The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 3 Read online

  The elders were very pleased. “That sort of reward is easy,” said one of them, “but we’d like to know your plan to catch him?” “When he comes,” said Pilgrim, “I’ll do it.” “But that fiend is huge,” said another elder. “He touches Heaven above and Earth beneath. He comes with the wind and departs with the fog. How can you even get near him?” “If he’s a monster-spirit able to summon the wind and ride the fog,” said Pilgrim with a laugh, “I’ll just treat him as my grandson. If he’s big in size, I still can hit him.”

  As they chatted, they suddenly heard the howling of the wind, which so terrified those eight or nine elders that they all quaked and quivered. “This priest has such a bad luck mouth!” they cried. “He speaks of the monster-spirit, and at once the monster-spirit shows up!” Flinging wide the side door, that Old Li herded the Tang Monk and his relatives inside, crying, “Come in! Come in! the fiend’s here.” Eight Rules and Sha Monk were so intimidated that they, too, wanted to follow them in entering the house. Pilgrim, however, yanked them back with both hands, saying, “Have you lost your senses? Priests like you, how could you behave like that? Stand still! Stay with me in the courtyard so that we can find out what kind of a monster-spirit this is.”

  “Oh, Elder Brother!” cried Eight Rules. “These are all savvy people! When the wind howls, it means the fiend’s coming, and that’s why they are hiding. We are neither kinfolk nor acquaintances of theirs, neither bond relatives nor old friends. What’s the point of looking at this monster?”

  Pilgrim, however, was so strong that he was able to hold them down right there in the courtyard as the wind grew even more fierce. Marvelous wind!

  It felled woods and trees, daunting tigers and wolves;

  It stirred seas and rivers, alarming gods and ghosts;

  It toppled rocks of Mount Hua’s triple peaks;3

  It upturned the world’s four great continents.

  Rustic homes and households all shut their doors;

  The whole village’s children all hid their heads.

  Massive black clouds covered the starry sky.

  Lamps and lights faded as the whole earth grew dark.

  Eight Rules was so terrified that he fell on the ground; digging a hole with his snout, he buried his head in it and lay prone as if he had been nailed to the Earth. Sha Monk, too, covered up his head and face, for he found it difficult even to open his eyes.

  Only Pilgrim sniffed at the wind to try to determine what sort of fiend that was. In a little while the wind subsided and the faint glow of what seemed to be two lanterns appeared in midair. Lowering his head, Pilgrim said, “Brothers, the wind’s gone! Get up and take a look!”

  Pulling out his snout, our Idiot shook off the dirt and raised his head skyward. When he saw the two lights, he burst out laughing, crying, “What fun! What fun! So, this monster-spirit is someone who knows properly when to move or rest! We should befriend him.” “In a dark night like this,” said Sha Monk, “you haven’t even seen his face yet. How could you know what sort of a person he is?”

  Eight Rules replied, “The ancient said,

  To move by lights at night is best;

  When there are no torches, we rest.4

  Look at him now! He has a pair of lanterns leading the way. He must be a good man.”

  “You’re wrong!” said Sha Monk. “Those aren’t lanterns. They’re the glimmering eyes of the monster-spirit!” Our Idiot was so appalled that he lost three inches of his height. “Holy Father!” he cried. “If those are his eyes, how big is his mouth?”

  “Don’t be afraid, Worthy Brothers,” said Pilgrim. “Stay here and guard our master. Let old Monkey go up there and demand a confession. We’ll see what kind of monster-spirit he is.” “Elder Brother,” said Eight Rules, “don’t confess that we are here.”

  Dear Pilgrim! He whistled loudly and leaped into the air. Gripping his iron rod, he cried out in a loud voice, “Slow down! Slow down! I’m here!” When the fiend saw Pilgrim, he stood erect and began to wave a long lance back and forth in the air. Holding high his rod to assume a position of combat, Pilgrim asked, “From what region a fiend are you? Of what place a spirit are you?” The fiend gave no reply whatever; all he did was to wave his lance. Pilgrim asked again, but still there was no reply from the fiend, who only persisted in waving the lance. Smiling to himself, Pilgrim said, “You’ve got to be both deaf and dumb! Don’t run away! Watch my rod!”

