The king lay slumped against his dragon-couch, tears welling like a spring, and wept without ceasing till the day grew late. Pilgrim stepped forward and called out to him. “Why are you in such a daze of grief? There lie the corpses of those Daoists: one a tiger, one a deer, and Goatpower yonder no more than an antelope. If you doubt it, have the bones fished up and look — where would any man have skulls like those? They were mountain-beasts turned goblin, come here of one mind to do you harm; but seeing your fated fortune still in its prime, they dared not lay a hand on you. Had two more years gone by and that fortune waned, they would have taken your life and made your whole realm, in a single lump, their own. Happily we came in good time, cleared away the fiends and saved you. What are you still weeping for? Weeping for what? Hurry and issue our travel-rescript, and see us on our way.”
Hearing this, the king at last came to his senses. His officials, civil and military, all reported the same: the dead were indeed a white deer and a yellow tiger, and in the oil-cauldron there truly lay a goat's bones. “The holy monk's words must not go unheeded.”
“Since it is so,” said the king, “I thank the holy monk. The hour grows late today.” And he gave his orders. “Grand Preceptor, pray conduct the holy monks to the Monastery of Wisdom's Depths. Tomorrow at the morning court I shall throw open the Eastern Pavilion and have the Court of Imperial Entertainments lay out a pure vegetarian feast to render thanks.” And so they were duly escorted to the monastery to rest.
Next day, at the fifth watch, the king held court, gathered his many officials and handed down a decree: “Quickly issue a proclamation recalling the monks, and post it at the four gates and along every road.” Meanwhile a great banquet was laid out; the royal carriage rolled from court to the gate of the Monastery of Wisdom's Depths, where Tripitaka and his fellows were invited into the Eastern Pavilion for the feast — of which no more need be told.
Now those monks who had escaped with their lives, hearing of the proclamation, were each of them overjoyed, and all came into the city to seek out the Great Sage Sun and return his hairs in thanks. When the elder had risen from the banquet, the king exchanged the travel-rescript and, with the queen, the palace consorts and the two ranks of officials, saw them out beyond the court gate. There they found the monks kneeling in worship by the roadside, crying out: “Grandfather Great Sage Equal to Heaven, we are the monks who escaped with our lives on the sand-flats. Learning that Your Reverence had swept away the demon-brood and delivered us, and that our king had further posted a proclamation to recall us, we have come expressly to return your hairs and knock our heads in thanks for Heaven's grace.”
Pilgrim laughed and asked how many of them had come. “Five hundred,” said the monks, “and not the half of one missing.” He gave his body a shake and drew his hairs back in.
Then, to ruler and subject, monk and layman alike, he declared: “These monks — it was truly old Sun who set them free; the carts — it was old Sun who wheeled them through the double pass, hauled them over the ridge-spine and dashed them to pieces; and those two demon-Daoists — it was old Sun, too, who beat them to death. Today, with the fiends destroyed, you know at last that it is the Gate of Chan that holds the Way. Hereafter you must not again act rashly or believe blindly. I would have you make the Three Teachings one: revere the monks, revere the Daoists, and rear up men of talent alike. So shall I warrant your realm secure forever.”
The king did as he was bidden, thanked them past all telling, and escorted the Tang Monk out of the city and away.
On they went from there — all for the earnest study of the Three Baskets of scripture, striving in cultivation to brighten the single Prime. Travelling by dawn and lodging by night, drinking when thirsty and eating when hungry, before they knew it spring was spent and summer waning, and again the light of autumn was on the air.
One day, when the sky had darkened, the Tang Monk reined in his horse. “Disciples, where shall we shelter tonight?”
“Master,” said Pilgrim, “one who has left the household should not talk like one who keeps a household.”
“And what of one who keeps a household?” said Tripitaka. “And what of one who has left it?”
“The householder, at this hour, has his warm bed and quilt, a child cradled at his breast and his wife tucked at his feet, and sleeps easy and content. We who have left the household — where would we come by such comfort? For us it is to wear the moon and cloak ourselves in stars, to sup on wind and lodge by water. Where there is a road we press on, and only where there is none do we halt.”
