Now Bajie sprang down off the mountain and lit on a narrow path. He followed it five or six lǐ, and all at once saw two women fiends drawing water at a well. How did he know they were fiends? He saw that each had on her head a bamboo-strip hair-cap a chǐ and two or three cùn tall, and dreadfully behind the fashion. The Idiot walked up close and called out, “Monsters!” At that the fiends flew into a rage and said to one another, “What an insolent monk! We are no acquaintance of his, and we have never once traded banter with him — so what does he mean, calling us monsters?” The fiends lost their tempers, swung up the carrying-pole from the water buckets, and brought it down on his head. The Idiot had no weapon in his hands and could not fend them off. After he had taken several blows he covered his head and ran back up the mountain, calling, “Brother! Let us go back — those fiends are fierce!” Pilgrim said, “Fierce how?” Bajie said, “There are two women fiends down in the hollow drawing water at a well. I gave them one shout and they laid three or four strokes of the pole across me.” Pilgrim said, “And what did you call them?” Bajie said, “I called them monsters.”
Pilgrim laughed. “You were beaten too little.” Bajie said, “Thank you very much for your concern.” “My head is swollen all over and you still say it was too little.” Pilgrim said, “Gentleness will carry you anywhere under heaven; hardness cannot move a cùn.” “They are fiends of this place and we are monks from far off. You are all hands from head to foot, and even so you might have shown a little warmth.” “You went and called them monsters. If they had not beaten you, would they have beaten me?” “Courtesy and music come first with people.” Bajie said, “I do not understand a word of it.” Pilgrim said, “You spent your youth in the mountains eating people. Do you know that there are two kinds of wood?” Bajie said, “I do not know.” “What woods are they?” Pilgrim said, “One is willow and one is sandalwood.” “Willow is soft by nature. A skilled craftsman takes it and carves a sacred image or cuts a figure of the Tathagata; it is gilded and coated with powder, inlaid with jade and dressed with flowers, and ten thousand people burn incense and bow before it, and it receives blessings beyond measure.”
“Sandalwood is hard by nature. They take it off to the oil press and make a pressing-block of it, hoop its head with iron, and drive it down with an iron mallet. Only because it was unyielding does it suffer all this.” Bajie said, “Brother! These fine words of yours — you might have told me them earlier, and then I should not have been beaten.” Pilgrim said, “You are to go back and get the truth of it out of them.” Bajie said, “If I go now they will recognise me.” Pilgrim said, “Then transform yourself before you go.” Bajie said, “Brother! Suppose I do change — how am I to put the question?” Pilgrim said, “Change yourself and go, and when you are in front of them make them a bow and see how old they look.” “If they are much of an age with us, call one of them Auntie.” “If they look somewhat older than us, call her Granny.” Bajie laughed. “What wretched luck. We are a world away from home — what sort of relations am I supposed to have found here?” Pilgrim said, “It is not claiming kin. It is drawing them out.”
“If it is they who have taken the master, then we can set to work.” “And if it is not, would we not have wasted our time on the wrong business elsewhere?” Bajie said, “That makes sense. Let me go again.” Good Idiot! He tucked his rake into his belt, went down into the hollow, shook himself and changed, and became a plump black monk. Swaggering along, he came up to the fiends, made them a very deep bow and said, “Grandmother, this poor monk salutes you.” The two of them were delighted. “What a fine monk this is. He knows how to make a proper salutation, and he knows the right word to call us by.” They asked, “Elder, where have you come from?” Bajie said, “Where have you come from.” They asked again, “Where are you going?” And again he said, “Where are you going.” They asked, “What is your name?” And he answered, “What is my name.”
The fiend laughed. “He is well enough as monks go, only there is nothing behind him — he just says whatever comes to hand.” Bajie said, “Grandmother, what are you drawing water for?” The fiend said, “Monk, you would not know. Our old mistress carried off a monk of Tang last night into the cave, and means to entertain him; but the water in our cave is not clean, so she has sent the two of us out here to draw this good water where the yin and the yang couple, and to lay out a feast of plain fruit and plain dishes. When the monk of Tang has eaten, they are to be married this evening.” When the Idiot heard this he whipped round, ran back up the mountain and called, “Sha Monk! Fetch the luggage out quickly — let us divide it up.” Sha Monk said, “Second brother, divide it up for what this time?” Bajie said, “Once it is divided, you can go back to the Flowing Sands and eat people, I will go to Gao Village and see my in-laws, brother can go to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit and be a sage again, and the white dragon horse can go back to the sea and be a dragon.” “The master is already being married inside that fiend's cave, so let us each go and settle to our own living.”
