The story continues: on the morrow, at first light, Sanzang and his disciples packed up and pressed forward. Zhenyuanzi, now sworn brother to the Pilgrim, was of one heart and mind with him and could not bear to let them go; he laid on entertainment after entertainment, and they stayed five or six days running. The elder, since eating the Grass-Returned Cinnabar, felt truly as if reborn—his spirit buoyant, his body strong. His heart was set on fetching the scriptures; how could he bear to linger? There was nothing for it, and they set out.
Master and disciples bade farewell and took the road, and soon beheld a high mountain. Sanzang said: "Disciples, there is a steep and perilous mountain ahead. I fear the horse cannot pass—we must all be very careful."
"Set your mind at ease, Master," said the Pilgrim. "We shall manage it well enough."
A fine Monkey King! Out before the horse he went, cudgel across his shoulder, hewing open the mountain path, climbing the high cliffs—past all seeing were the heaped peaks and crags, the winding ravines and hollows. Tigers and wolves moved in columns; muntjacs and deer traveled in herds. Countless roe deer and wild boar came jostling in clusters; foxes and hares covered the hills in swarms. Pythons a thousand feet long, serpents ten thousand feet tall: the pythons breathed out gloomy fog, the serpents belched uncanny wind. Brambles and thorns sprawled over the roadside; pines and nan-trees stood graceful on the ridges. Climbing fig and vines filled the eye; fragrant grasses ran to the horizon. Their shadows fell toward the northern deep; the clouds broke open south of the Dipper's handle. Old through myriad ages with the primal breath, a thousand towering peaks arrayed in cold sunlight.
The elder's heart quaked on horseback. The Great Sage Sun put forth his powers, whirling his iron cudgel and giving one great roar, till the wolves and beasts fled helter-skelter and tigers and leopards bolted away.
Master and disciples entered that mountain. As they were passing the most craggy heights, Sanzang said: "Wukong, I have grown hungry this day. Where can you go and beg us some food?"
The Pilgrim put on a smiling face: "Master, you are not being very clever. Here we are halfway up a mountain—no village ahead, no inn behind; even with money in hand there is nowhere to buy. Where am I to go looking for food?"
Sanzang was displeased, and he scolded: "You monkey! Think back—on the Mountain of Two Frontiers, when the Tathagata had you crushed beneath the stone coffer, your mouth could talk but your feet could not walk. It was I who saved your life, rubbed your crown and gave you the precepts, and took you as my disciple. How is it you will not exert yourself, but always harbor this lazy heart?"
"Your disciple has been most diligent," said the Pilgrim. "When was I ever lazy?"
"If you are so diligent, why not beg me some food? How can I travel hungry? And with the miasmal vapors of these mountains, how are we ever to reach the Thunderclap Monastery?"
"Do not be angry, Master, and say no more," said the Pilgrim. "I know your honored temper is proud; if I slack the least little bit, you will be reciting that spell of yours. Dismount and sit quietly while I look for some place where people live, and go beg food there."
With one bound the Pilgrim leapt up into the clouds, shaded his eyes with his hand, and peered all around.
Alas, the Western road was lonely indeed—no farms or hamlets anywhere, nothing but woods and woods and scarcely a sign of human life. After looking a long while, he saw on the due south a high mountain, and on its sunny face a patch of bright red dots. The Pilgrim pressed down his cloud and said: "Master, there is food to be had."
The elder asked what it might be. "There's no house here where we can beg rice," said the Pilgrim. "But on that southern mountain there is a stretch of red—it must be mountain peaches ripe through. I'll go pick a few to stay your hunger."
Sanzang was delighted: "If a monk may have peaches to eat, that is the finest of fare! Go quickly!"
The Pilgrim took the alms bowl, leapt up on his auspicious light—watch him tumble through the heavens, trailing cold air—and in a moment he was off to the southern mountain to pick peaches. Of this we say no more.
