CHAPTER 25 

The Immortal Zhen Yuan Captures the Pilgrim Priest; Wukong Makes Havoc in the Wuzhuang Temple

“The meal is cooked,” the three disciples said as they entered the hall, “what did you call us for?”

“I’m not asking about the meal, disciples,” said Sanzang. “This temple has things called manfruit or something that look like babies. Which of you stole and ate some?”

“I don’t know anything about it, honest I don’t—I never saw any,” said Bajie.

“That grinning one did it,” said Pure Wind, “that grinning one.”

“I’ve had a smile on my face all my life,” said Wukong. “Are you going to stop me smiling just because you can’t find some fruit or other?”

“Don’t lose your temper, disciple,” said Sanzang. “As men of religion we should control our tongues and not eat food that befuddles our minds. If you ate their fruit you should apologize to them, instead of trying to brazen it out like this.”

Seeing that his master was talking sense, Pilgrim Sun began to tell the truth. “I didn’t start it, Master,” he said. “Bajie heard the Taoist boys eating something called manfruit next door to him and wanted to try one himself. He made me go and get three so that we three disciples could have one each. But now they’ve been eaten, there’s no point in waiting around here.”

“How can these priests deny that they are criminals when they’ve stolen four of our manfruits?” said Bright Moon.

“Amitabha Buddha,” exclaimed Bajie, “if he pinched four of them why did he only share out three? He must have done the dirty on us.” He continued to shout wildly in this vein.

Now that they knew that the fruit really had been stolen, the two boys started to abuse them even more foully. The Great Sage ground his teeth of steel in his fury, glaring with his fiery eyes and tightening his grip on his iron cudgel. “Damn those Taoist boys,” he thought when he could restrain himself no longer. “If they’d hit us we could have taken it, but now they’re insulting us to our faces like this, I’ll finish their tree off, then none of them can have any more fruit.”

Splendid Xingzhe! He pulled a hair out from the back of his head, breathed a magic breath on it, said “Change,” and turned it into an imitation Wukong who stayed with the Tang Priest, Bajie and Friar Sand to endure the cursing and swearing of the Taoist boys, while the real Wukong used his divine powers to leap out of the hall by cloud. He went straight to the garden and struck the manfruit tree with his gold-banded cudgel. Then he used his supernatural strength that could move mountains to push the tree over with a single shove. The leaves fell, the branches splayed out, and the roots came out of the ground. The Taoists would have no more of their “Grass-returning Cinnabar.” After pushing the tree over Wukong searched through the branches for manfruit, but he could not find a single one. These treasures dropped at the touch of metal, and as Wukong’s cudgel was ringed with gold, while being made of iron, another of the five metals, one tap from it brought them all tumbling down, and when they hit the ground they went straight in, leaving none on the tree. “Great, great, great,” he said, “that’ll make them all cool down.” He put the iron cudgel away, went back to the front of the temple, shook the magic hair, and put it back on his head. The others did not see what was happening as they had eyes of mortal flesh.

A long time later, when the two Taoist boys felt that they had railed at them for long enough, Pure Wind said to Bright Moon, “These monks will take anything we say. We’ve sworn at them as if we were swearing at chickens, but they haven’t admitted anything. I don’t think they can have stolen any, after all. The tree is so tall and the foliage is so dense that we may well have miscounted, and if we have, we shouldn’t be cursing them so wildly. Let’s go and check the number again.” Bright Moon agreed, and the pair of them went back to the garden. When they saw that the tree was down with its branches bent out, the leaves fallen, and the fruit gone, they were horror-struck. Pure Wind’s knees turned soft and he collapsed, while Bright Moon trembled and shook. Both of them passed out, and there is a verse to describe them:

When Sanzang came to the Mountain of Infinite Longevity,

Wukong finished the Grass-returning Cinnabar.

The branches were splayed out, the leaves fallen, and the tree down.

Bright Moon and Pure Wind’s hearts both turned to ice.

The two of them lay in the dirt mumbling deliriously and saying, “What are we to do, what are we to do? The elixir of our Wuzhuang Temple has been destroyed and our community of immortals is finished. What ever are we going to say to the master when he comes back?”