“Brother,” said Eight Rules, “you know the one but not the other. The road now is all steeps and crags, and I, shouldering this heavy load, find the going truly hard. We must seek out some place to sleep a good sleep and restore our spirits, so that tomorrow I may bear the load the better. Otherwise, will it not wear me clean out?”
“Let us take the moonlight and go a stage further,” said Pilgrim, “and lodge when we reach some place of habitation.” Master and disciples, having no help for it, could only follow him on ahead.
They had not journeyed much further when they heard the surging roar of waves.
“That's torn it,” said Eight Rules. “We've come to the road's very end.”
“It is a stretch of water barring the way,” said Sha Monk.
“However are we to get across?” said the Tang Monk.
“Let me test it,” said Eight Rules, “and see how deep or shallow it is.”
“Wuneng, no idle talk,” said Tripitaka. “How are you to test the depth of the water?”
“Find a goose-egg cobble and toss it into the midst. If it throws up bubbles, the water is shallow; if it goes down with a gurgling plunge, the water is deep.”
“Go and try it, then.”
The blockhead groped out a lump of stone and flung it in, and they heard only a gurgle as it stirred up a bubbling froth and sank to the bottom. “Deep, deep, deep!” he cried. “There's no crossing it.”
“You have tested the depth,” said the Tang Monk, “but you still do not know how broad it is.”
“That, indeed, I do not know. I do not know.”
“Let me have a look.” And the Great Sage sprang up on his somersault-cloud, leapt into the air, fixed his gaze, and beheld this:
Vast and gleaming, its light steeped the moon;
boundless its breadth, its mirrored image bore up the sky.
Its numinous currents would swallow Mount Hua;
its long flood threads a hundred streams.
A thousand layers of surging billows roll;
ten thousand folds of steep waves toss.
At the shore-mouth no fisher's lamp;
on the sand-spit a heron sleeps.
Trackless, it seems for all the world a sea;
gaze as you will, there is no farther shore.
Quickly gathering in his cloud, he set down at the river's edge. “Master, it's wide, it's wide — there's no crossing it. Old Sun's fiery eyes and golden pupils can commonly see a thousand lǐ by daylight and make out fortune from ill; even by night I can still see three or five hundred. But just now I cannot make out the farther bank at all. How am I to fix the measure of its breadth?”
Tripitaka started in great alarm, unable to speak, and said in a voice choked with sobs: “Disciples — with a thing like this, what are we to do?”
“Master, do not weep,” said Sha Monk. “Look there — that figure standing at the water's edge. Is that not a man?”
“It must be a fisherman working his lift-net,” said Pilgrim. “Let me go and ask him.” Taking up his iron cudgel, in two or three strides he ran up before it to look — and lo, it was no man at all, but a slab of standing stone. On it were three great characters in seal-script, and below, in two lines, ten smaller ones. The three great characters read The River That Reaches the Sky; the ten smaller ones read: Eight hundred lǐ straight across; since antiquity, few travellers pass.
“Master, come and have a look.”
Tripitaka saw it and let fall his tears. “Disciples, in the year I took leave of Chang'an I supposed the road to the Western Heaven an easy one. How was I to know that demons would bar the way, and mountains and waters stretch on so far?”
“Master, just listen,” said Eight Rules. “Where is that sound of drums and cymbals coming from? It must be some household holding a maigre-feast. Let us go and cadge a little of the fare, ask after a ferry-crossing and look for a boat, and cross over tomorrow.”
From horseback Tripitaka heard it, and sure enough there was a sound of drums and cymbals. “These are no Daoist instruments — they are surely the doings of our own Buddhist folk. Let us go, then.”
Pilgrim went ahead leading the horse, and the whole company came on toward the sound. There was no proper road at all, no high ground and no low, and floundering across the sand-flats they came in sight of a cluster of dwellings, some four or five hundred households, all of them set out well enough. And this is what they saw:
Backed on the hills, a road runs through;
skirting the bank, it fronts the stream.