Now as the common saying goes: where the mountains are high there must be monsters; where the ridges are steep, demons are bred. And sure enough, on this mountain there was a demon, and the Great Sage Sun's going had startled her. Riding the murky wind up in the clouds, she saw the elder sitting on the ground, and her joy knew no bounds: "Luck! Luck! For years now everyone has told of the Tang monk from the East going to fetch the Great Vehicle. He is the reincarnation of the Golden Cicada, an original body ten lifetimes in the cultivating. Whoever eats a piece of his flesh shall live long and never age. And today, in truth, he has come!"
The demon started forward to seize him, but saw that at the elder's left and right stood two great generals guarding him, and dared not approach. And who were those two great generals, you ask? Bajie and the Sha Monk. Though Bajie and the Sha Monk had no very great powers, Bajie had been Marshal Tianpeng, and the Sha Monk the Curtain-Raising General; their awesome aura had never leaked away, and so she dared not come near.
"I'll just play a trick on him," said the demon, "and see what comes of it."
A cunning demon indeed! She stopped her murky wind, and in a hollow of the mountain shook her body and changed into a girl with a face like the moon and features like flowers—brows clear and eyes fine past all telling, teeth white and lips red. In her left hand she carried a blue sand-clay pot, in her right a green porcelain flask, and she came straight toward the Tang monk from west to east. The holy monk, resting by the mountain crag, suddenly saw a skirted woman drawing near:
Kingfisher sleeves lightly swaying, veiling fingers of jade; Hunan silk skirt trailing aslant, revealing golden lilies. Sweat bedewed her powdered face, a flower holding dew; Dust brushed her moth-antenna brows, willows laden with mist. Watch her closely, fixing the eyes upon her— See her walk, and walk, until she reaches his side.
Sanzang saw her and called: "Bajie, Sha Monk! Wukong said only that this was open wilds with never a soul in it—look, is that not a person coming along?"
"Master," said Bajie, "you and the Sha Monk sit here while old Pig goes to have a look." The blockhead set down his rake, straightened his tunic, and with much swaying and swishing put on the air of a refined gentleman, going straight forward to meet her. Truly, seen from afar it is hard to tell; seen up close, it is plain. And how did that girl look?
Ice-pure flesh enfolding bones of jade, Her collar showing a bosom of cream. Willow brows heaped with dark, kingfisher green; Almond eyes flashing like silver stars. A face and bearing lovely as the moon's, A nature limpid, as if born so. A body like a swallow hidden in the willows, A voice like an oriole warbling in the wood. A crabapple half open, veiled in dawn sun; A peony newly blown, toying with spring light.
When Bajie saw how pretty she was, mortal desire stirred in the blockhead at once, and he could not hold back his babble: "Lady Bodhisattva, where are you bound? And what is that you are carrying in your hands?"
She was plainly a monster, but he could not recognize her.
The girl answered promptly, again and again: "Venerable sir, in this blue clay pot is fragrant rice, and in the green flask, fried wheat gluten. I have come here for no other reason: I made a vow to feed monks, and have come to fulfill it."
Hearing this, Bajie was overjoyed. He whirled around at once and ran off like a pig in a whirlwind to report to Sanzang: "Master! Heaven looks after good men! Master is hungry, and you sent Brother to beg food, and where that monkey has gone off to play at picking peaches, who knows? And too many peaches upset the stomach, and sit heavy besides. Look—isn't that a monk-feeding woman coming?"
The Tang monk did not believe it: "You clodhopper, what nonsense! All this way we have come, and never met so much as one good person—where should a monk-feeder come from?"
"Master, is she not just there?" said Bajie.
At the sight, Sanzang scrambled quickly to his feet, pressed his palms together at his chest, and said: "Lady Bodhisattva, where is your home? What family are you of? And what vow brings you here to feed monks?"
She was plainly a demon, but the elder could not recognize her either.
Seeing the Tang monk ask her history, the demon on the spot spun a tissue of lies, wheedling him with honeyed words: "Venerable sir, this mountain is called White Tiger Ridge, where snakes turn back and beasts are afraid; due west below it is my home. My parents are living; they read the scriptures and love doing good, and feed monks from near and far and every quarter. Only, being without a son, they sought blessing by doing blessed deeds, and I was born, your slave girl. They wished to raise our station by marrying me into some family; but fearing there would be none to lean on in their old age, they took in a husband for me instead, to care for them in age and bury them at the end."