Pilgrim said, “The Idiot is talking nonsense again.” Bajie said, “It is your son who talks nonsense.” “Those two water-carrying fiends said just now that they are laying out a plain feast, and when the monk of Tang has eaten it they are to be married.” Pilgrim said, “That fiend has the master trapped inside her cave, and he is watching for us with his eyes fixed on the road to come and save him — and here you stand talking like this.” Bajie said, “How do we save him?” Pilgrim said, “You two lead the horse and carry the load. We will follow those two women fiends and let them serve as our guide, and when they have led us to the door, we go in together.” The Idiot could do nothing but fall in behind. Pilgrim tracked the two fiends from a good way off. They went deeper and deeper into the mountains for some ten or twenty lǐ, and then all at once they were gone. Bajie said in alarm, “The master has been carried off by daylight ghosts!” Pilgrim said, “What sharp eyes you have. However did you make out their true form?” Bajie said, “Those two fiends were carrying their water along, and all of a sudden they were gone. If that is not a daylight ghost, what is?” Pilgrim said, “I expect they have slipped down into a cave.” “Wait while I go and look.”
Fine Great Sage! He opened wide his fiery eyes and golden pupils, swept the whole mountain with a look, and sure enough saw nothing stirring. He saw only that in front of a sheer cliff there stood a decorated archway, delicately carved and openworked, painted in five colours, with three eaves and four clusters of brackets. He and Bajie and Sha Monk went up close to look, and there were six great characters on it: Bottomless Cave of the Mountain of Sunken Emptiness. Pilgrim said, “Brothers, this fiend has propped up a frame here, and there is still no telling which way the door opens.” Sha Monk said, “It cannot be far, it cannot be far. Look properly.” They all turned to look, and below the archway, at the foot of the mountain, there was a great slab of rock some ten lǐ and more around, and in the very middle of it a hole the size of a jar mouth, worn slippery smooth by climbing. Bajie said, “Brother! This must be where the fiend goes in and out.” Pilgrim looked and said, “How strange!” “Since I began guarding the Tang Monk, I have hidden nothing from you two. I have taken a fair number of fiends, and I have never yet seen a cave-dwelling like this one.” “Bajie, you go down first and try it. See how shallow or deep it is, so that I can go in and rescue the master.”
Bajie shook his head. “That is hard. That is hard.” “This old hog has a great clumsy body on him. If my foot went from under me and I dropped down there, who knows whether two or three years would see me to the bottom.” Pilgrim said, “How deep can it be, then?” Bajie said, “You look.” The Great Sage lay down on the lip of the hole and looked carefully down it — and oh! Deep! A good three hundred lǐ and more all round. He turned his head and said, “Brothers, it is deep in earnest.” Bajie said, “Then you had better go home. The master cannot be saved.” Pilgrim said, “What kind of talk is that?” “Breed no lazy thoughts; raise no slack heart.” “Set the luggage down for now and tie the horse to one of the archway posts.” “You take your rake and Sha Monk his staff, and block the mouth of the cave while I go in and listen about.” “If the master really is inside, I will take my iron rod and drive the fiend out from within, and when she runs for the entrance you two block her on the outside — this is answering within and closing without.” “Kill the sprite, and only then can the master be saved.” The two of them received the order.
Pilgrim gave a spring with his body and leapt into the cave; ten thousand shafts of coloured cloud were born beneath his feet, and a thousand layers of auspicious vapour guarded him about. Before long he reached the deep interior, and inside it was bright and clear, with sunlight of a sort, and the sound of wind, and flowers and grass and fruiting trees besides. Pilgrim said with pleasure, “What a fine place!” “When I think of it — when I came into the world, heaven granted me the Water Curtain Cave, and this place too is a cave heaven and a blessed land.” As he was looking, there stood another gate-tower of the double-eaved sort, ringed about with pine and bamboo, and within it a great many buildings. He thought again: “This must be where the fiend lives.” “Let me go inside and listen about a little.” “But wait.” “If I go in like this, they will know me.” “I had better change before I go.” He shook himself and made the sign, turned into a blue-bottle fly, and floated up lightly to perch on the gate-tower and listen.
