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32 The Bottomless Cave

The Tang Monk said, "I rose in the night to relieve myself without putting on my hat; I think the wind must have caught me." Wukong said comfortingly, "That sounds reasonable enough. Master has only to rest well; there is no hurry to take the road." Three days passed, and still the Tang Monk's sickness would not mend. Heavy with care, he dragged himself up, asked for brush, ink, paper and inkstone, and wrote a letter to Emperor Taizong of the Tang. It ran: "Your servant has toiled in vain these many years and still has not won the true scriptures. Let Your Majesty send another in my stead." When he had finished, the Tang Monk told Wukong to ride his cloud to Chang'an and deliver the letter to Emperor Taizong. Wukong took the letter, read it, and roared with laughter. "This letter I will not deliver. If Master is so gravely ill, old Sun will go and raise havoc in the underworld again and thrash those ten kings of hell, and see which of them dares to claim you!" The Tang Monk could not win against him, and said, "Then do not send it. I am parched with thirst; go and find me some cool water." Wukong agreed and went out with the alms bowl in his hand. Wukong went to the kitchen behind the temple for water, and found several monks there with red and swollen eyes, all of them weeping. "You monks are a mean-spirited lot," said he. "Bajie has a belly as big as a vat and eats his fill, and I suppose it grieves you to spend the rice and the firewood." The monks said, "Sir, you mistake us. Last night two young monks went to ring the bell and never returned. By next day we found only their caps, their sandals and their bones; something must have devoured them. In three days the temple has lost six monks, and so we are afraid." At this Wukong brightened at once. "They were eaten by a demon, that is certain," he cried. "Fear nothing; old Sun will come tonight and subdue the fiend." With that Wukong took a bowl of cool water and carried it back to the front, where he gave it to the Tang Monk. The monk was thirsty still; he raised the water and drank, and felt his spirits revive and his sickness much abated. That night Wukong told Bajie and Sandy to guard their master and went alone to the hall of the Buddha. There he lit a lamp, changed himself into a young monk of some ten years, and sat tapping a wooden fish and chanting the scriptures. At the second watch there came a whistling gust of wind, and with the wind a woman of dazzling beauty stepped into the hall. Wukong narrowed his eyes and looked: it was none other than the woman the Tang Monk had rescued a few days before. She glided softly up to him, threw her arms about him and murmured, "Little reverend, everyone else is asleep. Why are you still chanting?" Wukong answered, "The good scriptures of the Buddha; how should I not chant them?" The woman kissed him and said, "I fled from a marriage to come here. Tonight the moon is bright and clear, and fate has brought us together; why not go into the garden behind and be merry a while?" Wukong thought to himself: those foolish monks were surely lured by her beauty and lost their lives. Very well, I will go with her and see how she means to work against me. With that he walked out of the hall with the woman, arm in arm and hand in hand. When they reached the garden behind, the woman began to run her hands over him, and Wukong flung her to the ground. Even as she fell she cried, "Dearest brother, come and help me up!" Wukong thought: he who strikes first wins, he who strikes last suffers! At once he resumed his true shape, whirled up his golden-hooped rod and struck at her head. The woman was taken aback and cried, "So it is you, Sun!" She sprang up and drew her twin swords to fight him.

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