At this Sanzang said: "Lady Bodhisattva, there is an error in what you say. The classic teaches: 'While your parents live, do not travel far; and if you travel, have a fixed destination.' If your parents are living, and have even taken in a husband for you, then if you have a vow in your heart, let your husband repay it, and that would be that. How is it you walk these mountains by yourself, without even a serving girl attending you? This is not the way of a proper wife."
The girl laughed sweetly and hastened with pretty words: "Venerable sir, my husband is in the hollow on the north side of the mountain, hoeing the fields with some hired men. This is the midday meal your slave girl cooked, to carry out to those men. Only because it is the fifth month, the height of summer, with no one to send, and my parents being old, I brought it myself. Meeting you three come from afar, I thought of my parents' love of good deeds, and so would offer this rice to the monks. If you do not despise it, I would gladly make my humble gift."
"Worthy, worthy!" said Sanzang. "But my disciple has gone to pick fruit and will soon be back, and I dare not eat. If I, a monk, ate your meal, and your husband came to know of it and scolded you, would not the blame be laid on this poor monk?"
Seeing that the Tang monk would not eat, the girl beamed all over: "Venerable sir, my parents' feeding of monks is a small thing; my husband is even more a good man—his whole life he has loved mending bridges and repairing roads, cherishing the old and pitying the poor. If he hears this food was carried out and eaten by so venerable a master, why, between us husband and wife it will be better than usual by half."
Still the Tang monk would not eat, and meanwhile Bajie beside him was fit to burst with fury. The blockhead thrust out his lips and grumbled: "Monks without number under heaven, and never one like this old monk of ours—so weak and wavering! A ready-cooked meal, and he will not eat his share of it, but waits for that monkey to come, so he can eat a four-man share!"
And without letting anyone speak, he butted the pot over with his snout and was about to fall to.
Just then the Pilgrim, having picked a few peaches on the southern peak, came somersaulting back, bowl in hand. Opening his fiery eyes with their golden pupils, he took one look and knew the girl for a demon. Setting down the bowl, he whipped out his iron cudgel and struck at her head. The elder, terrified, grabbed hold of him with his hand: "Wukong! You come dashing over here to strike whom?"
"Master, this woman before you—do not take her for a good person. She is a demon, come to trick you."
"You monkey!" said Sanzang. "Once upon a time you had some eyes in your head—how came you to talk such nonsense today! This lady Bodhisattva has such a good heart, and wants to feed us with this rice—how can you say she is a demon?"
The Pilgrim laughed: "Master, what would you know of it! Back when old Sun was a demon in the Water Curtain Cave, whenever he fancied human flesh, this is how it went: I would turn to gold or silver, or into a manor house, or a drunken man, or a pretty woman. Some fool would fall in love with me, and I would bewitch him into the cave, and have my pleasure of him as I pleased, steamed or boiled; and what couldn't be eaten I would dry in the sun against a rainy day! Master, had I come late, you would surely have fallen into her snare and met her cruel hand!"
But the Tang monk would not believe it; she was only a good person, he said.
"Master," said the Pilgrim, "I know what is in your heart. At the sight of those looks of hers, the mortal desire must have stirred in you. If such is truly your mind, then let Bajie fell a few trees, and the Sha Monk gather some grass, and I will play carpenter: we'll throw up a nest of a hut right here, and you may consummate the marriage with her, and the rest of us will all go our ways—wouldn't that be a career for you? Why toil and trudge off to fetch any scriptures!"
The elder was a soft and gentle soul at bottom; how could he swallow those words? His bare head flushed crimson to the very ears. And while Sanzang stood thus in shame, the Pilgrim's temper rose again: out came the iron cudgel, and he struck the demon full in the face. That monster had some skill: she used the corpse-freeing trick—when the Pilgrim's cudgel came down, she bestirred herself and slipped away beforehand, leaving a false corpse lying dead upon the ground.
The elder shook with terror, muttering: "This monkey is truly without manners! Repeatedly warned, and never listening—taking a human life without cause!"