He saw the fiend sitting high inside a thatched pavilion; and her looks, compared with when he had rescued her in the pine wood and when he had seized her at the temple, were quite different — she had got herself up far more handsomely.
Her hair coiled in cloud-knots like heaped crows, / her body in green velvet, a flowered sleeveless jacket.
A pair of golden lotuses barely half a span, / ten fingers like the shoots of spring bamboo.
A round powdered face like a silver basin, / red lips smooth as a cherry.
Upright and proper, the bearing of a beauty; / even the moon goddess would be pleased with her.
Today she has taken the monk who seeks the scriptures, / and means to have her pleasure and share his pillow and couch.
Pilgrim said nothing for the moment, but listened to what she would say. In a little while she split her cherry lips and called out delightedly, “Little ones! Set out the plain feast at once — the Tang Monk my darling and I are to eat and be married.” Pilgrim laughed to himself. “So it is true after all!” “I had thought Bajie was only playing about and talking nonsense.” “Let me fly in and hunt about, and see where the master is.” “I wonder what state his mind is in?” “If he has let her work on him and move him, then he may as well be left here.” He spread his wings at once and flew inside to look, and there in the east corridor, behind a red paper lattice, light above and dark below, sat the Tang Monk. Pilgrim butted straight through an eye of the lattice, settled on the Tang Monk's shaven head and called, “Master.” Tripitaka knew the voice and cried, “Disciple! Save my life!”
Pilgrim said, “Master, you are in a poor way. That fiend is laying out a banquet, and when you have eaten it you are to be married.” “And if a son or half a daughter should come of it, they would be your posterity too, monk. What have you to be miserable about?” The elder heard this, and grinding his teeth said, “Disciple! Since I came out of Chang An and took you on at the Mountain of Two Frontiers, and all the westward way since — at what hour did I ever break my fast with meat?” “On what day did I ever harbour a crooked thought?” “Now I am taken by this fiend and pressed to take a wife. If I let the true yang be lost, my body will fall into the wheel of rebirth and be flung down behind the dark mountain, never in all the ages to turn over again.” Pilgrim laughed. “Do not swear oaths.” “Since your heart is truly set on fetching the scriptures from the west, this old Monkey will take you along.” Tripitaka said, “The road I came in by — I have forgotten it entirely.” Pilgrim said, “Never mind your forgetting it.” “This cave of hers is not the kind you walk into and walk out of. You come in by boring down from the top.”
“Now that I am saving you, we shall have to bore up from the bottom.” “If your luck is good, you will strike the opening and be out; ” “and if your luck is poor and you do not strike it, there will yet be a day of being smothered.” Tripitaka, his eyes brimming, said, “With difficulty like this, what is to be done?” Pilgrim said, “It is nothing, it is nothing.” “When that fiend has the wine set out for you to drink, there will be no help for it — drink one cup of hers.” “Only pour it a little quickly, so as to raise a bubble on the surface, and I will change into a gnat and fly in under the froth.” “She will swallow me down in one mouthful, and then I shall pinch her heart and liver to pieces, tear her guts and bowels apart, kill the fiend outright, and you will get free.” Tripitaka said, “Disciple, put like that, it is simply not the conduct of a human being.” Pilgrim said, “If you keep on practising your compassion, your life is finished.” “A fiend is the very root of harm to people. What are you sparing her for?” Tripitaka said, “Very well, very well.” “Only you must keep close by me.”
Truly it was:
That Great Sage Sun stands guard over Tripitaka of Tang; / the scripture-seeking monk relies wholly on the Handsome Monkey King.