“Stop moaning, brother,” said Bright Moon. “We must tidy ourselves up and not let those monks know anything’s wrong. That hairy-faced sod who looks like a thunder god must have done it. He must have used magic to destroy our treasure. But it’s useless to argue with him as he’ll deny everything, and if we start a quarrel with him and fighting breaks out, we two haven’t a chance against the four of them. We’ll have to fool them and say that no fruit is missing. We’ll pretend we counted wrong before, and apologize to them. Their rice is cooked, and we can give them a few side dishes to eat with it. The moment they’ve each got a bowl of food you and I will stand on either side of the door, slam it shut, and lock it. After that we can lock all the gates, then they won’t be able to get away. When our master comes back he can decide what to do with them. That old monk is a friend of his, so our master may want to forgive him as a favour. And if he doesn’t feel forgiving, we’ve got the criminals under arrest and may possibly not get into trouble ourselves.”

“Absolutely right,” said Pure Wind.

The two of them pulled themselves together, forced themselves to look happy, and went back to the front hall. “Master,” they said, bowing low to Sanzang, “we were extremely rude to you just now. Please forgive us.”

“What do you mean?” asked Sanzang.

“The fruit is all there,” they replied. “We couldn’t see it all before as the tree is so tall and the foliage so thick but when we checked just now the number was right.”

“You’re too young to know what you’re doing,” said Bajie, taking the chance to put the boot in. “Why did you swear and curse at us, and try to frame us up? You bastards.”

Wukong, who understood what the boys were up to, said nothing and thought, “Lies, lies. The fruit is all finished. Why ever are they saying this? Can it be that they know how to bring the tree back to life?”

“Very well then,” Sanzang was saying meanwhile, “bring our rice in and we’ll be off after eating it.”

Bajie went off to fill their bowls and Friar Sand arranged a table and chairs. The two boys hurried out and fetched some side dishes—salted squash, salted eggplant, turnips in wine-lees, pickle bean, salted lettuce, and mustard plant, some seven or eight plates in all. These they gave to the pilgrims to eat with their rice, and then they waited on them with a pot of good tea and two cups. As soon as the four pilgrims had their ricebowls in their hands, the boys, who were on either side of the doorway, slammed the doors to and locked them with a double-sprung bronze lock.

“You shouldn’t do that, boys,” said Bajie with a smile. “Even if the people round here are a bit rough there’s no need to shut the doors while we eat.”

“Yes, yes,” said Bright Moon, “we’ll open them after lunch.”

Pure Wind, however, was abusive. “I’ll get you, you greedy, bald-headed food-thief,” he said. “You ate our immortal fruit and deserve to be punished for the crime of stealing food from fields and gardens. On top of that you’ve pushed our tree over and ruined our temple’s source of immortality. How dare you argue with us? Your only chance of reaching the Western Heaven and seeing the Buddha is to be reborn and be rocked in the cradle again.” When Sanzang heard this he dropped his ricebowl, feeling as if a boulder was weighing down his heart. The two boys went and locked the main and the inner gates of the temple, then came back to the main hall to abuse them with filthy language and call them criminals and bandits till evening, when they went off to eat. The two of them returned to their rooms after supper.

“You’re always causing trouble, you ape,” grumbled Sanzang at Wukong. “You stole their fruit, so you should have let them lose their temper and swear at you, then that would have been the end of it. Why on earth did you push their tree over? If they took this to court you wouldn’t be able to get off even if your own father were on the bench.”

“Don’t make such a row, Master,” said Wukong. “Those boys have gone to bed, and when they’re asleep we can do a midnight flit.”

“But all the gates have been locked,” said Friar Sand, “and they’ve been shut very firmly, so how can we possibly get away?”

“Don’t let it bother you,” said Wukong, “I have a way.”

“We weren’t worried that you wouldn’t have a way,” said Bajie. “You can turn yourself into an insect and fly out through the holes in the window lattice. But you’ll be leaving poor old us, who can’t turn ourselves into something else, to stay here and carry the can for you.”

“If he does a trick like that and doesn’t take us with him I’ll recite that old sutra—he won’t get away scot-free then.”

Bajie was both pleased and worried to hear this. “What do you mean, Master?” he said. “I know that the Buddha’s teachings include a Lankavatara Sutra, a lotus Sutra, a Peacock Sutra, an Avalokit esvara Sutra, and a Diamond Sutra, but I never heard of any Old Sutra.”