"Do not be angry, Master," said the Pilgrim. "Come and see what is in this pot." The Sha Monk steadied the elder, and they came near to look. Where was the fragrant rice? It was a pot of long maggots with trailing tails. And it was no wheat gluten either, but a few frogs and toads, hopping and jumping all over the ground.
Now the elder believed a third part of it. But how could he withstand Bajie, who could not swallow his spleen, standing by and dropping his poison in eight parts: "Master, about this girl: she is a farm wife of these parts, out carrying food to the fields, who met us on the road. How does Brother make her out to be a monster? Brother's cudgel is heavy; he came rushing up to try his hand with one stroke, and unluckily killed her. Then, fearing you would recite the Band-Tightening Spell, he deliberately used a blinding trick—changed things into this shape to fool your eyes, so you would not recite the spell."
With that one speech, the Tang monk's ill luck had come: he truly believed the blockhead's goading, and with his fingers formed the spell-sign and began reciting the spell. At once the Pilgrim cried: "My head! My head! Stop! Stop! If you have something to say, say it!"
"What is there to say!" said the Tang monk. "A monk must always be ready to help, and never let a kind heart leave his thoughts. When he sweeps the ground he fears to hurt the lives of ants; out of pity for the flying moth he keeps a gauze over the lamp. Yet you commit violence at every step, beating to death this innocent person. What good are the scriptures you fetch? Go back!"
"Master, where would you have me go back to?"
"I will not have you for a disciple."
"If you will not have me for a disciple," said the Pilgrim, "I fear the road to the Western Heaven will go unfinished for you."
"My life is with Heaven. If some demon is fated to steam me and eat me, then steamed I shall be; even boiled, it could not be reckoned otherwise. Do you mean to say you could save me from my appointed hour? Go back, and quickly!"
"Master, if I go back, that is well and good; only I shall not have repaid your kindness."
"What kindness have I done you?"
At that, the Great Sage fell to his knees and knocked his head: "Old Sun, for making havoc in Heaven, brought down the calamity that broke his body, and my Buddha crushed me beneath the Mountain of Two Frontiers. Happily the Bodhisattva Guanyin gave me the precepts and the discipline, and happily Master freed me from that body. If I do not go with you to the Western Heaven, it will be plain that I knew kindness and did not repay it—no gentleman that, but a name cursed through ten thousand ages."
Now this Tang monk was a holy monk of compassion. Seeing the Pilgrim plead so piteously, his heart turned once more: "Since you put it that way, I spare you this once. Do not be unruly again. If you go on doing evil as before, I shall recite that spell twenty times over!"
"Thirty times, if you like—only I shall not beat people again." Then he waited upon the Tang monk as he mounted, and offered up the peaches he had picked.
The Tang monk ate a few on horseback, to stay his hunger for the time being.
Now the story turns to that demon, who had escaped with her life into the air. The Pilgrim's cudgel had not killed her: her spirit had gone out of the body. Up in the clouds she gnashed her teeth, hating the Pilgrim in secret: "For years I had only heard tell of his powers; today I saw that the talk was no lie. That Tang monk had already ceased to know me, and was about to eat. Had he but bowed his head and sniffed at that rice, I would have seized him in one grab—would he not then have been mine? And who could have thought the wretch would come bounding back and spoil my business, and very nearly cudgel me besides. To let this monk go would truly be labor lost. Down I go, to play another trick on him."
A cunning demon! She pressed down her murky wind, on the slope below the forward hill shook her body, and changed into an old woman, past eighty years of age, leaning on a crook-headed bamboo staff, weeping as she came, one sob to every step.
At the sight Bajie was alarmed: "Master! This is bad! That old dame is coming looking for someone!"
"Looking for whom?" asked the Tang monk.
"The one Brother killed must have been her daughter," said Bajie. "This must be her mother, come hunting for her."
"Brother, none of your nonsense!" said the Pilgrim. "That girl was eighteen; this old woman is eighty. How could a woman of sixty-odd still bear a child? She is an impostor beyond doubt. Wait till old Sun goes and has a look."