Master and disciple had not finished their conference when the fiend, having everything ready, came up outside the east corridor, opened the door lock and called, “Elder!” The Tang Monk dared not answer. She called a second time, and again he dared not answer. And why did he dare not answer? He was thinking: “Let the mouth open and the spirit-breath scatters; let the tongue move and right and wrong are born.” But then another strand of his mind was thinking: “If I hold dead still by the rule and never open my mouth, I am afraid her heart is cruel enough to take my life in a moment.” This was truly the case of advance and retreat both hard, the heart asking the mouth, and three turns of thought and patience, the mouth asking the heart. While he was still in two minds, the fiend called out once more: “Elder!” The Tang Monk had no help for it, and answered her once: “Madam. Here.” When the elder let that one sentence out, it was truly as though a thousand catties of flesh had dropped off him. Everybody says the Tang Monk is a monk of a true heart, going west to bow to the Buddha and seek the scriptures — so how does he come to be exchanging words with this woman fiend?
What is not understood is that this was a moment of crisis between surviving and perishing, that he acted wholly out of having no choice, and that although there was an answer without, within there was no desire at all. Seeing the elder answer, the fiend pushed open the door, helped the Tang Monk to his feet, and went hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder with him, heads together and mouths at each other's ears. Look at her, putting on a thousand kinds of coquetry and ten thousand sorts of allure. Little did she know that Tripitaka was one whole bellyful of vexation. Pilgrim laughed to himself in secret: “My master is being coaxed like this — I am only afraid his heart may stir for a moment.” Truly it was:
The true monk in demon-torment meets a lovely girl; / the fiend in her slenderness is worth the praising.
Pale, pale the kingfisher brows, parted like willow leaves; / brimming, brimming the cinnabar cheeks, set off by peach blossom.
Embroidered slippers just showing a pair of phoenix hooks; / cloud-coils piled high, crow-black at both temples.
Smiling, at the place where she takes the master by the hand, / orchid and musk float out and fill his cassock.
The fiend drew Tripitaka along and came up to the thatched pavilion, saying, “Elder, I have set out a cup of wine, and mean to take a drink with you.” The Tang Monk said, “Madam, this poor monk has never taken meat.” The fiend said, “I know you eat no meat. Because the water in the cave is not clean, I sent up to the mountain top on purpose for pure water where the yin and the yang couple, and made up a feast of plain fruit and plain dishes, to amuse myself with you.” The Tang Monk went in with her and looked, and sure enough he saw:
Filling the gateway, embroidered hangings and coloured knots;
filling the courtyard, incense puffing from the golden lion.
Set out are black-lacquered tables inlaid in shell, and trays of bamboo strip finished in dark lacquer.
On the inlaid tables, delicacies of a rare kind;
in the bamboo-strip trays, plain foods of a strange sort.
Crab-apple, olive, lotus seed, grape, torreya nut, crab-apple pear, hazelnut, pine nut, lychee, longan, mountain chestnut, water caltrop, jujube, persimmon, walnut, ginkgo, kumquat, sweet orange — fruits to be had all over the hills;
the vegetables newer still in season: bean curd, wheat gluten, wood-ear fungus, fresh bamboo shoot, mushroom, fragrant fungus, mountain yam, yellow-essence root.
Rock-flower greens and day-lily buds, stir-fried in green oil;
flat beans and cowpeas, dressed with ripened sauce.
Cucumber and bottle gourd, ginkgo and turnip.
Peeled aubergine done up as quail; hollowed winter melon under the name of fangdan.
Taro stewed soft and tossed with sugar; white-boiled radish dressed with vinegar.
Pepper and ginger, hot in every kind; salt and bland brought into harmony, even in every colour.
The fiend put out her pointed jade fingers, took up the gleaming golden cup, filled it to the brim with fine wine and handed it to the Tang Monk, calling out, “Elder brother, my darling — take a cup of the joining wine.” Tripitaka, all shame and confusion, took the wine, poured a libation towards the sky, and prayed silently in his heart: “Guardian devas of the Law, Revealers of the Five Quarters, Sentinels of the Four Watches: the disciple Chen Xuanzang, since leaving the eastern land, has had the grace of the Bodhisattva Guanyin, who dispatched your ranks to protect me in secret while I bowed at the Thunder Monastery and sought the scriptures from the Buddha. Now on the road I am seized by a fiend and forced into a marriage, and she has put this cup of wine into my hand to drink.” “If this wine is truly a plain wine, your disciple will force himself to drink it, and still come to see the Buddha and accomplish the work;” “and if it is a meat wine, and breaks your disciple's vow, then let him fall forever into the bitterness of the wheel of rebirth.” The Great Sage Sun had made his change a nimble one: he was behind the root of the ear, like an ear-reporter; so that when he spoke, only Tripitaka heard it and nobody else caught a word.