“What you don’t know, brother,” said Wukong, “is that the Bodhisattva Guanyin gave this band I have round my head to our master. He tricked me into wearing it, and now it’s virtually rooted there and I can’t take it off. The spell or sutra for tightening this band is what he meant by the ‘old sutra.’ If he says it, my head aches. It’s a way he has of making me suffer. Please don’t recite it, Master. I won’t abandon you. I guarantee that we’ll all get out.

It was now dark, and the moon had risen in the east. “It’s quiet now,” said Wukong, “and the moon is bright. This is the time to go.”

“Stop fooling about, brother,” said Bajie. “The gates are all locked, so where can we possibly go?”

“Watch this trick,” said Wukong, and gripping his cudgel in his hand he pointed at the doors and applied unlocking magic to them. There was a clanking sound, and the locks fell from all the doors and gates, which he pushed them open.

“Not half clever,” said Bajie. “A locksmith with his skeleton keys couldn’t have done it anything like as fast.”

“Nothing difficult about opening these doors,” said Wukong. “I can open the Southern Gates of Heaven just by pointing at them.” Then he asked his master to go out and mount the horse. Bajie shouldered the luggage, Friar Sand led the horse, and they headed west. “You carry on,” Wukong said, “while I go back to make sure that those two boys will stay asleep for a month.”

“Mind you don’t kill them, disciple,” said Sanzang, “or you’ll be on a charge of murder in the pursuit of theft as well.”

“I’m aware of that,” replied Wukong and went back into the temple. Standing outside the door of the room where the boys were sleeping, he took a couple of sleep insects from his belt. These were what he had used when he fooled the Heavenly King Virudhaka at the Eastern Gate of Heaven, and now he threw them in through a gap in the window lattice. They landed straight on the boys’ faces, and made them fall into a deeper sleep from which they would not wake up for a long time. Then he streaked back by cloud and caught up with Sanzang. They headed west along the main road.

That night the horse never stopped, and they kept on till dawn. “You’ll be the death of me, you ape,” said Sanzang. “Because of your greed I’ve had to stay awake all night.”

“Stop grumbling,” said Wukong. “Now that it’s light you can rest in the forest beside the road and build your strength up before we move on.” Sanzang obediently dismounted and sat down on the roots of a pine tree, using it as a makeshift meditation platform. Friar Sand put down the luggage and took a nap, while Bajie pillowed his head on a rock and went to sleep. Wukong, the Great Sage, had his own ideas and amused himself leaping from tree to tree.

After the lecture in the palace of the Original Celestial Jade Pure One the Great Immortal Zhen Yuan led his junior immortals down from the Tushita Heaven through the jade sky on auspicious clouds, and in a moment they were back at the gates of the Wuzhuang Temple. The gates, he saw, were wide open, and the ground was clean.

“So Pure Wind and Bright Moon aren’t so useless after all,” he said. “Usually they’re still in bed when the sun is high in the sky. But now, with us away, they got up early, opened the gates, and swept the grounds.” All the junior immortals were delighted. Yet when they went into the hall of worship there was no incense burning and nobody to be seen.

Where were Bright Moon and Pure Wind, they wondered. “They probably thought that with us not here they could steal some stuff and clear out.”

“What an outrageous idea,” said the Great Immortal. “As if men cultivating immortality could do anything so evil! I think they must have forgotten to shut the gates before they went to sleep last night and not have woken up yet.” When the immortals went to look in their room they found the doors closed and heard the boys snoring. They hammered on the doors and shouted for all they were worth, but the boys did not wake up. They forced the doors open and pulled the boys from their beds: the boys still did not wake up. “Fine immortal boys you are,” said the Great Immortal with a smile. “When you become an immortal your divine spirit should be so full that you do not want to sleep. Why are they so tired? They must have been bewitched. Fetch some water at once.” A boy hastily handed him half a bowl of water. He intoned a spell, took a mouthful of the water, and spurted it on their faces. This broke the enchantment. The two of them woke up, opened their eyes, rubbed their faces, looked around them, and saw the Great Immortal as well as all their immortal brothers. Pure Wind bowed and Bright Moon kowtowed in their confusion, saying, “Master, that old friend of yours, the priest from the East… a gang of bandits… murderous, murderous …”

“Don’t be afraid,” said the Great Immortal with a smile. “Calm down and tell us all about it.”