A fine Pilgrim! Striding forward, he drew near to look at that monster:
False-changed, an old granny she, Her two temples white as ice and snow. Slow, slow she walks along, Her steps faint, faint with age. A frail body, thin and spare, A face like a withered cabbage leaf, Cheekbones jutting upward, Lips thrusting down below. Old age is not as youth was then: Her whole face is a mass of lotus-leaf folds.
The Pilgrim knew her for a demon, and without another word raised his cudgel and struck at her head. When the monster saw the cudgel rise, she bestirred herself as before: out went her primal spirit again, escaping her true body, and another false corpse lay dead beside the mountain road.
At the sight the Tang monk tumbled off his horse in fright and lay at the roadside. Without one word more, he recited the Band-Tightening Spell over and over, a full twenty times through. Poor Pilgrim! The band squeezed his head into the shape of a waisted gourd, and the pain past all bearing; he rolled over and pleaded: "Master, stop reciting! If you have anything to say, say it!"
"What is there to say! A monk hears good words, and does not fall into Hell. I exhort and convert you like this, and still you do nothing but violence—one innocent beaten to death, and then another! What do you call that?"
"She was a demon," said the Pilgrim.
"You monkey talk nonsense!" cried the Tang monk. "As if there were demons by the dozen like that! You are one who has no heart for good, and every intent to do evil. Be gone!"
"Master sends me away again. Well, if go I must, I go—only one thing will not do."
"And what thing will not do?" asked the Tang monk.
"Master," said Bajie, "he means to divide the luggage with you. After serving you as a monk all these years, is he to go back empty-handed? Give him a couple of things out of the bundle—one of those worn-out shirts, say, or a tattered cap."
At this the Pilgrim's rage boiled over: "You snub-nosed clodhopper! Old Sun has kept the teaching of the Sangha from the first, without one thread of jealousy or hankering greed—and you say I want to divide the luggage?"
"If you are neither jealous nor hankering," said the Tang monk, "why will you not go?"
"To tell Master the truth: five hundred years ago, when old Sun dwelt in the Water Curtain Cave on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit in the full flower of his might, he had subdued the demons of seventy-two caves, with forty-seven thousand minions at his command. On his head the purple-gold crown; on his body the ochre-yellow robe; at his waist the Lantian jade belt; on his feet the cloud-treading boots; in his hand the As-You-Will gold-banded cudgel—old Sun truly was somebody in those days. But since I passed through sin into nirvana, shaved my head and embraced the true teaching of the Sangha, and became your disciple, this golden band has been clamped upon my head. If I went back like this, I could hardly face the folk of my old home. If indeed you will not have me, Master, then recite the Band-Loosening Spell once, take this band off and hand it over to you, to clap on someone else's head, and I shall go off content—it would be something, at least, for having followed you. Or is even that much human feeling denied me?"
The Tang monk was startled: "Wukong, at the time the Bodhisattva privately gave me only the Band-Tightening Spell; there is no Band-Loosening Spell at all."
"If there is no Band-Loosening Spell, then take me along with you a little farther."
The elder had no choice: "Rise, then. Once more I spare you—but no more violence."
"I dare not, I dare not." And once more he waited upon his master's mounting, and cleared the way onward.
Now that demon—by the Pilgrim's second cudgel she had not been killed either. Up in mid-air the monster could not praise him enough: "What a Monkey King! What eyes! Transformed as I was, he still knew me. These monks travel fast. Once past this mountain, forty li westward, they are out of my jurisdiction. If some other demon snatched him up, why, folk would laugh their mouths askew, and my own heart would break with the sting of it. Down I go again, to play one more trick on him."
What a demon! Pressing down her murky wind, at the foot of the slope she shook her body and changed into an old man. And truly:
White hair like Peng Zu's, hoary beard outdoing the Star of Longevity; Jade chimes ringing in his ears, golden stars flickering in his eyes. In his hand a dragon-headed staff, On his body a light crane-feather cloak. His telling beads pinched between his fingers, His mouth reciting the namu sutras.
The Tang monk saw him from horseback and rejoiced in his heart: "Amitabha! The West is truly a blessed land! That old man can hardly walk the road, yet still he manages to recite the sutras."
"Master, hold your praises," said Bajie. "That is the root of the trouble."