  The fiend, however, was not frightened in the least; brandishing his lance, he parried Pilgrim’s blows, and the two of them charged back and forth, up and down, in midair. They fought till it was about the hour of the third watch and no decision was reached. Standing down below in the courtyard, Eight Rules and Sha Monk saw everything clearly. The fiend, you see, only wielded the lance to parry the blows, but he did not attack his opponent at all. Pilgrim’s rod, therefore, hardly ever left the head of the fiend. “Sha Monk,” said Eight Rules with a laugh, “you stand guard here, and let old Hog go and help with the fight. We can’t allow that monkey to make this merit all by himself, or he’ll be rewarded with the first goblet of wine.”

  Dear Idiot! He leaped up to the edge of the clouds and attacked at once with his rake, which was met by another lance of the fiendish creature. The two lances danced in the air like flying serpents and flashing thunderbolts. Praising him, Eight Rules said, “This monster-spirit shows great technique with the lance! He’s not using the style of the ‘Mountain-Back Lance,’ but it’s more like the ‘Winding-Silk Lance.’ It’s not the ‘Ma-Family Lance,’ but it probably has the name of the ‘Flabby-Handle Lance.’”

  “Stop babbling, Idiot!” said Pilgrim. “There’s no such thing as the ‘Flabby-Handle Lance!’” Eight Rules said, “Just look at how he uses the pointed ends of the lances to parry our blows, but the handles of the lances are nowhere to be seen. Where has he hidden them, I wonder?”

  “Maybe it is the ‘Flabby-Handle Lance,’” said Pilgrim, “but what’s important is that this fiendish creature does not know how to speak, because he has not yet attained the way of humans. He is still heavily under the influence of the yin aura. In the morning when the yang aura grows stronger, he will certainly want to flee. We must give chase and not let him get away.” “Exactly! Exactly!” said Eight Rules.

  They fought for a long time and then the east paled with light. Not daring to linger, the fiend turned and fled, while Eight Rules and Pilgrim gave chase together. As they sped along, they suddenly encountered an oppressively foul stench rising from the Pulpy Persimmon Alley of the Seven Extremes Mountain. “Which family is cleaning its privy?” cried Eight Rules. “Wow! The smell’s horrible!”

  Clamping a hand over his nose, Pilgrim could only mutter, “Chase the monster-spirit! Chase the monster-spirit!” Darting past the mountain, the fiend at once changed back into his original form: a huge, red-scaled python. Look at him!

  His eyes flashed forth the stars of dawn;

  His nose belched out the morning fog.

  His teeth, like dense rows of steel swords;

  His claws curved like golden hooks.5

  From the brow rose a horn of flesh

  That seemed to be formed by a thousand pieces of carnelian;

  His whole body was draped in red scales

  That resembled a million flakes of rouge.

  Coiled up on earth, he could be confused with a brocade quilt;

  Flying in the air, he could be mistaken for a rainbow.

  Where he rested, putrid fumes rose to the sky;

  When he moved, scarlet clouds covered his body.

  Big enough?

  People on his east end couldn’t see the west.

  Long enough?

  He was like a mountain stretching from pole to pole.

  “So, it’s such a long snake!” said Eight Rules. “If it wants to devour people, one meal will probably take five hundred persons, and it’ll still not be filled.” Pilgrim said, “That ‘Flabby-Handle Lance’ has to be his forked tongue
. He has been weakened by our chase. Let’s hit him from behind!” Bounding forward, our Eight Rules brought his rake down hard on the fiendish creature, who darted swiftly into a hole. Only seven or eight feet of the tail remained outside when it was grabbed by Eight Rules, abandoning his rake. “I got him! I got him!” he cried, as he used all his might to try to pull the fiend out of the hole, but he could not even budge him.

  “Idiot,” said Pilgrim, laughing, “leave him inside. I know what to do. Don’t try to pull a snake backward like that!” Eight Rules indeed let go and the fiend slithered inside the hole. “Before I let go just now,” complained Eight Rules, “half of him was already ours. Now he has slithered inside. How could we make him come out again? Isn’t this what you call no more snake to play with?”

