, and resistance to fiends and monsters.


Output:
Listen to the next installment to hear how they took their leave the next day.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The Corpse Fiend Thrice Tricks Tang Sanzang

The Holy Monk Angrily Dismisses the Handsome Monkey King

At dawn the next day Sanzang and his three disciples packed their things before setting off. Now that Master Zhen Yuan had made Monkey his sworn brother and was finding him so congenial, he did not want to let him go, so he entertained him for another five or six days. Sanzang had really become a new man, and was livelier and healthier now that he had eaten the Grass-returning Cinnabar. His determination to fetch the scriptures was too strong to let him waste any more time, so there was nothing for it but to be on their way.

Soon after they had set out again, master and disciples saw a high mountain in front of them. “I’m afraid that the mountain ahead may be too steep for the horse,” Sanzang said, “so we must think this over carefully.”


Output:
“Don’t worry, master,” said Monkey, “we know how to cope.” He went ahead of the horse with his cudgel over his shoulder and cleared a path up to the top of the cliff. He saw no end of

Row upon row of craggy peaks,

Twisting beds of torrents.

Tigers and wolves were running in packs,

Deer and muntjac moving in herds.

Countless river-deer darted around.

And the mountains was covered with fox and hare.

Thousand-food pythons,

Ten-thousand-fathom snakes;

The great pythons puffed out murky clouds,

The enormous snakes breathed monstrous winds.

Brambles and thorns spread beside the paths,

Pines and cedars stood elegant on the ridge.

There were wild fig-trees wherever the eye could see,

And sweet-scented flowers as far as the horizon.

The mountain’s shadow fell North of the ocean,

The clouds parted South of the handle of the Dipper.

The towering cliffs were as ancient as the primal Essence,

The majestic crags cold in the sunlight.


Output:
The majestic crags cold in the sunlight.

Sanzang was immediately terrified, so Monkey resorted to some of his tricks. He whirled his iron cudgel and roared, at which all the wolves, snakes, tigers and leopards fled. They then started up the mountain, and as they were crossing a high ridge Sanzang said to Monkey, “Monkey, I’ve been hungry all day, so would you please go and beg some food for us somewhere.”

“You aren’t very bright, master,” Monkey replied with a grin. “We’re on a mountain with no village or inn for many miles around. Even if we had money there would be nowhere to buy food, so where am I to go and beg for it?” Sanzang felt cross, so he laid into Monkey. “You ape,” he said, “don’t you remember how you were crushed by the Buddha in a stone cell under the Double Boundary Mountain, where you could talk but not walk? It was I who saved your life, administered the monastic vows to you, and made you my disciple. How dare you be such a slacker? Why aren’t you prepared to make an effort?”


Output:
“I always make an effort,” said Monkey. “I’m never lazy.”

“If you’re such a hard worker, go and beg some food for us. I can’t manage on an empty stomach. Besides, with the noxious vapors on this mountain we’ll never reach the Thunder Monastery,”

“Please don’t be angry, master, and stop talking. I know your obstinate character—if I’m too disobedient you’ll say that spell. You’d better dismount and sit here while I find somebody and beg for some food.”

Monkey leapt up into the clouds with a single jump, and shading his eyes with his hand he looked around. Unfortunately he could see nothing in any direction except emptiness. There was no village or house or any other sign of human habitation among the countless trees. After looking for a long time he made out a high mountain away to the South. On its Southern slopes was a bright red patch.


Output:
Monkey brought his cloud down and said, “Master, there’s something to eat.” Sanzang asked him what it was. “There’s no house around here where we could ask for food,” Monkey replied, “but there’s a patch of red on a mountain to the South that I’m sure must be ripe wild peaches. I’ll go and pick some—they’ll fill you up.”

“A monk who has peaches to eat is a lucky man,” said Sanzang. Monkey picked up his bowl and leapt off on a beam of light. Just watch as he flashes off in a somersault, a whistling gust of cold air. Within a moment he was picking peaches on the Southern mountain.