“Master,” said Pure Wind, “the Tang Priest from the East did come. It was quite soon after you had left. There were four monks and a horse—five of them altogether. We did as you had ordered us and picked two manfruits to offer him, but the venerable gentleman was too vulgar and stupid to know what our treasures were. He said that they were newborn babies and refused to eat any, so we ate one each. Little did we imagine that one of his three disciples called Sun Wukong would steal four manfruits for them to eat. We spoke to him very reasonably, but he denied it and secretly used his magic. It’s terrible …” At this point the two boys could no longer hold back the tears that now streamed down their cheeks. “Did the monk strike you?” asked the immortals. “No,” said Bright Moon, “he only felled our manfruit tree.”

The Great Immortal did not lose his temper when he heard their story, “Don’t cry,” he said, “don’t cry. What you don’t realize is that Sun Wukong is an immortal of the Supreme Monad, and that he played tremendous havoc in the Heavenly Palace. He has vast magic powers. But he has knocked our tree over. Could you recognize those monks?”

“I could recognize all of them,” replied Pure Wind.

“In that case come with me,” said the Great Immortal. “The rest of you are to prepare the instruments of torture and be ready to flog them when we come back.”

The other immortals did as they were told while the Great Immortal, Bright Moon and Pure Wind pursued Sanzang on a beam of auspicious light. It took them but an instant to cover three hundred miles. The Great Immortal stood on the edge of the clouds and gazed to the west, but he did not see Sanzang; then he turned round to look east and saw that he had left Sanzang over two hundred and fifty miles behind. Even riding all night that venerable gentleman had covered only forty miles, which was why the Great Immortal’s cloud had overshot him by a great distance.

“Master,” said one of the immortal boys, “there’s the Tang Priest, sitting under a tree by the side of the road.”

“Yes, I’d seen him myself,” the Great Immortal replied. “You two go back and get some ropes ready, and I’ll catch him myself.” Pure Wind and Bright Moon went back.

The Great Immortal landed his cloud, shook himself, and turned into and itinerant Taoist. Do you know what he looked like?

He wore a patchwork gown,

Tied with Lu Dongbin sash,

Waving a fly-whisk in his hand

He tapped a musical drum.

The grass sandals on his feet had three ears,

His head was wrapped in a sun turban.

As the wind filled his sleeves

He sang The Moon Is High.

“Greetings, venerable sir,” he called, raising his hands. “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t notice you before,” replied Sanzang hastily.

“Where are you from?” the Great Immortal asked. “And why are you in meditation during your journey?”

“I have been sent by the Great Tang in the East to fetch the scriptures from the Western Heaven,” Sanzang said, “and I’m taking a rest along the way.”

“You must have crossed my desolate mountain if you have come from the East.”

“May I ask, Immortal sir, which mountain is yours?”

“My humble abode is the Wuzhuang Temple on the Mountain of Infinite Longevity.”

“We didn’t come that way,” said Wukong, who realized what was happening. “We’ve only just started out.”

The Great Immortal pointed at him and laughed. “I’ll show you, you damned ape. Who do you think you’re fooling? I know that you knocked our manfruit tree down and came here during the night. You had better confess: you won’t get away with concealing anything. Stay where you are, and give me back that tree at once.” Wukong flared up at this, and with no further discussion he struck at the Great Immortal’s head with his cudgel. The Great Immortal twisted away from the blow and went straight up into the sky on a beam of light, closely pursued by Wukong on a cloud. In mid-air the Great Immortal reverted to his true appearance, and this is what he looked like:

A golden crown on his head,

A No-worries cloak of crane’s down on his body.

A pair of turned-up sandals on his feet,

And round his waist a belt of silk.

His body was like a child’s,

His face was that of a beautiful woman.

A wispy beard floated down from his chin,

And the hair on his temples was crow-black.

He met Wukong unarmed

With only a jade-handled whisk in his hands.

Wukong struck wildly at him with his club, only to be parried to left and right by the Great Immortal’s whisk. After two or three rounds the Great Immortal did a “Wrapping Heaven and Earth in His Sleeve” trick, waving his sleeve gently in the breeze as he stood amid the clouds, then sweeping it across the ground and gathering up the four pilgrims and their horse in it.

“Hell,” said Bajie, “We’re all caught in a bag.”

“It isn’t a bag, you idiot,” said Wukong, “he’s caught us all in his sleeve.”

“It doesn’t matter, anyhow,” said Bajie. “I can make a hole in it with a single blow of my rake that we can all get through. Then we’ll be able to drop out when he relaxes his grip on us.” But however desperately he struck at the fabric he could make no impression on it: although it was soft when held in the hand it was harder than iron when hit.