  Pilgrim said, “This fellow has quite a hefty body. The hole is so small that he can never turn around inside. He has to move in a straightforward manner, and there has to be also a rear entrance. Go find it quickly and bar the hole. I’ll attack him from the front entrance here.” Idiot dashed past the mountain, where he indeed discovered another hole. He paused, but he had hardly stood still when Pilgrim at the front entrance sent a terrific jab with his rod into the hole. In great pain, the fiendish creature darted out of the rear entrance. Caught off guard, Eight Rules was struck down by his tail and, unable to get up again, he lay on the ground to nurse his pain. When Pilgrim saw that the hole was empty, he picked up his rod and ran over to the rear, shouting for Eight Rules to chase the fiend. On hearing Pilgrim’s voice, Eight Rules became so embarrassed that, regardless of his pain, he scrambled up and began to beat the ground madly with his rake. When he saw him, Pilgrim laughed and said, “The fiend’s gone! What are you doing that for?” Eight Rules said, “Old Hog’s here ‘Beating the Bush to Stir the Snake.’” “What a living Idiot!” said Pilgrim. “Let’s chase him!”

  The two of them ran past a brook, when they found the fiend had coiled himself into a mound on the ground. Rearing his head, he opened wide his huge mouth and wanted to devour Eight Rules. Terrified, Eight Rules turned and fled, but our Pilgrim went forward to meet him and was swallowed by the fiend in one gulp. Pounding his chest and stamping his feet, Eight Rules screamed, “Alas, Elder Brother! You’re dead!” Inside the stomach of the monster-spirit, Pilgrim held up his iron rod and said, “Don’t worry, Eight Rules. Let me ask him to build a bridge for you to see!”

  He stuck his rod up a bit more, and the fiendish creature had to raise his torso until he resembled a bow-shaped bridge. “He looks like a bridge, alright,” said Eight Rules, “but no one would dare walk on it.” “Let me ask him again to change into a boat for you to see,” said Pilgrim. He plunged the iron rod downward; with the stomach hugging the ground and the head upraised, the fiendish creature looked like a sloop from the Kan River district.

  “He may look like a boat,” said Eight Rules, “but there is no top mast for him to use the wind.” “Get out of the way,” said Pilgrim, “and I’ll make him use the wind for you to see.” Using all his strength, Pilgrim pushed his iron rod upward from the spine of the fiendish creature until it reached a height of some seventy feet and the shape of a mast. In desperate pain and struggling for his life, the fiend shot forward, faster than any windblown vessel, and made for the road on which he came. Some twenty miles down the mountain, he finally fell motionless to the dust and expired. Eight Rules caught up with him from behind and attacked him madly once more with his rake. Meanwhile, Pilgrim ripped a big hole in the creature’s body and crawled out, saying, “Idiot, he’s dead already. Why use your rake on him?” “Oh, Elder Brother,” said Eight Rules, “don’t you know that old Hog all his life has loved to strike at dead snakes?” They thus put away their weapons and dragged the creature back by his tail.

  We tell you now about the Old Li in the Tuoluo Village; he and the rest of the people said to the Tang Monk, “For a whole night your two disciples have not returned. They must have lost their lives.” “I don’t think it’s that serious,” said Tripitaka. “Let us go out to have a look first.” Soon they caught sight of Pilgrim and Eight Rules approaching, dragging a huge python behind them and shouting to clear the way. Only then did the people become delighted; the old and young, the men and women of the entire village all came to kowtow and say, “Holy Fathers, this is the very monster-spirit that has taken many lives here. We are fortunate to have you exercise your power today and extirpate the fiendish deviate, for now our lives are secure.”

  All the households were filled with gratitude, so much so that each one of them insisted on thanking the pilgrims with gifts and feasting. Master and disciples were detained for nearly a week, and only after much pleading on their part were they permitted to leave. When the people saw that the pilgrims refused to accept any kind of monetary rewards, they all prepared some dried goods and fruits. With laden horses and mules, colored banners and red ribbons, they came to say farewell. There were only five hundred families in the region, but those who came to send them off numbered more than seven hundred.