He knew his master was fond of the plain wine made from grapes, and told him to drink one cup of hers. The master, having no help for it, drank it off, and hurriedly filled the cup to the brim again and handed it back to the fiend. And sure enough the pouring raised a joy-flower on it. Pilgrim turned himself into a gnat and flew lightly in under the joy-flower. The fiend took it in her hand, and did not drink; she set the cup down, made Tripitaka two bows, and murmured a few soft words of love, all shyness and tenderness. Only then did she raise the cup — and the flower had already broken up, and out came the insect. The fiend did not know it was Pilgrim transformed either, but took it for an insect, hooked it up on her little finger and flicked it away downwards. Pilgrim saw that things were not going well and reckoned it would be hard to get into her belly, so he changed into a starving old eagle. Truly it was:
Jade talons, golden eyes, feathers of iron; / a valiant shape and a fierce spirit beating the clouds.
Demon foxes and cunning hares see him and are in a hurry; / for a thousand lǐ of hill and river they scatter in an instant.
Hungry, he faces the wind and chases the sparrow; / full, he mounts high and hugs the gate of heaven.
His old fist, hard as steel, does the worst harm to men; / and when he has his will he scorns the empyrean as too near.
Up he flew, spread his jade talons, gave one screech and heaved the table over, smashing every one of the plain fruits and plain dishes and the plates and saucers and pots and cups to pieces; then he left the Tang Monk and flew out. It so terrified the fiend that her heart and gall both split, and the Tang Monk too went soft in bone and flesh. Trembling all over, the fiend clung to the Tang Monk and said, “Elder brother, where did this thing come from?” Tripitaka said, “This poor monk does not know.” The fiend said, “I have gone to no end of trouble getting this plain banquet ready to amuse you with, and now who knows where this flat-feathered creature has flown in from and broken all my crockery.” The little fiends said, “Madam, the crockery being smashed is one thing, but all the plain foods are spilt on the floor and filthy — how can they be used?” Tripitaka understood perfectly well that this was Pilgrim working his arts, but he did not dare say so. The fiend said, “Little ones, I have it: it must be that heaven and earth will not have it that I keep the Tang Monk here, and so they have sent this creature down.”
“Pick up the broken crockery and carry it out, and lay on some more wine and food, meat or plain, it does not matter — I shall point to heaven for a matchmaker and to earth for a witness, and after that be married to the Tang Monk.” And she had the elder taken back as before and set down in the east corridor, of which no more for now. Now Pilgrim flew out, showed his true form, came to the mouth of the cave and called, “Open up!” Bajie laughed. “Sha Monk, brother is back.” The two of them spread their weapons apart. Pilgrim leapt out, and Bajie came forward and caught hold of him. “Is there a fiend?” “Is the master there?” Pilgrim said, “There is, there is, there is.” Bajie said, “The master is inside suffering, is he? Tied up, or trussed?” “To be steamed, or to be boiled?” Pilgrim said, “There is nothing of that sort. It is only that she has laid on a plain banquet, and means to do that business with him.”
Bajie said, “What luck you have, what luck — did you come away having drunk the wedding wine?” Pilgrim said, “You blockhead — the master's life is hardly safe, and you talk about drinking wedding wine?” Bajie said, “Then how did you come to be back so soon?” Pilgrim told over the whole business of seeing the Tang Monk and working his transformations. He said, “Brothers, no more of this wild thinking.” “The master is here in this place, and this time I go in, I shall certainly bring him out.” He turned himself round and went in again, changed once more into a blue-bottle fly, and perched on the gate-tower to listen. He heard only this fiend, huffing with temper, giving orders from the pavilion: “Little ones! Meat or plain, no matter — fetch it and burn the paper.” “I shall trouble heaven and earth to stand as matchmaker and guarantor, and I will be married to him whatever happens.” Pilgrim heard it and laughed to himself. “This fiend has not a scrap of shame in her — shutting a monk up in her house and ordering him about in broad daylight.” “But there is no hurry. Let this old Monkey go in and take another look.”