Everywhere the brushwood gates are shut;
house by house the bamboo courtyards barred.
On the sand-spit the roosting heron's dream is clear;
beyond the willows the crying birds' throats are cold.
The short flute makes no sound;
the cold fulling-block keeps no measure.
Red smartweed sprays sway in the moon;
yellow reed-leaves vie with the wind.
At the lane's end a village dog barks by the thin hedge;
at the ford an old fisher sleeps in his angling-boat.
The lamplights are few, the cook-smoke still;
midway up the sky the bright moon hangs like a mirror.
Of a sudden a breath of white duckweed's scent —
it is the west wind, carrying it from across the bank.
Tripitaka dismounted. At the head of the road stood a certain household: before its gate a banner-streamer, and within, lamps and candles blazing and incense-smoke hanging rich and fragrant.
“Wukong, this place is quite unlike that mountain-hollow by the river. Under the eaves of a human dwelling we may shelter from the cold dew and sleep soundly at ease. None of you come along; let me go first to that alms-master's gate and make the request. If he is willing to take me in, I shall call for you; but if he will not, you must not make a rumpus. Your faces are so ugly that I fear you would frighten folk and blunder us into trouble, and then we should have nowhere at all to stay.”
“That is well said,” said Pilgrim. “Let the Master go on ahead; we shall wait here.”
The elder had just doffed his bamboo rain-hat, and bare-headed, shaking out his cassock and trailing his ringed staff, he came straight to the household's gate. Seeing it half-open and half-shut, he dared not enter unbidden. He stood a little while, and out from within came an old man with a string of prayer-beads at his throat, reciting “Amitābha Buddha” as he went to close the gate. In a fluster the elder pressed his palms together and called aloud: “Old patron, this poor monk gives you greeting.”
The old man returned the courtesy. “You monk — you have come too late.”
“How do you mean?”
“Come late, and there is nothing left. Had you come early, at my house we feasted the monks — a full meal to satiety, three shēng of cooked rice, a bolt of white cloth and ten copper cash. Why do you come only now?”
Tripitaka bowed. “Old patron, this poor monk is not here to cadge the feast.”
“If not for the feast, then what do you come here for?”
“I am one sent by imperial commission from the Land of the East, Great Tang, to fetch scriptures from the Western Heaven. Coming now to your honoured place, the day has grown dark. Hearing the drums and cymbals at your house, I have come expressly to beg one night's lodging, and shall be on my way at daybreak.”
The old man waved his hand. “Monk, a man who has left the household should not tell lies. From the Land of the East, Great Tang, to this place of mine is fifty-four thousand lǐ of road. How could you, all alone like this, have come so far?”
“Old patron, you see it most rightly. But I have three young disciples besides, who open a road where there are mountains and lay a bridge where there is water, guarding this poor monk, so that only thus have I come this far.”
“Since you have disciples, why did they not come with you? Come in, come in — at my house there is room to lodge.”
Tripitaka turned his head and called out: “Disciples, come here.”
Now Pilgrim was hasty by nature, Eight Rules coarse from birth, and Sha Monk reckless too. The three of them, hearing the Master call, led the horse and shouldered the load, and without a by-your-leave came charging in on a gust of wind. The old man, seeing them, was so frightened that he toppled to the ground, crying over and over: “The monsters have come, the monsters have come!”
Tripitaka raised him up. “Patron, do not be afraid. They are no monsters, but my disciples.”
“Such a fine, handsome master,” said the old man, trembling. “How did you come by disciples as ugly as these?”
“Ill-favoured as they are, they can yet subdue dragons and tame tigers, and seize monsters and catch fiends.”
The old man, half believing and half not, supported the Tang Monk and walked slowly on.
The three rough fellows, meanwhile, had come charging into the hall, tethered the horse and thrown down the baggage. A few monks had been chanting the scriptures there, when Eight Rules thrust out his long snout and bawled: “You monks — what sutra is it you are reciting?” And hearing the question shouted out, of a sudden they raised their heads:
They looked at the strangers come from without —
snouts long and ears grown large,
bodies coarse, shoulders broad,
voices booming like a thunderclap.