Output: There is a saying that goes, “If the mountain is high it’s bound to have fiends; if the ridge is steep spirits will live there.” This mountain did indeed have an evil spirit who was startled by Monkey’s appearance. It strode through the clouds on a negative wind, and on seeing the venerable Sanzang on the ground below thought happily, “What luck, what luck. At home they’ve been talking for years about a Tang Monk from the East who’s going to fetch the ‘Great Vehicle’; he’s a reincarnation of Golden Cicada, and has an Original Body that has been purified through ten lives. Anyone who eats a piece of his flesh will live for ever. And today, at last, he’s here.” The evil spirit went forward to seize him, but the sight of the two great generals to Sanzang’s left and right made it frightened to close in on him. Who, it wondered, were they? They were in fact Pig and Friar Sand, and for all that their powers were nothing extraordinary, Pig was really Marshal Tian Peng while Friar Sand was the Great Curtain-lifting


Output: while Friar Sand was the Great Curtain-lifting General. It was because their former awe-inspiring qualities had not yet been dissipated that the fiend did not close in. “I’ll try a trick on them and see what happens,” the spirit said to itself.


Output:
The splendid evil spirit stopped its negative wind in a hollow and changed itself into a girl with a face as round as the moon and as pretty as a flower. Her brow was clear and her eyes beautiful; her teeth were white and her lips red. In her left hand she held a blue earthenware pot and in her right a green porcelain jar. She headed East towards the Tang Priest.

The holy monk rested his horse on the mountain,

And suddenly noticed a pretty girl approaching.

The green sleeves over her jade fingers lightly billowed;

Golden lotus feet peeped under her trailing skirt.

The beads of sweat on her powdered face were dew on a flower,

Her dusty brow was a willow in a mist.

Carefully and closely he watched her

As she came right up to him.

“Pig, Friar Sand,” said Sanzang when he saw her, “don’t you see somebody coming although Monkey said that this was a desolate and uninhabited place?”


Output:
“You and Friar Sand stay sitting here while I go and take a look.” The blockhead laid down his rake, straightened his tunic, put on the airs of a gentleman, and stared at the girl as he greeted her. Although he had not been sure from a distance, he could now see clearly that the girl had

Bones of jade under skin as pure as ice,

A creamy bosom revealed by her neckline.

Her willow eyebrows were black and glossy,

And silver stars shone from her almond eyes.

She was as graceful as the moon,

As pure as the heavens.

Her body was like a swallow in a willow-tree,

Her voice like an oriole singing in the wood.

She was wild apple-blossom enmeshing the sun,

An opening peony full of the spring.

When the idiot Pig saw how beautiful she was his earthly desires were aroused, and he could not hold back the reckless words that came to his lips. “Where are you going, Bodhisattva,” he said, “and what’s that you’re holding?” Although she was obviously an evil fiend he could not realize it.


Output:
“Venerable sir,” the girl replied at once, “this blue pot is full of tasty rice, and the green jar contains fried wheat-balls. I’ve come here specially to fulfil a vow to feed monks.” Pig was thoroughly delighted to hear this. He came tumbling back at breakneck speed and said to Sanzang,

“Master, ‘Heaven rewards the good’. When you sent my elder brother off begging because you felt hungry, that ape went fooling around somewhere picking peaches. Besides, too many peaches turn your stomach and give you the runs. Don’t you see that this girl is coming to feed us monks?”

“You stupid idiot,” replied Sanzang, who was not convinced, “we haven’t met a single decent person in this direction, so where could anyone come from to feed monks?”

“What’s she then, master?” said Pig.


Output:
“What’s she then, master?” said Pig.

When Sanzang saw her he sprang to his feet, put his hands together in front of his chest, and said, “Bodhisattva, where is your home? Who are you? What vow brings you here to feed monks?” Although she was obviously an evil spirit, the venerable Sanzang could not see it either. On being asked about her background by Sanzang, the evil spirit immediately produced a fine-sounding story with which to fool him.

“This mountain, which snakes and wild animals won’t go near, is called White Tiger Ridge,” she said. “Our home lies due West from here at the foot of it. My mother and father live there, and they are devout people who read the scriptures and feed monks from far and near. As they had no son, they asked Heaven to bless them. When I was born they wanted to marry me off to a good family, but then they decided to find me a husband who would live in our home to look after them in their old age and see them properly buried.”