With a thin whine he flew down under the east corridor, and there was the master sitting inside, tears running clear down the side of his face. Pilgrim bored his way in, perched on his head and called again, “Master.” The elder knew the voice, jumped up and said, grinding his teeth with rage, “You monkey! Other people are bold — but with them the body wraps the gall;” “but your boldness is a case of the gall wrapping the body.” “You worked your transformations and smashed the crockery — what was that worth?” “You have provoked that fiend till her lust is up, and now she will lay on meat or plain regardless and is set on coupling with me. How is this thing to end?” Pilgrim, laughing along in the dark, said, “Master, do not be angry. There is a way to save you.” The Tang Monk said, “How is there any saving me?” Pilgrim said, “Just now when I took wing and flew up, I saw there was a garden behind her place.” “Coax her into going into the garden to amuse herself, and I will save you.” The Tang Monk said, “And how does going into the garden save me?”
Pilgrim said, “You go into the garden with her, and when you get to the peach trees, stop there.” “Wait while I fly up onto a peach branch and turn into a red peach.” “You will want to eat some fruit; pick out a red one first and take it down.” “The red one is me.” “She will certainly want to pick one too — you must be sure to let her have the red one.” “If she swallows it at a mouthful, then I shall be inside her belly, and I will pound her leather bag open, tear her liver and bowels apart and kill her, and you will be free.” Tripitaka said, “If you have the skill, then simply fight it out with her — why must you always be boring into somebody's belly?” Pilgrim said, “Master, you do not understand the situation.” “If this cave of hers were easy to go in and out of, I could well fight it out with her;” “It is only because going in and out is inconvenient, and the way is crooked and hard to travel, that if I set to fighting now, this whole nestful of hers, old and young together, would all lay hold of me — and how would that end?” “It has to be done by this snatch-and-go, and then everybody comes out clean.”
Tripitaka nodded and believed him, only saying, “You must keep close to me.” Pilgrim said, “I know, I know. I am on your head.” Master and disciple having settled their plan, Tripitaka at last raised himself up, steadied himself on the lattice with both hands and called, “Madam! Madam!” The fiend heard it, and came running up all smiles. “Darling elder brother — what have you to say?” Tripitaka said, “Madam, since I came out of Chang An and travelled west, there has not been a day without mountains or a day without rivers.” “Yesterday I lodged at the Sea-Guarding Temple and happened to catch a bad chill; today I have sweated it out and am a little better.” “And then I had your kind welcome, madam, and was carried into your immortal mansion.” “Only, sitting here all this one day, I feel out of sorts again.” “Will you take me somewhere to walk off my thoughts a little, and amuse ourselves?”
The fiend was delighted. “Darling elder brother, you have some taste after all. You and I will go and amuse ourselves in the flower garden.” She called, “Little ones! Fetch the key and open the garden gate, and sweep the paths.” The fiends all ran off to open up and put it in order. This fiend opened the lattice and helped the Tang Monk out. Look at all those little fiends — oiled heads and powdered faces, slender and graceful, thronging and crowding — going straight off to the flower garden with the Tang Monk. Good monk! In among that troop of silk and gauze he had no other thought; in that thicket of brocade he played the mute and the deaf man. If it were not that this iron-forged heart was set on going to the Buddha, no second ordinary man of wine and women could ever have fetched the scriptures. The whole party arrived outside the flower garden, and the fiend, in a soft flirtatious undertone, said, “Darling elder brother, amuse yourself here — it is a real cure for low spirits.” The Tang Monk went in with her hand in hand and arm in arm, raised his head and looked, and truly it was a fine place.
But he saw:
Winding, doubling, twisting paths, thickly dotted all over with grey moss;
secluded, delicate latticed windows, everywhere quietly veiled in embroidered blinds.
A light wind first stirring, and lightly, lightly it spreads out Shu brocade and Wu silk;
a fine rain just cleared, and tenderly, tenderly it reveals ice-flesh and jade-substance.
Sun scorching the fresh apricots, red as an immortal maiden airing her rainbow skirts;
moon reflecting off the plantains, green as Taizhen shaking her feather fan.
