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28 The Purple-Gold Bells

The king, listening in his inner room, was filled with joy. He roused his spirits and answered in a loud voice, "It is indeed this illness! The elder is a physician sent from heaven! I pray the elder to prepare the medicine." A eunuch who had been listening within came out at once and told the officers. When Wukong came out of the palace, the officers stepped forward and asked, "Just now the elder spoke of the sickness of two birds that have lost their mate. What does that mean?" Wukong explained it to them with a smile, and the officers cried out again and again, "A god among physicians!" Wukong then ordered the imperial physicians to buy every kind of drug, three catties of each, and send them to the Huitong Hostel for use. The medical officers obeyed, and soon eight hundred and eight kinds of herbs, three catties of each, together with drug rollers, mills, sieves, mortars and pestles and the like, were all delivered to the Huitong Hostel and handed over item by item to Bajie and Sandy, who signed for them. Wukong asked his Master to return with him to the Huitong Hostel. But an officer of the inner court came with a decree that the Tang Monk should stay the night in the Wenhua Hall, and that after the medicine was taken on the morrow and the king recovered, his travel pass would be exchanged and he would be sent on his way. The Tang Monk said in alarm, "Disciples, this is to keep me as a hostage! If he is not cured, my life is finished!" Wukong said with a laugh, "Rest here in peace, Master. Old Sun knows what to do." Wukong went back to the Huitong Hostel, and Bajie came out to meet him, saying with a grin, "Are you opening an apothecary's shop, brother, that you have brought all these drugs?" Wukong said with a laugh, "I had so many drugs brought so that those physicians will have nothing to guess from, not knowing which few I mean to use, and so will never fathom my wondrous prescription." Then he told Bajie and Sandy to fetch the medicine. The two ground two kinds of herbs into powder and brought them to Wukong. Wukong then told Sandy to scrape half a bowl of soot from the bottom of the cooking pot, and told Bajie to catch half a bowl of the horse's urine. He explained that pot soot is called hundred-grass frost and can cure a hundred ailments, and that this was the urine of a dragon horse, which heals whatever illness it is taken for. The two did not know whether to laugh or cry, but one went to scrape the pot soot and the other to catch the horse's urine. The dragon horse would not make water. "Brother," it said, "I am a flying dragon of the Western Sea. If I make water crossing a stream, the fish that taste of it will become dragons; if I make water crossing a mountain, the grasses that catch the savor will turn into magic fungi, and the immortal lads who gather them will live long lives. How can I lightly cast it away in a place as common as this?" Bajie went to fetch Wukong, and after Wukong had reasoned with him at some length, the dragon horse reluctantly gave a scant half bowl. The three went back into the hall, mixed all the ingredients together, and rolled them into three great pills, which they put in a box. Then they prepared their vegetarian meal, ate it, and each went to rest. At daybreak the next morning an attendant of the inner palace came by the king's command to fetch the medicine. Wukong took the box and handed it to him, telling him that the medicine was called the Black Gold Pill and must be swallowed with rootless water as its guide. The attendant asked what rootless water might be. Wukong said it was rain water that had never touched the ground. The attendant thanked him and carried the medicine back to the palace, while Bajie and Sandy laughed to themselves at one side. The attendant returned to the palace and reported to the king, who at once ordered the officer in attendance to issue a proclamation inviting a master of the law to pray for rain. When Wukong heard of this he said to Bajie, "This king seems a truly virtuous ruler. Let us help him by sending a little rain to wash down his medicine." He spoke a spell at once, and presently a black cloud came from the due east and halted above their heads. Out of the cloud appeared Ao Guang, the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, who greeted Wukong with a bow. Wukong told him of the need for rain. The Dragon King said, "When the Great Sage called me, he said nothing of water. I have brought no rain instruments, nor any wind, cloud, thunder or lightning, and cannot send down rain. I can only sneeze twice and spit a little spittle, and let him take his medicine with that." So he rode his cloud above the royal palace and spat out a mouthful of spittle, which turned into sweet rain and came pouring down. When the officers of the whole court saw the rain falling they cheered as one, crying, "Ten thousand joys to our lord! Heaven has sent down sweet rain!" The king hastily ordered his civil and military officers, together with the consorts of the three palaces and six courts and the three thousand lovely maids, to hold up cups and goblets, bowls and platters, and catch the sweet rain. When it was all poured together it came to some three cupfuls, and these were set before the king on his imperial table. The king had the Black Gold Pill brought to him and swallowed it with the rain water. Before long there came a continuous rumbling in his belly. A chamber pot was brought in haste, and he voided a great quantity of foul matter and phlegm, among which was a lump of undigested glutinous rice.

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