Output:
“Bodhisattva, what you say can’t be right,” replied Sanzang. “The Analects say, ‘When father and mother are alive, do not go on long journeys; if you have to go out, have a definite aim.’ As your parents are at home and have found you a husband, you should let him fulfil your vow for you. Why ever are you walking in the mountains all by yourself, without even a servant? This is no way for a lady to behave.”

The girl smiled and produced a smooth reply at once: “My husband is hoeing with some of our retainers in a hollow in the North of the mountain, reverend sir, and I am taking them this food I’ve cooked. As it’s July and all the crops are ripening nobody can be spared to run errands, and my parents are old, so I’m taking it there myself. Now that I have met you three monks from so far away, I would like to give you this food as my parents are so pious. I hope you won’t refuse our paltry offering.”


Output:
“It’s very good of you,” said Sanzang, “but one of my disciples has gone to pick some fruit and will be back soon, so we couldn’t eat any of your food. Besides, if we ate your food your husband might be angry with you when he found out, and we would get into trouble too.”

As the Tang Priest was refusing to eat the food, the girl put on her most charming expression and said, “My parents’ charity to monks is nothing compared to my husband’s, master. He is a religious man whose lifelong pleasure has been repairing bridges, mending roads, looking after the aged, and helping the poor. When he hears that I have given you this food, he’ll love me more warmly than ever.” Sanzang still declined to eat it.


Output:
Pig was beside himself. Twisting his lips into a pout, he muttered indignantly, “Of all the monks on earth there can’t be another as soft in the head as our master. He won’t eat ready-cooked food when there are only three of us to share it between. He’s waiting for that ape to come back, and then we’ll have to split it four ways.” Without allowing any more discussion he tipped the pot towards his mouth and was just about to eat.

At just this moment Brother Monkey was somersaulting back with his bowl full of the peaches he had picked on the Southern mountain. When he saw with the golden pupils in his fiery eyes that the girl was an evil spirit, he put the bowl down, lifted his cudgel, and was going to hit her on the head when the horrified Sanzang held him back and said, “Who do you think you’re going to hit?”

“That girl in front of you is no good,” he replied. “She’s an evil spirit trying to make a fool of you.”


Output:
“In the old days you had a very sharp eye, you ape,” Sanzang said, “but this is nonsense. This veritable Bodhisattva is feeding us with the best of motives, so how can you call her an evil spirit?”

“You wouldn’t be able to tell, master,” said Monkey with a grin. “When I was an evil monster in the Water Curtain Cave I used to do that if I wanted a meal of human flesh. I would turn myself into gold and silver, or a country mansion, or liquor, or a pretty girl. Whoever was fool enough to be besotted with one of these would fall in love with me, and I would lure them into the cave, where I did what I wanted with them. Sometimes I ate them steamed and sometimes boiled, and what I couldn’t finish I used to dry in the sun against a rainy day. If I’d been slower getting here, master, you’d have fallen into her snare and she’d have finished you off.” The Tang Priest refused to believe him and maintained that she was a good person.


Output:
“I know you, master,” said Monkey. “Her pretty face must have made you feel randy. If that’s the way you feel, tell Pig to fell a few trees and send Friar Sand look off to for some grass. I’ll be the carpenter, and we’ll build you a hut here that you and the girl can use as your bridal chamber. We can all go our own ways. Wouldn’t marriage be a worthwhile way of living? Why bother plodding on to fetch some scriptures or other?” Sanzang, who had always been such a soft and virtuous man, was unable to take this. He was so embarrassed that he blushed from his shaven pate to his ears.

While Sanzang was feeling so embarrassed, Monkey flared up again and struck at the evil spirit’s face. The fiend, who knew a trick or two, used a magic way of abandoning its body: when it saw Monkey’s cudgel coming it braced itself and fled, leaving a false corpse lying dead on the ground.


Output:
Sanzang shook with terror and said to himself, “That monkey is utterly outrageous. Despite all my good advice he will kill people for no reason at all.”

“Don’t be angry, master,” said Monkey. “Come and see what’s in her pot.” Friar Sand helped Sanzang over to look, and he saw that far from containing tasty rice it was full of centipedes with long tails. The jar had held not wheat-balls but frogs and toads, which were now jumping around on the ground. Sanzang was now beginning to believe Monkey.