Powdered walls on all four sides, ten thousand willows with orioles warbling in them;
quiet lodges round about, courtyards full of crab-apple with powder-winged butterflies flying.
Look further at the Fragrance-Gathering Lodge, the Green-Moth Lodge, the Hangover-Cure Lodge and the Longing Lodge — tier upon tier reflected, the vermilion blinds hooked up and holding their shrimp-whisker fringe; and see too the Sour-Nurture Pavilion, the Plain-Robe Pavilion, the Brow-Painting Pavilion and the Four-Rains Pavilion — each of them lofty, with bird script written on the ornamented boards.
Look at the Crane-Bathing Pool, the Cup-Washing Pool, the Moon-Pleasing Pool and the Cap-Rinsing Pool — green duckweed and pondweed, and golden scales glinting among them;
and there are the Ink-Flower Study, the Rare-Box Study, the Suiting-the-Fancy Study and the Cloud-Longing Study — jade dippers and fine jade cups with green ants floating in them.
Above and below the pools and pavilions there are Taihu stones, purple-quartz stones, parrot-fallen stones and Jinchuan stones, with the dark green tiger-whisker rush planted among them;
east and west of the studies and lodges there are the wooden false hill, Kingfisher-Screen Hill, Wind-Whistling Hill and Jade-Fungus Hill, with phoenix-tail bamboo growing thick everywhere.
The tumi trellis and the rambling-rose trellis, set close beside the swing-frame, all like a brocade bed-curtain and a gauze hanging;
the pine and cypress arbour and the magnolia arbour, facing the banksia-rose arbour, for all the world like a jade city hung with embroidery.
The peony balustrade and the tree-peony clump, reds and reds and purples and purples contending in rich splendour;
the night-closing terrace and the jasmine railing, year upon year putting out their charms;
trickling with dew, the purple han-xiao, fit to be painted and fit to be drawn;
blazing against the sky, the red hibiscus, fit to be inscribed and fit to be sung.
For scenery, do not boast of Langyuan or Penglai;
for fragrance, the Yao Yellow and the Wei Purple are not to be counted.
And if you came in the third month of spring to play at the grass game, the only thing this garden would lack is the jade-white flower.
The elder walked the flower garden hand in hand with the fiend, and there was no coming to the end of the rare blooms and strange plants. They passed a great many pavilions and lodges, and it was truly a case of entering gradually upon the finer country. All at once he raised his head, and they had come to the edge of the peach wood. Pilgrim gave the master's head a pinch, and the elder knew. Pilgrim flew up onto a peach branch, shook himself and changed, and became a red peach — and it really was a lovely red. The elder said to the fiend, “Madam, the flowers in this garden of yours are fragrant, and the fruit on the branches is ripe.” “The flowers in the garden are fragrant, and the bees compete to gather them; the fruit on the branches is ripe, and the birds contend to carry it off.” “Why is it that the fruit on this peach tree is not all one colour, green and red together? How is that?” The fiend laughed. “If heaven had no yin and yang, sun and moon would not be bright;” “if earth had no yin and yang, grass and trees would not grow;” “if people had no yin and yang, there would be no dividing male from female.”
“As for the fruit on this peach tree: on the side turned to the sun, where the sunlight warms them, they ripen first, and so they are red;” “on the shaded side, where there is no sun, they are still unripe, and so they are green. This is the principle of yin and yang.” Tripitaka said, “Thank you for the instruction, madam. I truly did not know.” He stepped forward at once, put out his hand and picked a red peach. The fiend went and picked one too — a green one. Tripitaka bowed and held out the red peach to the fiend with both hands. “Madam, you love fine colour — please eat this red one, and give me the green to eat.” The fiend actually made the exchange, and thought to herself with secret pleasure, “What a good monk he is! He really is a true man — we have not been husband and wife for a single day, and already he shows me this much affection.” That fiend, in high delight, made much of the Tang Monk. This Tang Monk took the green peach and set to eating it. That fiend, pleased to keep him company, opened her mouth to bite the red peach.