Pilgrim and Sha Monk
were of a countenance uglier still.
Of all the monks in the hall
not one was unafraid.
The reader still droned the sutra,
but the precentor called the service off.
No thought now for chime-stone or bell,
the Buddha-images left where they lay.
All at once they blew the lamps out,
scattering in a fitful flare of light.
Stumbling and scrambling —
when did any clear the threshold?
Head knocking against head,
like a gourd-trellis toppled down.
A pure and seemly ritual-ground
turned into a great burlesque.
The three brothers, seeing the people stumbling and scrambling, clapped their hands and roared with laughter — at which the monks grew the more terror-struck, and knocking heads and cracking pates, each looking to his own life, they all ran clean off.
Tripitaka, steadying the old man, came up into the hall, where the lamps were wholly out and the three still tittered and guffawed. The Tang Monk scolded them. “You wretches, you are wholly graceless. Morning after morning I instruct you, day after day I admonish you. The ancients said: Good without being taught — what is that but a sage? Good only after being taught — what is that but a worthy? Not good even when taught — what is that but a fool? You lot, carrying on so unruly, are truly of the lowest and most foolish kind. Blundering in at the door with no sense of high or low, you frightened the old patron off his feet, scattered the chanting monks and wrecked the good rite of this household. Is that not to bring guilt down on me?” So he spoke, till they dared make no answer.
The old man, now certain they were his disciples, turned quickly and made a bow. “Reverend, it is no great matter, no great matter. The lamps were just now put out and the flowers scattered; the Buddhist service was about to conclude in any case.”
“Since the business is wound up,” said Eight Rules, “bring out the closing spread — wine and rice — and let us eat and sleep.”
“Bring lamps!” called the old man. “Bring lamps!”
The household folk, hearing him, made a great to-do. “They were chanting in the hall with candles and incense enough. Why call now for lamps?” But when several serving-lads came out to look, all there was pitch-black, so they lit torches and lanterns and came thronging in. Raising their heads of a sudden, they saw Eight Rules and Sha Monk, dropped the torches in fright and, wheeling round, slammed the middle gate, shouting toward the back of the house: “The monsters have come! The monsters have come!”
Pilgrim took up a torch, lit the lamps and candles, drew over a folding chair and invited the Tang Monk to sit above; his brothers sat to either side, and the old man in front. Just as they were settling into their seats they heard within the sound of a door opening, and out came another old man, leaning on a staff. “What evil spirits are these, come to my god-fearing house in the dead of night?”
The first rose hastily and went to meet him behind the screen-gate. “Brother, do not shout. They are no evil spirits, but arhats from the Land of the East, Great Tang, come to fetch the scriptures. Though the disciples are fierce of feature, they are truly a case of ugly looks and kindly hearts.”
At this the old man set down his staff and made his courtesies to the four of them. The courtesies done, he too sat down in front, and called: “Bring tea. Lay out the meal.” He called several times over, but the few serving-lads, trembling, dared not come near.
Eight Rules could not hold back. “Old sir, why do these worthy servants of yours keep running back and forth?”
“I have bidden them bring the meal to wait upon you reverends.”
“How many are to serve?”
“Eight of them.”
“And which of us do these eight serve?”
“They serve all four of you.”
“That white-faced master needs but one man,” said Eight Rules. “The hairy-faced one with the thunder-god's snout needs but two. But that hangdog-faced fellow wants eight, and I must have twenty to serve me before it's enough.”
“By that reckoning,” said the old man, “your appetite must run rather large.”
“Well, it will pass muster.”
“There are hands enough, hands enough.” And great and small together, he called out some thirty or forty of them.
As the monk and the old men talked back and forth, question and answer, the household folk at last left off their fear. At the head they set out a table and invited the Tang Monk to the seat of honour; on either side they laid three tables and seated his three companions; and at a table in front sat the two old men. First they brought out vegetarian fruits and greens, then noodles and rice, side-dishes and bean-flour broth, all set out neat and trim.