"How so, the root of trouble?"
"The Pilgrim killed his daughter, and then killed his old wife," said Bajie. "This must be the old man himself, come hunting for them. If we fall into his clutches—why, Master, you will owe a life, and be sentenced to death; old Pig, as accessory, will be banished to the army; the Sha Monk, for shouting orders, will be set to a staging station. And the Pilgrim will just use some escape trick and be off—won't the three of us be left holding the blame?"
When the Pilgrim heard this, he said: "This muddle-headed fool, with such blather—why, it will frighten Master out of his wits. Wait till old Sun goes and has another look."
Hiding his cudgel about him, he walked forward to meet the monster and hailed him: "Old sir, where are you bound? How is it you walk the road and recite sutras both at once?"
The demon had misjudged her measure, taking the Great Sage Sun for a common fellow, and answered: "Venerable sir, your old servant has lived here all his life, loving good deeds and feeding monks, reading sutras and reciting the Buddha's name. Fate gave me no son—only one little daughter, and a husband taken in for her. This morning she carried food out to the fields, and must have met a tiger's mouth. Her old mother went first to look for her, and has not come back either; of either of them not a trace. Your old servant has come out to look for them. If indeed their lives have been destroyed, there is nothing for it; I shall gather up their bones and carry them home, and bury them in the family plot."
The Pilgrim laughed: "I am the ancestor of all tiger-catchers—and you think to fool me with a ghost hidden up your sleeve? You may deceive the rest, but you will never deceive me! I know you for a demon!"
The demon was struck dumb.
The Pilgrim drew out his cudgel and communed with himself: "If I do not strike him, it will look as though he had put one over on me; if I strike him, I fear Master will recite that spell." Then he thought again: "If I do not kill him, the moment may come when he snatches Master up in an unguarded moment—and then what fresh toil and pains to rescue him? Better strike! And when I have killed him with one blow and Master recites the spell—well, the proverb says: 'Even a vicious tiger will not eat its own young.' With old Sun's honeyed words and glib and nimble tongue, I can coax him round; it will all come right in the end."
A fine Great Sage! He recited a spell and summoned the local deity of the place and the mountain god, saying: "This demon has thrice come to make sport of my master, and this time I mean to kill her. Stand witness for me in mid-air, and let her not escape." The deities heard the command—and who would dare disobey? All kept watch in the clouds. Where the Great Sage's cudgel fell, the demon was struck down, and this time the light of her spirit was snuffed out.
The Tang monk on horseback shook with fright once more, speechless.
Bajie stood by and laughed again: "A fine Pilgrim! Mad as the wind! Only half a day on the road, and he has beaten three people to death!"
The Tang monk was about to recite the spell, when the Pilgrim rushed to the horse and cried: "Master, do not recite! Do not recite! Come and look at her shape." And there on the ground lay a heap of white bones.
The Tang monk was greatly startled: "Wukong—that person has only just died. How is she already turned to a heap of bones?"
"She was a corpse-demon, a lurking spirit that made trouble," said the Pilgrim, "beguiling travelers and destroying their substance. I have killed her, and she has shown her true form. There is a line of characters on her spine: it reads, 'Lady White Bone.'"
At this the Tang monk was half convinced—but how could he withstand Bajie at his side, dropping his poison: "Master, his hand is heavy and his cudgel cruel. Having killed these people, and fearing you would recite that spell of yours, he changed her into this shape on purpose to blind your eyes!"
And the Tang monk's ears were soft indeed: he believed him again, and began reciting once more. The Pilgrim could not stand the pain; kneeling by the roadside he could only cry: "Stop! Stop! If you have words, speak them quickly!"
"You monkey-head! What words could there be! A monk doing good is like the grass in a spring garden: you do not see it grow, yet it grows greater day by day. A man doing evil is like the whetstone: you do not see it wear away, yet day by day it is diminished. Here in this wild waste you have beaten three people to death in a row, with no one to bring the charge and no foe to press it. But if you reach the cities, where the crowds of men are gathered, and swing that mourning staff of yours, knowing good from bad no longer, and start beating people at random and bring on some great calamity—how am I to get clear of it myself? Go back!"