The Great Immortal turned his cloud round, went straight back to the Wuzhuang Temple, landed, sat down, and told his disciples to fetch rope. Then, with all the junior immortals in attendance, he took the Tang Priest out of his sleeve as if he were a puppet and had him tied to one of the pillars of the main hall. After that he took the other three out and tied each of them to a pillar. The horse was taken out, tethered, and fed in the courtyard, and their luggage he threw under the covered walk.

“Disciples,” he said, “these priests are men of religion, so we cannot use swords, spears or axes on them. You’d better fetch a leather whip and give them a flogging for me—that will make me feel better about the manfruit.” The disciples immediately produced a whip—not an oxhide, sheepskin, deerskin or calfskin whip, but a seven-starred dragon-skin one—and were told to soak it in water. A brawny young immortal was told to take a firm grip on it. “Master,” he said, “which of them shall I flog first?”

“Sanzang is guilty of gross disrespect,” the Great Immortal replied, “flog him first.”

“That old priest of ours couldn’t stand a flogging,” thought Wukong when he heard this, “and if he died under the lash the fault would be mine.” Finding the thought of this unbearable, he spoke up and said, “You’re wrong, sir. I stole the fruit, I ate the fruit, and I pushed the tree over. Why flog him first when you ought to be flogging me?”

“That damn monkey has a point,” said the Great Immortal with a smile, “so you’d better flog him first.”

“How many strokes?” the junior immortal asked.

“Give him thirty,” the Great Immortal replied, “to match the number of fruits.” The junior immortal whirled the lash and started to bring it down. Wukong, frightened that the immortal would have great magical powers, opened his eyes wide and looked carefully to see where he was going to be hit, and it turned out to be on his legs. He twisted at the waist, shouted “Change!” turned them into a pair of wrought-iron legs, and watched the blows fall. The junior immortal gave him thirty lashes, one after the other, until it was almost noon.

“Sanzang must be flogged too,” the Great Immortal commanded, “for training his wicked disciple so slackly and letting him run wild.”

The junior immortal whirled the lash again and was going to strike Sanzang when Wukong said, “Sir, you’re making another mistake. When I stole the fruit, my master knew nothing about it—he was talking to those two boys of yours in the main hall of the temple. This plot was hatched by us three disciples. Anyhow, even if he were guilty of slackness in training me, I’m his disciple and should take the flogging for him. Flog me again.”

“That damn monkey may be cunning and vicious, but he does have some sense of his obligations to his master. Very well then, flog him again.” The junior immortal gave him another thirty strokes. Wukong looked down and watched his legs being flogged till they shone like mirrors but still he felt no pain.

It was now drawing towards evening, and the Great Immortal said, “Put the lash to soak. We can continue that flogging tomorrow.” The junior immortal took the lash away to be soaked while everyone retired to their quarters, and after supper they all went to bed.

“It was because you three got me into this trouble that I was brought here to be punished,” moaned the venerable Sanzang to his three disciples as tears streamed down from his eyes. “Is that how you ought to treat me?”

“Don’t grumble,” Wukong replied. “I was the one to be flogged first, and you haven’t felt the lash, so what have you got to groan about?”

“I may not have been flogged,” Sanzang replied, “but it’s agony being tied up like this.”

“We’re tied up too to keep you company,” said Friar Sand. “Will you all stop shouting?” said Wukong, “then we can be on our way again when we’ve taken a rest.”

“You’re showing off again, Elder Brother,” said Bajie. “They’ve tied us up with hempen ropes and spurted water on them, so we’re tightly bound. This isn’t like the time we were shut in the hall of the temple and you unlocked the doors to let us out.”

“I’m not boasting,” said Wukong. “I don’t give a damn about their three hempen ropes sprayed with water. Even if they were coconut cables as thick as a ricebowl they would only be an autumn breeze.” Apart from him speaking, all was now silence. Splendid Xingzhe made himself smaller, slipped out of his bonds, and said, “Let’s go, Master.”

“Save us too, Elder Brother,” pleaded a worried Friar Sand. “Shut up, shut up,” Wukong replied, then freed Sanzang, Bajie and Friar Sand, straightened his tunic, tightened his belt, saddled the horse, collected their luggage from under the eaves, and went out through the temple gates with the others. “Go and cut down four of the willow-trees by that cliff,” he told Bajie, who asked, “What ever do you want them for?”