The Tang elder took up his chopsticks and first recited a scroll of the Grace-Before-Meat Sutra. The blockhead — for one thing given to bolting his food, for another half-starved — was in no mood to wait for him to finish. He seized a red-lacquered wooden bowl, tipped a whole bowl of white rice down his gullet with a plop, and it was gone.
A young servant at his side said: “This reverend has no notion of thrift. Instead of stowing away the steamed buns, he stows away the rice. Won't he soil his robe?”
Eight Rules laughed. “I stowed nothing away. I ate it.”
“You never raised it to your lips. How could you have eaten it?”
“Sonny-boys, don't tell tales. I plainly ate it, and if you doubt it, I'll eat another for you to watch.”
The young servants brought another bowl, filled it and handed it to him. The blockhead gave it a flick, tipped it down his gullet, and again it was gone. “Good heavens!” cried the serving-boys. “Your throat must be laid of polished brick — truly smooth and slick.”
Tripitaka's one scroll of sutra was not yet done, and already Eight Rules had put away five or six bowls. Only then did they take up their chopsticks together and eat the meal as one — and the blockhead, rice or noodles, fruit or side-dish, all alike, just scooped and gorged without measure, still bawling: “More rice! More rice!” Little by little the food stopped coming.
“Worthy brother, eat a little less,” Pilgrim called out. “Even this is far better than starving in the mountain-hollow. Make do, and if you reach half-full, that will serve.”
“The cheek of it! As the saying goes: To feast a monk and leave him unfilled is worse than burying him alive.”
“Clear away the things,” said Pilgrim, “and pay him no mind.”
The two old men bowed. “To be honest with you, reverend, by daylight we should not be afraid — even a big-bellied elder like this we could feast, a hundred or more of him. But it is late, and the leftover feast is cleared. We have steamed only one dàn of flour-rice, five dǒu of rice and a few tables of vegetarian fare, meaning to invite some kin and neighbours and the monks to share the blessing-food. We did not look for you gentlemen to come; the monks were frightened off, and we dared not even invite the kin and neighbours, so the whole of it has been served up to you. If you are still not filled, we shall have more steamed.”
“Steam more,” said Eight Rules. “Steam more.”
When the talk was done, they cleared away the vessels and the tables. Tripitaka folded his hands, thanked them for the meal, and only then asked: “Old patron, what is your honoured surname?”
“My surname is Chen.”
Tripitaka pressed his palms together. “Then this is my own clan-name.”
“Your reverence is a Chen as well?”
“I am. In lay life too I was surnamed Chen. May I ask what merit-rite you were just now performing?”
“Master, why ask him?” laughed Eight Rules. “Do you not know already? It must surely be a Green-Sprout rite, a Peace rite, or a closing rite, that's all.”
“No, no,” said the old man.
“What then, exactly?” asked Tripitaka.
“It is a Rite of Requiem Prepared in Advance.”
Eight Rules laughed till he doubled over. “Grandpa, you've no eye for things. We are the very kings of tall tales and bridge-building lies to gull folk — how do you think to fob this fib off on me? As if a house of monks knew nothing of merit-rites! There is only the Treasury-Deposit-in-Advance rite and the Repayment-in-Advance rite. Where is there any Requiem Prepared in Advance? No one in your house has died. Why perform a requiem?”
Pilgrim, hearing this, was secretly pleased. “The blockhead has grown a touch cleverer. — Old sir, you have it wrong. How can it be called a Requiem Prepared in Advance?”
The two elders bowed slightly. “You who go to fetch scriptures — why did you not keep to the main road, but come stumbling over here to us?”
“We were on the main road, when we came on a stretch of water barring the way and could not cross. Hearing the drums and cymbals, we came to your house to beg a night's lodging.”
“When you reached the water, did you see anything?”
“We saw only a stone stele, inscribed above with the three characters The River That Reaches the Sky, and below with ten: Eight hundred lǐ straight across; since antiquity, few pass this way. Nothing else.”
“Go a little further up the bank. Only a lǐ or so from that stele-record stands a Shrine of the Numinous Great King. Did you not see it?”
