The formula is a hinge, not an ending, and it does what hinges do. Chapter fifteen has answered both halves of its own title: the gods gave their secret protection, at the gorge and again at a shrine that was not there; and the will-horse took the rein, first at Guanyin's word and then from an old man's cupboard. What it leaves unresolved is the pair themselves — a master who bows to empty air and a disciple who laughs at him, who quarrel over a joke about a stolen horse and cannot be trusted with a clothes-line. They ride toward a monastery, and the storyteller stops, because that is where the coins were taken up.