"Master, you wrong me. This creature was a demon, plain and plain, with a true heart to harm you. I killed her and rid you of the harm, and you could not see it; instead you believed the blockhead's slander and cold words, and drive me out again and again. The proverb says: a thing may stand twice, but not three times. If I did not go now, I should truly be a shameless low creature. I go, I go! Yet once I have gone, you will have no one at your side."
The Tang monk flared up: "This wicked ape grows ruder still! As it appears, only you count as a person—and Wuneng and Wujing are not persons?"
When the Great Sage heard him say that those two were persons, his grief was past holding back, and he said miserably to the Tang monk: "Oh, bitter! In that day, when you left Chang'an, it was Liu Boqin who saw you on your way; and when you came to the Mountain of Two Frontiers and freed me and I bowed to you as master—I have gone through ancient caves and entered deep forests for you, seized demons and captured monsters, won you Bajie, gained you the Sha Monk, eaten every bitterness there is. Today you turn your clear eyes to folly, and only tell me to go back: this is 'the birds gone, the bow is stored; the hare dead, the hound is boiled!' Enough, enough! Only—there is still that Band-Tightening Spell."
"I will never recite it again."
"That is hard to say. When you fall among poison demons and cruel trials and cannot escape, and Bajie and the Sha Monk cannot save you—then, thinking of me, you will not be able to help reciting it, and though I were ten thousand li away, my head would ache. Better that I should not think of coming back to see you."
The more the Tang monk heard of this talk and that talk, the angrier he grew. He rolled out of the saddle, called the Sha Monk to take paper and brush from the bundle, drew water from the stream and ground ink upon a stone, and wrote out a letter of banishment, which he handed to the Pilgrim: "Monkey-head! Take this as your warrant. I will have you for a disciple no more! If ever I see you again, let me fall into the Avici Hell!"
The Pilgrim hastened to take the letter: "Master, there is no need for oaths. Old Sun will go." He folded the paper and put it in his sleeve, then once more entreated the Tang monk gently: "Master, I have followed you all this way, and been guided by the Bodhisattva besides. Now it ends halfway, with no merit achieved. Sit, I beg you, and receive one bow from me, and then I can go with an easier heart."
The Tang monk turned away and would not look at him, muttering under his breath: "I am a good monk; I will not take the obeisance of you wicked wretch!"
Seeing himself ignored, the Great Sage used a body-beside-body spell: plucked three hairs from the back of his head, blew on them a breath of magic air, and cried "Change!"—and there were three Pilgrims, himself making four, who ringed the master round on four sides and bowed.
The elder could not dodge aside on either hand, and so, willy-nilly, received one bow after all.
The Great Sage leapt up, shook his body, and gathered in the hairs. Then he instructed the Sha Monk: "Worthy brother, you are a good man—only be careful to keep your guard against Bajie's tattling and palavering, and be very watchful on the road. If the moment comes when some demon seizes Master, say that old Sun is his eldest disciple. The hairy fiends of the West have heard of my powers, and will not dare harm my master."
"I am a good monk," said the Tang monk, "and I will not speak the name of you wicked wretch. Go back."
The Great Sage saw that the elder would not turn his heart back, try as he might, and at last there was nothing for it but to go. Watch him:
Holding back tears, he knocks his head and takes leave of the elder; Bearing his grief, he leaves his charge with the Sha Monk. His head sweeps aside the grass upon the slope; His two feet trample down the vines upon the ground. Up to Heaven, down to earth, he wheels like a turning star; Crossing seas, flying over mountains, he is first of all. In a moment's time no shadow of him is seen; In an instant he speeds back along his ancient road.
Watch him swallow his wrath, bid his master farewell, mount the somersault cloud, and make straight for the Water Curtain Cave on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. Alone and desolate he flew, when suddenly the sound of water came dashing upon his ears. Looking down from mid-air, the Great Sage saw it was the roar of the tide of the Eastern Ocean. At the sight of it he thought of the Tang monk again, and the tears rolled down his cheeks; he stopped his cloud and stood, and only after a long while moved on.
Whether this journey led to further turns or no—listen to the explanation in the next chapter.