“We did not. Pray, old sir, tell us — what is this Numinous Response?”
The two old men, with one accord, shed tears. “Ah, reverend — that Great King:
His Numinous Response raised a shrine for the whole region;
his awesome power blesses the folk a thousand lǐ round.
Year by year he sends sweet rain upon the fields;
season by season he lets fall auspicious clouds on the village.”
“Sending sweet rain, letting fall auspicious clouds — that is kindly enough,” said Pilgrim, “yet you grieve and fret like this. Why so?”
The old man stamped his feet and beat his breast, and with a groan said: “Ah, reverend —
Though his bounty is much, there is yet resentment;
for all his mercy, he does men harm.
It is only that he must eat boys and girls;
he is no shining, upright god.”
“He eats boys and girls?”
“Just so.”
“And it has, I suppose, come round to your house?”
“This year it falls to us. There are a hundred households dwelling here. The place is under Yuanhui County of the Cart-Slow Kingdom, and is called the Chen Village. This Great King holds a sacrifice once a year, requiring one boy, one girl, and pigs, sheep and wine offered up to him. When he has eaten his fill, he keeps our winds mild and our rains timely; if we fail to sacrifice, he comes to send down calamity and disaster.”
“How many sons has your house?”
The old man beat his breast. “Alas, alas! Speak not of worthy sons — it shames us to death. This is my younger brother, named Chen Qing. I am called Chen Cheng. I am sixty-three this year and he fifty-eight, and in the matter of children we have both been hard-pressed. At fifty I still had no son; my kin urged me to take a concubine, and having no help for it I found one, who bore me a daughter, just turned eight this year, named One-Steelyard-of-Gold.”
“A costly name indeed,” said Eight Rules. “Why call her One-Steelyard-of-Gold?”
“Being hard-pressed for children, I built bridges and mended roads, raised temples and pagodas, and gave alms to feed monks. I kept an account-book — here three taels spent, there five taels. By the year the girl was born, it happened I had spent a full thirty catties of gold. Thirty catties make one steelyard-weight, and so she is called One-Steelyard-of-Gold.”
“And is the son that other one's?”
“My brother has a son, likewise by a concubine, seven years old this year, named Chen Guanbao.”
“Why was he given this name?”
“Our house venerates Lord Guan the Sage, and because it was before Lord Guan's altar that we prayed and got this son, he is named Guanbao — Guan-Protected. We two brothers, our years together a hundred and twenty, have only these two seeds of our line; and now the turn has come round to our house to sacrifice, so we dare not but offer them up. And so, this bond of father and child being so hard to sever, we hold beforehand a rite of deliverance for the children. This, then, is what is meant by a Requiem Prepared in Advance.”
Tripitaka, hearing it, could not stanch the tears at his cheeks. “This is just what the ancients meant: The yellow plum falls not, the green plum falls; Heaven wrongs of all men the sonless most.”
Pilgrim laughed. “Let me question him further. Old sir, how large is your household's estate?”
“We have a fair bit,” said the two elders. “Forty or fifty qǐng of paddy-field, sixty or seventy of dry field, eighty or ninety plots of grazing-ground; two or three hundred head of water-buffalo and ox, twenty or thirty donkeys and horses, and pigs, sheep, fowl and geese past counting. At home too we have old grain we cannot eat through, and clothes we cannot wear out. Our wealth and holdings, too, can all be reckoned.”
“With an estate like this, you have done well to save it up.”
“How do you see me as thrifty?”
“Having such means, how can you bear to sacrifice your own flesh-and-blood children? For fifty taels of silver you could buy a boy; for a hundred taels you could buy a girl. All told, with incidentals, no more than two hundred taels — and you could keep your own children and your line's posterity. Is that not the better course?”
The two elders wept. “Reverend, you do not understand. That Great King is exceedingly numinous, and comes often to walk among our households.”
“When he comes walking, what sort of face do you see him wear? And how tall or short is he?”