  They journeyed amiably, and in a little while they arrived at the entrance of the Pulpy Persimmon Alley in the Mountain of Seven Extremes. When Tripitaka smelled the wretched odor and saw how clogged the road was, he said, “Wukong, how could we pass through?” Clamping his hand over his nose, Pilgrim said, “This is rather difficult!” When Tripitaka heard him say “difficult,” tears dropped from his eyes. Old Li and others went forward and said, “Father, please do not be anxious. When we accompanied you here, we had already made up our minds. Since your noble disciples subdued the monster-spirit for us and delivered the entire village from such calamity, we are all determined to open up a road for you to pass through.”

  “Oldie,” said Pilgrim, smiling, “your words aren’t very reasonable! You told us earlier that the distance across this mountain is some eight hundred miles. You are no celestial engineers under the command of the Great Yu, Conqueror of the Flood. How could you blast open mountains and build roads? If you want my master to get across the ridge, it’s up to us again to exert ourselves. None of you can do something like this.”

  As he dismounted, Tripitaka said, “Wukong, how are you going to exert yourself?” “If you want to cross this mountain in the twinkling of an eye,” said Pilgrim, smiling, “that’s difficult. If you want to build another road, that’s difficult, too. We have to push through, using the old alley, but right now, I fear that no one will take care of our meals.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Elder!” said Old Li. “No matter how long you four are delayed here, we can support you. How could you say that no one would take care of your meals!” “In that case,” said Pilgrim, “go and prepare two piculs of dried rice, and make some steamed buns and breads also. Let that priest of ours with a long snout eat to his fill. He’ll then change into a huge hog to shovel out the old road. Our master will ride the horse and we’ll accompany him. We’ll get across.”

  On hearing this, Eight Rules said, “Elder Brother, all of you want to be clean. How could you ask old Hog alone to become stinky?” “Wuneng,” said Tripitaka, “if you truly have the ability to shovel out the alley and lead me across the mountain, I’ll have it recorded that you are ranked first in merit on this occasion.” With a laugh, Eight Rules said, “Master, you and the rest of our venerable patrons here should not tease me. I, old Hog, after all, am capable of thirty-six kinds of transformation. If you want me to change into something delicate, elegant, and agile, I simply can’t do it. But if it’s a mountain, a tree, a boulder, an earth mound, a scabby elephant, a graded hog, a water buffalo, or a camel, I can change into all these things. The only thing is that if I change into something big, my appetite is going to be even bigger. I must be satisfactorily fed before I can work.”

  “We have the stuff! We have the stuff!” cried the people. “We have all brought along dried goods, fruits, baked biscuits, and assorted pastries. We were planning to present them to you after you had crossed the mountain. We’ll
take them out now for you to enjoy. When you have assumed your transformation and begun your work, we’ll send people back to the village to prepare more rice for you.”

  Filled with delight, Eight Rules took off his black cloth shirt and dropped his nine-pronged rake. “Don’t tease me!” he said to the people. “Watch old Hog achieve this stinky merit!” Dear Idiot! Making the magic sign with his fingers, he shook his body once and changed indeed into a huge hog. Truly he had

  A long snout and short hair—all rather plump.

  He fed on herbs of the mountain since his youth.

  A black face with round eyes like the sun and moon;

  A round head with huge ears like plantain leaves.

  His bones were made lasting as Heaven’s age;

  Tougher than iron was his thick skin refined.

  In deep nasal tones he made his oink-oink cry.

  What gutteral grunts when he puffed and huffed!

  Four white hoofs standing a thousand feet tall;

  Swordlike bristles topped a hundred-yard frame.

  Mankind had long seen fatted pigs and swine,

  But never till today this old hog elf.

  The Tang Monk and the people all gave praise;

  At such high magic pow’r they were amazed.

  When Pilgrim Sun saw this transformation of Eight Rules, he ordered those people who accompanied them to put their dried goods into a huge pile so that Eight Rules could enjoy the foodstuff. Without regard for whether it was cooked or raw, Eight Rules went forward and gulped down all of it. Then he proceeded to shovel out a path. Pilgrim asked Sha Monk to take off his shoes and to pole the luggage with care. He told his master to sit firmly on the carved saddle, while he himself also took off his boots. Then he gave this instruction to the people: “If you are grateful, go and prepare some rice quickly for my brother’s sustenance.”