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07 Eagle Grief Gorge

He sewed up the tiger skin and tied it round his waist with a length of vine. Seeing his master had a white cotton robe, he pulled it on over the rest. "How does this old Sun look in such dress, Master — better than yesterday?" Seeing how pleased he was, the Tang Monk gave him the robe. Wukong thanked him and went off to find fodder for the horse. The next morning Wukong rose and packed, the monk mounted, and the two took leave of the old man and went west. They had gone some way when a whistle sounded and six armed men leapt out to block the road. "Monk, halt! Leave us your luggage and your horse and we will spare your life!" The Tang Monk fell from his horse in terror. "Do not fear, Master," said Wukong. "These men have come to bring us clothes and travelling money." He stepped forward and shouted, "Ruffians! Give me half the treasure you have looted and I will let you go!" The bandits flew into a rage and fell upon him all at once, hacking at his head with spear and sword seventy or eighty times — without so much as marking him. "You must be tired," said Wukong, laughing. "Now it is this old Sun's turn." He took the golden-hooped rod from his ear and shook it in the wind until it was thick as a bowl. At the sight of it the bandits scattered in every direction. He chased after them and killed all six. He stripped them of their clothes, took their money and came back smiling. But the Tang Monk was compassionate by nature, and at the sight of the killing he reproved him: "Robbers though they were, their crime was not worthy of death. How can you have so little mercy in you?" Wukong had never borne such a scolding. Hearing the monk go on and on, he could not hold his temper. "If you say I am no monk and unfit for the West, then this old Sun will leave!" And with that he sprang into the air and went east. When the Tang Monk looked up, Wukong was gone. He gathered the luggage onto the horse and went on alone, a staff in one hand and the rein in the other. Before long an old woman came toward him along the mountain road, carrying a padded coat and a flowered cap. The Tang Monk led the horse aside to let her pass. "Where do you come from, Venerable, and why do you travel alone?" she asked. Seeing her kind eyes and gentle brows, the Tang Monk told her all that had befallen him. "I have here a padded coat and a flowered cap that were my son's," the old woman said. "He was a monk only three days before he died. Since you have a disciple, let me give them to him." The Tang Monk told her his disciple had left, and dared not accept. "He will surely come back to you," she said. "Let me teach you the Tightening-Band Spell. Fix it in your heart. When he will not submit to discipline, recite it silently, and he will dare neither violence nor flight again."

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