“We see no shape of him. Only we smell a gust of fragrant wind, and know the Great King has come, and hasten to burn a full dǒu of incense, young and old bowing toward the wind. The petty affairs of our households, down to the size of a spoon or a bowl, he knows them all; the birth-times of young and old, the year and month, he remembers them all. Only flesh-and-blood children will he accept for his enjoyment. Not to speak of two or three hundred taels, with no place to buy them — even for tens of millions there is nowhere to buy children so exactly alike, of the same year and month.”
“So that is how it stands,” said Pilgrim. “Well then, well then. Go bring out your son, and let me have a look at him.”
Chen Qing hurried within, carried Guanbao out into the hall and set him down before the lamp. What did the small child know of life and death? With both sleeves stuffed full of fruit he capered and danced about, eating and playing. Pilgrim, seeing him, silently recited a spell, shook his body and changed — and became the very image of Guanbao. The two children took each other by the hand and danced before the lamp, and the old man was so startled that he fell hastily to his knees.
“Reverend sir,” said the Tang Monk, “this is not to be done to a child. Not to a child!”
“Your reverence was speaking but a moment ago,” said the old man. “How is it you are changed into the very likeness of my son, so that when one calls, both answer and both come together? It will surely cut short our allotted years. Pray resume your true form, pray resume your true form.”
Pilgrim passed a hand across his face and resumed it. The old man knelt before him. “So your reverence has such powers as this!”
“Was I like your son?” laughed Pilgrim.
“Like, like, like! The very face, the very voice, the very clothes, the very height.”
“You have not looked closely enough. Fetch the steelyard and weigh me. Am I of one weight with him?”
“Yes, yes, yes — the very same weight.”
“Like this, will it pass for the sacrifice?”
“Excellent, excellent. It will pass well enough.”
“I shall now take this child's life upon myself,” said Pilgrim, “and leave your house its line and its incense. I am going to be sacrificed to that Great King.”
Chen Qing knelt to the ground and knocked his head. “If your reverence will indeed be so merciful as to take his place, I will send a thousand taels of white silver to the venerable Tang for his travelling expenses to the Western Heaven.”
“And no thanks at all to old Sun?”
“You will have gone to the sacrifice. You will be no more.”
“How should I come to be no more?”
“That Great King will eat you.”
“He would dare to eat me?”
“If he does not eat you, it will only be that he finds you rank.”
Pilgrim laughed. “Let Heaven's will dispose of it. If he eats me, my span was short; if he does not, it is my good fortune. I shall go and be sacrificed for you.”
Chen Qing did nothing but knock his head in thanks, and promised a further five hundred taels of silver. Only Chen Cheng neither knocked his head nor spoke a word of thanks, but leaned against the screen-gate and wept bitterly. Pilgrim understood, and going up took hold of him. “Eldest, you neither accept my offer nor thank me. I take it you cannot bear to give up your daughter?”
Only then did Chen Cheng kneel. “It is so. I cannot bear it. That your reverence should be so generous as to save my nephew in his stead is more than enough. But I, an old fool, have no son; this one daughter is all I have, and were I dead she is the one who would weep for me most bitterly. How could I bear to give her up?”
“Go quickly and steam up five dǒu of rice,” said Pilgrim, “and get ready some good vegetarian dishes for that long-snouted master of mine to eat. I shall have him change into your daughter, and we two brothers will go to the sacrifice together. We may as well do a deed of hidden merit and save the lives of both your children. How would that be?”
When Eight Rules heard this he was greatly dismayed. “Brother, you want to show off your powers, and never mind whether I live or die. You must drag me into it.”
“Worthy brother, as the saying goes: A chicken does not eat the food it has not worked for. We came in at their door and were treated to a handsome meal — you were still bawling that you had not eaten your fill — so why not save these people from a little trouble?”
“Brother, this business of transformations. I am not equal to it.”
“You too have your thirty-six transformations. How can you not be equal to it?”
“Wuneng,” called Tripitaka, “your elder brother has spoken most rightly and judged the matter most aptly. As the saying is: To save one life is better than to raise a seven-storied pagoda. For one thing, it repays their kindness; for another, it lays up hidden merit; and besides, the cool night is idle — go and have your sport, brothers.”