“I’ve got a use for them,” Wukong replied. “Bring them here immediately.”

The idiot Bajie, who certainly had brute strength, went and felled each of them with a single bite, and came back holding them all in his arms. Wukong stripped off their tops and branches and told his two fellow-disciples to take the trunks back in and tie them up with the ropes as they themselves had been tied up. Then Wukong recited a spell, bit the tip of his tongue open, and spat blood over the trees. At his shout of “Change!” one of the trees turned into Sanzang, one turned into Wukong, and the other two became Friar Sand and Bajie. They were all perfect likenesses; when questioned they would reply, and when called by their names they responded. The three disciples then hurried back to their master, and once more they traveled all night without stopping as they fled from the Wuzhuang Temple.

By the time it was dawn the venerable Sanzang was swaying to and fro as he dozed in the saddle. “Master,” called Wukong when he noticed, “you’re hopeless. You’re a man of religion—how can you be finding it so exhausting? I can do without sleep for a thousand nights not feeling a bit tired. You’d better dismount and spare yourself the humiliation of being laughed at by a passer-by. Take a rest in one of the places under this hill where the wind is stored and the vapours gather before we go any further.”

We shall leave them resting beside the path to tell how the Great Immortal got up at dawn, ate his meatless breakfast, and went to the hall. “Today Tang Sanzang is to be whipped,” he announced as he sent for the lash. The junior whirled it around and said to the Tang Priest, “I’m going to flog you.”

“Flog away,” the willow tree replied.

When he had given it thirty resounding lashes he whirled the whip around once more and said to Bajie, “Now I’m going to flog you.”

“Flog away,” the willow tree replied.

When he came to flog Friar Sand, he too told him to go ahead. But when he came to flog Wukong, the real Wukong on the road shuddered and said, “Oh, no!”

“What do you mean?” Sanzang asked.

“When I turned the four willow trees into the four of us I thought that as he had me flogged twice yesterday he wouldn’t flog me again today, but now he’s lashing the magic body, my real body is feeling the pain. I’m putting an end to this magic.” With that he hastily recited an incantation to break the spell.

Look at the terror of the Taoist boys as they throw down their leather whips and report, “Master, at first we were flogging the Priest from the Great Tang, but all we are flogging now are willow trunks. The Great Immortal laughed bitterly on hearing this and was full of admiration.

“Sun Wukong really is a splendid Monkey King. I had heard that when he turned the Heavenly Palace upside-down, he could not even be caught with a Heaven and Earth Net, and now I see it must be true. I wouldn’t mind your escaping, but why did you leave four willows tied up here to impersonate you? He shall be shown no mercy. After him!” As the words “After him” left his mouth, the Great Immortal sprang up on a cloud and looked west to see the monks carrying their bundles and spurring their horse as they went on their way. Bringing his cloud down he shouted, “Where are you going, ape? Give me back my manfruit tree.”

“We’re done for,” exclaimed Bajie, “our enemy’s come back.”

“Put all your piety away for now, Master,” said Wukong, “while we finish him off once and for all with a bit of evil; then we’ll be able to escape.” The Tang Priest shivered and shook on hearing this, and before he could answer, the three disciples rushed forward, Friar Sand wielding his staff, Bajie with his rake held high, and the Great Sage Sun brandishing his iron cudgel. They surrounded the Great Immortal in mid-air and struck wildly at him. There are some verses about this terrible fight:

Wukong did not know that the Immortal Zhen Yuan,

The Conjoint Lord of the Age, had even deeper powers.

While the three magic weapons fiercely whirled,

His deer-tail fly-whisk gently waved.

Parrying to left and right, he moved to and fro,

Blocking blows from front and back he let them rush around.

When night gave way to dawn they still were locked in combat.

If they tarried here they would never reach the Western Heaven.

The three of them went for him with their magic weapons, but the Great Immortal kept them at bay with his fly-whisk. After about an hour he opened wide his sleeve and caught up master, disciples, horse, and baggage in it once more. Then he turned his cloud around and went back to his temple, where all the immortals greeted him. After taking his seat in the hall he took them out of his sleeve one by one. He had the Tang Priest tied to a stunted locust tree at the foot of the steps, with Bajie and Friar Sand tied to trees next to him. Wukong was tied up upside-down, which made him think that he was going to be tortured and interrogated. When Wukong was tightly bound, the Great Immortal sent for ten long turban-cloths.