She parted her vermilion lips and showed her silver teeth — but before her mouth was on it, Sun Pilgrim, being an extremely impatient sort, went head over heels with a roll and tumbled down her throat, straight into her belly. The fiend was frightened and said to Tripitaka, “Elder, this fruit is a fierce one — how is it that it would not let itself be bitten, but rolled straight down?” Tripitaka said, “Madam, one is fond of fruit from a garden newly opened, and so it went down quickly.” The fiend said, “He never even spat out the stone — it just shot down.” Tripitaka said, “Madam, your feeling was fine and your mood good, and you enjoyed eating it so much that you had no time to spit the stone before it was down.” Pilgrim, inside her belly, resumed his true form and called out, “Master, do not trade any more words with her — this old Monkey has got his hands in.” Tripitaka said, “Disciple, go a little easy.” The fiend heard it and said, “Who is it you are talking to?” Tripitaka said, “I am talking to my disciple Sun Wukong.” The fiend said, “Where is Sun Wukong?” Tripitaka said, “He is in your belly — was he not the red peach you have just eaten?”
The fiend panicked. “It is finished. It is finished.” “This ape-head has bored his way into my belly. I am a dead thing.” “Sun Pilgrim! What do you mean by scheming a thousand ways and contriving a hundred to bore into my belly?” Pilgrim said from inside, in a rage, “Nothing much — only to eat up your six-leaved liver and lungs and your three-haired seven-orificed heart, scour out all five of your organs and leave you a hollow rattle of a sprite.” The fiend heard him, and was so terrified that her soul flew and her spirits scattered. Shaking all over, she caught hold of the Tang Monk and said, “Elder, I had thought:”
A bond from a former age, tied with the red cord; / fish and water in accord, and both our hearts full.
Who could have thought the mandarin ducks would be parted today; / who could have looked for the phoenix pair to go east and west.
At the Blue Bridge the waters rose and the thing could not be; / at the Buddha's shrine the incense sank and the good meeting came to nothing.
I set my whole mind on it, and today we part again; / in what year shall I meet with you once more?
Pilgrim, hearing this from inside her belly, was afraid the elder's soft heart would let him be fooled again; so he swung his fists and stamped his feet, set up his guard and squared off in the four-level stance, and very nearly burst the leather bag open. That fiend could not bear the pain, and fell down in the dust, and for a long while did not dare say a word. Pilgrim, finding she said nothing, supposed she was dead, and slackened his hands a little. She got her breath back and called, “Where are the little ones?” It turned out that ever since those little fiends had come in at the garden gate, every one of them, knowing what was fitting, had kept out of the way; they had gone off to pick flowers and play the grass game as they pleased, and left the fiend and the Tang Monk to talk over their feelings undisturbed. Hearing the sudden call, they all came running. They saw the fiend lying on the ground, the colour gone from her face, groaning and unable to crawl; so they hurried to help her up, gathered round her and said, “Madam, what is wrong?” “Is it a sudden pain in the heart?” The fiend said, “It is not, it is not.”
“Do not ask. There is already a man inside my belly.” “Take this monk out of here quickly, and spare my life.” Those little fiends really did all come to lift and carry him. Pilgrim called out from inside her belly, “Who dares carry him?” “You must hand my master out yourself, and when he is outside I will spare your life.” That fiend had no way out of it; there was only the heart that clings to life. She struggled up in haste, took the Tang Monk on her back, strode out and went straight for the entrance. The little fiends followed after her. “Old madam, where are you going?” The fiend said, “So long as the bright moon over the five lakes is kept, what is there to fear about finding nowhere to drop a golden hook?” “Send this fellow out, and I will go and look for another head of my own.”
Good fiend! With one bound of cloud-light she went straight to the mouth of the cave. And they heard a clanging and clattering, weapons ringing in confusion. Tripitaka said, “Disciple, there are weapons sounding outside.” Pilgrim said, “That is Bajie working his rake.” “Call out to him.” Tripitaka accordingly called, “Bajie!” Bajie heard it and said, “Sha Monk! The master is coming out!” The two of them drew apart rake and staff, and the fiend carried the Tang Monk out on her back. Well! Truly it was:
The Mind-Ape answering within brings down the vile fiend; / Earth and Wood keep the gate and receive the holy monk.
In the end there was no knowing what became of that fiend's life; let us listen to the next chapter, and it will be explained.