Output:
This was not enough, however, to prevent a furious Pig from deliberately making trouble by saying, “Master, that girl was a local countrywoman who happened to meet us while she was taking some food to the fields. There’s no reason to think that she was an evil spirit. My elder brother was trying his club out on her, and he killed her by mistake. He’s deliberately trying to trick us by magicking the food into those things because he’s afraid you’ll recite the Band-tightening spell. He’s fooled you into not saying it.”

This brought the blindness back on Sanzang, who believed these trouble-making remarks and made the magic with his hand as he recited the spell. “My head’s aching, my head’s aching,” Monkey said. “Stop, please stop. Tell me off if you like.”


Output:
“I’ve nothing to say to you,” replied Sanzang. “A man of religion should always help others, and his thoughts should always be virtuous. When sweeping the floor you must be careful not to kill any ants, and to spare the moth you should put gauze round your lamp. Why do you keep murdering people? If you are going to kill innocent people like that there is no point in your going to fetch the scriptures. Go back!”

“Where am I to go back to?” Monkey asked.

“I won’t have you as my disciple any longer,” said Sanzang.

“If you won’t have me as your disciple,” Monkey said, “I’m afraid you may never reach the Western Heaven.”

“My destiny is in Heaven’s hands,” replied Sanzang. “If some evil spirit is fated to cook me, he will; and there’s no way of getting out of it. But if I’m not to be eaten, will you be able to extend my life? Be off with you at once.”

“I’ll go if I must,” said Monkey, “but I’ll never have repaid your kindness to me.”

“What kindness have I ever done you?” Sanzang asked.


Output:
Monkey knelt down and kowtowed. “When I wrecked the Heavenly Palace,” he said, “I put myself in a very dangerous position, and the Buddha crashed me under the Double Boundary Mountain. Luckily the Bodhisattva Guanyin administered the vows to me, and you, master, released me, so if I don’t go with you to the Western Heaven I’ll look like a ‘scoundrel who doesn’t return a kindness, with a name that will be cursed for ever.’”

As Sanzang was a compassionate and holy monk this desperate plea from Monkey persuaded him to relent. “In view of what you say I’ll let you off this time, but don’t behave so disgracefully again. If you are ever as wicked as that again I shall recite that spell twenty times over.”

“Make it thirty if you like,” replied Monkey. “I shan’t hit anyone else.” With that he helped Sanzang mount the horse and offered him some of the peaches he had picked. After eating a few the Tang Priest felt less hungry for the time being.


Output:
The evil spirit rose up into the air when it had saved itself from being killed by Monkey’s cudgel. Gnashing its teeth in the clouds, it thought of Monkey with silent hatred: “Now I know that those magical powers of his that I’ve been hearing about for years are real. The Tang Priest didn’t realize who I was and would have eaten the food. If he’d so much as leant forward to smell it I could have seized him, and he would have been mine. But that Monkey turned up, wrecked my plan, and almost killed me with his club. If I spare that monk now I’ll have gone to all that trouble for nothing, so I’ll have another go at tricking him.”

The splendid evil spirit landed its negative cloud, shook itself, and changed into an old woman in her eighties who was weeping as she hobbled along leaning on a bamboo stick with a crooked handle.

“This is terrible, master,” exclaimed Pig with horror at the sight of her. “Her mother’s come to look for her.”

“For whom?” asked the Tang Priest.


Output:
“For whom?” asked the Tang Priest.

“It must be her daughter that my elder brother killed,” said Pig. “This must be the girl’s mother looking for her.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Monkey. “That girl was eighteen and this old woman is eighty. How could she possibly have had a child when she was over sixty? She must be a fake. Let me go and take a look.” The splendid Monkey hurried over to examine her and saw that the monster had

Turned into an old woman

With temples as white as frozen snow.

Slowly she stumbled along the road,

Making her way in fear and trembling.

Her body was weak and emaciated,

Her face like a withered leaf of cabbage.

Her cheekbone was twisted upwards,

While the ends of her lips went down.

How can old age compare with youth?

Her face was as creased as a pleated bag.


Output:
Her face was as creased as a pleated bag.