“What a kind gentleman, right, Bajie?” said Wukong. “He’s sent for some cloth to make sleeves for us—with a bit less he could have made us cassocks.” The junior immortals fetched home-woven cloth, and on being told by the Great Immortal to wrap up Bajie and Friar Sand with it, they came forward to do so.

“Excellent,” said Wukong, “excellent—you’re being encoffined alive.” Within a few moments the three of them were wrapped up, and lacquer was then sent for. The immortals quickly fetched some lacquer that they had tapped and dried themselves, with which they painted the three bandaged bodies all over except for the heads.

“Never mind about our heads, sir,” said Bajie, “but please leave us a hole at the bottom to shit through.”

The Great Immortal then sent for a huge cauldron, at which Wukong said with a laugh, “You’re in luck, Bajie. I think they must have brought the cauldron out to cook us some rice in.”

“Fine,” said Bajie, “I hope they give us some rice first—we’ll make much better-looking ghosts if we die with our bellies full.”

The immortals carried out the large cauldron and put it under the steps, and the Great Immortal called for dry wood to be stacked up round it and set ablaze. “Ladle it full of pure oil,” he commanded, “and when it is hot enough to bubble, deep-fry Wukong in it to pay me back for my manfruit.”

Wukong was secretly delighted to hear this. “This is just what I want,” he thought. “I haven’t had a bath for ages, and my skin’s getting rather itchy. I’d thoroughly appreciate a hot bath.” Very soon the oil was bubbling and Wukong was having reservations: he was afraid that the immortal’s magic might be hard for him to fathom, and that at first he might be unable to use his limbs in the cauldron. Hastily looking around him, he saw that there was a sundial to the east of the dais and a stone lion to the west. Wukong rolled towards it with a spring, bit off the end of his tongue, spurted blood all over the stone lion, and shouted “Change,” at which it turned into his own image, tied up in a bundle like himself. Then he extracted his spirit and went up into the clouds, from where he looked down at the Taoists.

It was just at this moment that the junior immortals reported, “The oil’s boiling hard.”

“Carry Wukong down to it,” the Great Immortal ordered, but when four of them tried to pick him up they could not. Eight then tried and failed, and four more made no difference. “This earth-infatuated ape is immovable,” they said. “He may be small, but he’s very solid.” Twelve junior immortals were then told to pick him up with the aid of carrying-poles, and when they threw him in there was a loud crash as drops of oil splashed about, raising blisters all over the junior immortals’ faces. “There’s a hole in the cauldron—it’s started leaking,” the scalded immortals cried, but before the words were out of their mouths the oil had all run out through the broken bottom of the cauldron. They realized that they had thrown a stone lion into it.

“Damn that ape for his insolence,” said the Great Immortal in a terrible rage. “How dare he play his tricks in my presence! I don’t mind so much about your getting away, but how dare you wreck my cauldron? It’s useless trying to catch him, and even if you could it would be like grinding mercury out of sand, or trying to hold a shadow or the wind. Forget about him, let him go. Untie Tang Sanzang instead and fetch another pot. We can fry him to avenge the destruction of the tree.” The junior immortals set to and began to tear off Sanzang’s lacquered bandages.

Wukong could hear all this clearly from mid-air. “The master will be done for,” he thought. “If he goes into that cauldron it’ll kill him. Then he’ll be cooked, and after four or five fryings he’ll be eaten as a really tender piece of monk. I must go back down and save him.” The splendid Great Sage brought his cloud down to land, clasped his hands in front of him, and said, “Don’t spoil the lacquered bands, and don’t fry my master. Put me in the cauldron of oil instead.”

“I’ll get you, you baboon,” raged the Great Immortal in astonishment. “Why did you use one of your tricks to smash my cooking pot?”

“You must expect to be smashed up if you meet me—and what business is it of mine anyhow? I was going to accept your kind offer of some hot oil, but I was desperate for a shit and a piss, and if I’d done them in your cauldron, I’d have spoilt your oil and your food wouldn’t have tasted right. Now I’ve done my stuff I’m ready for the cauldron. Please fry me instead of my master.” The Great Immortal laughed coldly, came out of the hall, and seized him.

If you don’t know how the story goes or how he escaped, listen to the explanation in the next installment.