Twenty-two characters, and they are the best-placed twenty-two in the chapter. A voice from the roadside offers the Tang priest a meal — the most ordinary courtesy on this road, and the opening move of a good half of the episodes in the book — and Tripitaka's heart sinks. He has just spent three chapters tied up in the back of a cave because he would not stay inside a circle Pilgrim drew for him, and the narrative does not need to say so.

It is also the standard hook, worked with unusual economy. The reader has had the resolution, the dispersal of the gods and the return to the road, and the novel spends its last full sentence putting the next danger in place before it has finished clearing away the last one. The road offers food, the elder is afraid, and the formula follows.