Realizing that she was an evil spirit, Monkey did not wait to argue about it, but raised his cudgel and struck at her head. Seeing the blow coining, the spirit braced itself again and extracted its true essence once more. The false corpse sprawled dead beside the path. Sanzang was so horrified that he fell off the horse and lay beside the path, reciting the Band-tightening Spell twenty times over. Poor Monkey’s head was squeezed so hard that it looked like a narrow-waisted gourd. The pain was unbearable, and he rolled over towards his master to plead, “Stop, master. Say whatever you like.”

“I have nothing to say,” Sanzang replied. “If a monk does good he will not fall into hell. Despite all my preaching you still commit murder. How can you? No sooner have you killed one person than you kill another. It’s an outrage.”

“She was an evil spirit,” Monkey replied.


Output:
“She was an evil spirit,” Monkey replied.

“Nonsense, you ape,” said the Tang Priest, “as if there could be so many monsters! You haven’t the least intention of reforming, and you are a deliberate murderer. Be off with you.”

“Are you sending me away again, master?” Monkey asked. “I’ll go if I must, but there’s one thing I won’t agree to.”

“What,” Sanzang asked, “would that be?”

“Master,” Pig put in, “he wants the baggage divided between you and him. He’s been a monk with you for several years, and hasn’t succeeded in winning a good reward. You can’t let him go away empty-handed. Better give him a worn-out tunic and a tattered hat from the bundle.”

This made Monkey jump with fury. “I’ll get you, you long-snouted moron,” he said. “I’ve been a true Buddhist with no trace of covetousness or greed. I certainly don’t want a share of the baggage.”

“If you’re neither covetous nor greedy,” said Sanzang, “why won’t you go away?”


Output: “To be quite honest with you, master,” he replied, “when I lived in the Water Curtain Cave on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit and knew all the great heroes, I won the submission of seventy-two other demon kings and had forty-seven thousand minor demons under me. I used to wear a crown of purple gold and a yellow robe with a belt of the finest jade. I had cloud-treading shoes on my feet and held an As-You-Will gold-banded cudgel in my hands. I really was somebody then. But when I attained enlightenment and repented, I shaved my head and took to the Buddhist faith as your disciple. I couldn’t face my old friends if I went back with this golden band round my head. So if you don’t want me any longer, master, please say the Band-loosening Spell and I’ll take it off and give it back to you. I’ll gladly agree to you putting it round someone else’s head. As I’ve been your disciple for so long, surely you can show me this kindness.” Sanzang was deeply shocked.


Output:
“Monkey,” he said, “the Bodhisattva secretly taught me the Band-tightening Spell, but not a band-loosening one.”

“In that case you’ll have to let me come with you,” Monkey replied.

“Get up then,” said Sanzang, feeling that he had no option, “I’ll let you off again just this once. But you must never commit another murder.”

“I never will,” said Monkey, “never again.” He helped his master mount the horse and led the way forward.


Output:
The evil spirit, who had not been killed the second time Monkey hit it either, was full of admiration as it floated in mid-air. “What a splendid Monkey King,” it thought, “and what sharp eyes. He saw who I was through both my transformations. Those monks are travelling fast, and once they’re over the mountain and fifteen miles to the West they’ll be out of my territory. And other fiends and monsters who catch them will be laughing till their mouths split, and I’ll be heartbroken with sorrow. I’ll have to have another go at tricking them.” The excellent evil spirit brought its negative wind down to the mountainside and with one shake turned itself into an old man.

His hair was as white as Ancient Peng’s,

His temples as hoary as the Star of Longevity.

Jade rang in his ears,

And his eyes swam with golden stars.

He leant on a dragon-headed stick,

And wore a cloak of crane feathers.

In his hands he fingered prayer-beads

While reciting Buddhist sutras.


Output:
While reciting Buddhist sutras.

When Sanzang saw him from the back of his horse he said with great delight, “Amitabha Buddha! The West is indeed a blessed land. That old man is forcing himself to recite scriptures although he can hardly walk.”

“Master,” said Pig, “don’t be so nice about him. He’s going to give us trouble.”

“What do you mean?” Sanzang asked.