“Listen to what the Master says! I can only turn into a mountain, a tree, a stone, a mangy elephant, a water-buffalo or a great fat fellow — those I can manage. But to turn into a little girl, there I find some difficulty.”
“Eldest, pay him no mind,” said Pilgrim. “Bring out your daughter and let us see her.”
Chen Cheng hurried within and carried the child One-Steelyard-of-Gold out into the hall. The whole household — wives and concubines, great and small, old and young, within doors and without — came out to knock their heads and make obeisance, begging only that the child's life be saved. On her head that girl wore a flowered kingfisher-blue circlet hung with eight-jewel pendant pearls; on her body a jacket of red-shot-yellow ramie-silk, and over it a cape of official-green damask with a chequer-board collar; at her waist a great red skirt of figured silk was tied; on her feet a pair of toad-head shoes of pale red ramie-silk; and on her legs two gold-threaded knee-hose. She too held a piece of fruit and was eating it.
“Eight Rules, this is the girl. Be quick and change into her likeness, and let us go to the sacrifice.”
“Brother! Something so small and dainty and pretty — how am I to change into that?”
“Quickly now. Don't ask for a beating.”
Eight Rules took fright. “Brother, don't hit me. Let me change and we shall see.” The blockhead recited his spell, gave his head a shake or two and cried: “Change!” Sure enough his head came over changed, and looked for all the world like the little girl's face — only his belly stayed fat and gross, ungainly and all wrong.
“Change again,” laughed Pilgrim.
“Beat me if you like, then. It will not come over. What is to be done?”
“You surely don't mean a maidservant's head on a monk's body? To have made yourself neither man nor woman like this — how will that serve? Set out the Dipper-stance and hold it.” Then he blew a breath of immortal air upon him, and at once, sure enough, the body came over changed, exactly like that child's.
“You two elders,” he directed them, “take your households in with your son and your daughter, and do not get them mixed up. In a little while, should my brother and I shirk and play sly and come walking in, it will be the harder to tell us apart. Give them good fruit to eat, and do not let them cry out, lest the Great King get wind of it in the moment and the secret leak. Wait while we two go and have our sport.”
The Great Sage then charged Sha Monk to guard the Tang Monk. “I have become Chen Guanbao, and Eight Rules has become One-Steelyard-of-Gold.” The two of them being now in readiness, he asked: “How are we to be presented? Are we to go bound, or go trussed? Steamed through first, or chopped into bits?”
“Brother, don't play with me,” said Eight Rules. “I have no stomach for that.”
“We should not presume, we should not presume,” said the old man. “Only we use two red-lacquered cinnabar trays. We ask the two of you to sit within them, set them on a table, and have two young men carry the table up to the shrine with you on it.”
“Good, good, good. Fetch out the trays and let us try them.”
The old man at once brought out two cinnabar trays, and Pilgrim and Eight Rules sat up on them. Four young men lifted the two tables and took a turn out into the courtyard, then carried them back and set them down in the hall.
“Eight Rules,” said Pilgrim gleefully, “with a bit of walking and playing about like this, we are monks who have come up on the banquet-tray!”
“If we were carried out and carried back again, carried to and fro till daybreak, I should not mind. But being carried into the shrine, where we are straightway to be eaten — that is no sport at all.”
“Just keep your eye on me. If it comes to his eating me, then off you go.”
“Who knows how he eats them? If he eats the boy first, then I can make a good run for it; but if he eats the girl first, what then becomes of me?”
“In the years of the sacrifice,” said the old man, “some bold fellows among us have crept in behind the shrine, or under the offering-table, and seen that he eats the boy first and the girl after.”
“My luck,” said Eight Rules. “My luck!”
The brothers were still in the midst of their talk when they heard from without a clamour of gongs and drums to shake the sky and a blaze of lamps and torches, as the villagers all together threw open the front gate and called: “Bring out the boy and the girl!” The old men wept and sobbed, and the four young men carried the two of them out.
There is truly no knowing how it went with their lives — so listen to the telling in the next chapter.