“My elder brother has killed the daughter and the old woman, and this is the old man coming to look for them. If we fall into his hands you’ll have to pay with your life. It’ll be the death penalty for you, and I’ll get a long sentence for being your accomplice. Friar Sand will be exiled for giving the orders. That elder brother will disappear by magic, and we three will have to carry the can.”


Output:
“Don’t talk such nonsense, you moron,” said Monkey. “You’re terrifying the master. Wait while I go and have another look.” Hiding the cudgel about his person he went up to the monster and said, “Where are you going, venerable sir? And why are you reciting scriptures as you walk along?”

The monster, failing to recognize his opponent, thought that the Great Sage Monkey was merely a passer-by and said, “Holy sir, my family has lived here for generations, and all my life I have done good deeds, fed monks, read the scriptures, and repeated the Buddha’s name. As fate has it I have no son, only a daughter, and she lives at home with her husband. She went off to the fields with food early this morning, and I’m afraid she may have been eaten by a tiger. My wife went out to look for her, and she hasn’t come back either. I’ve no idea what’s happened to them, so I’ve come to search for them. If they have died, I shall just have to gather their bones and take them back for a decent burial.”


Output: “I’m a master of disguise,” replied Monkey with a grin, “so don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes. You can’t fool me. I know that you’re an evil spirit.” The monster was speechless with fright. Monkey brandished his cudgel and thought, “If I don’t kill him he’ll make a getaway; but if I do, my master will say that spell.”


Output:
“Yet if I don’t kill him,” he went on to reflect, “I’ll take a lot of thought and effort to rescue the master when this monster seizes some other chance to carry him off. The best thing is to kill him. If I kill him with the cudgel the master will say the spell, but then ‘even a vicious tiger doesn’t eat her own cubs’. I’ll be able to get round my master with my smooth tongue and some well chosen words.” The splendid Great Sage uttered a spell and called out to the local deities and the gods of the mountains, “This evil spirit has tried to trick my master three times, and I’m now going to kill it. I want you to be witnesses in the air around me. Don’t leave!” Hearing this command, the gods all had to obey and watch from the clouds. The Great Sage raised his cudgel and struck down the monster. Now, at last, it was dead.

The Tang Priest was shaking with terror on the back of his horse, unable to speak.


Output:
Pig stood beside him and said with a laugh, “That Monkey’s marvellous, isn’t he! He’s gone mad. He’s killed three people in a few hours’ journey.”

The Tang Priest was just going to say the spell when Monkey threw himself in front of his horse and called out, “Don’t say it, master, don’t say it. Come and have a look at it.” It was now just a pile of dusty bones.

“He’s only just been killed, Wukong,” Sanzang said in astonishment, “so why has he turned into a skeleton?”

“It was a demon corpse with magic powers that used to deceive people and destroy them. Now that I’ve killed it, it’s reverted to its original form. The writing on her backbone says that she’s called ‘Lady White Bone.’” Sanzang was convinced, but Pig had to make trouble again.

“Master,” he said, “he’s afraid that you’ll say those words because he killed him with a vicious blow from his cudgel, and so he’s made him look like this to fool you.” The Tang Priest, who really was gullible, now believed Pig, and he started to recite the spell.


Output:
Monkey, unable to stop the pain, knelt beside the path and cried, “Stop, stop. Say whatever it is you have to say,”

“Baboon,” said Sanzang, “I have nothing more to say to you. If a monk acts rightly he will grow daily but invisibly, like grass in a garden during the spring, whereas an evildoer will be imperceptibly worn away day by day like a stone. You have killed three people, one after the other, in this wild and desolate place, and there is nobody here to find you out or bring a case against you. But if you go to a city or some other crowded place and start laying about you with that murderous cudgel, we’ll be in big trouble and there will be no escape for us. Go back!”


Output:
“You’re wrong to hold it against me, master,” Monkey replied, “as that wretch was obviously an evil monster set on murdering you. But so far from being grateful that I’ve saved you by killing it, you would have to believe that idiot’s tittle-tattle and keep sending me away. As the saying goes, you should never have to do anything more that three times. I’d be a low and shameless creature if I didn’t go now. I’ll go, I’ll go all right, but who will you have left to look after you?”

“Damned ape,” Sanzang replied, “you get ruder and ruder. You seem to think that you’re the only one. What about Pig and Friar Sand? Aren’t they people?”