The story goes that Tang Tripitaka held his primal yang firm and got clear of that bitter snare of mist and flowers. Following Pilgrim he pressed on west, and before he knew it summer had come. It was just the season when the warm south wind first stirs and the plum rains come down in threads. A fine sight:
Softly the green shade thickens; the breeze is light, and swallows lead their young.
New lotus turns on the pond face; the tall bamboo spreads out by degrees.
Sweet grass runs blue-green to the sky; mountain flowers carpet the ground.
By the stream the rushes stand like planted swords; pomegranate fire lends splendour to the traveller's plan.
Master and disciples, all four of them, bore the blazing heat as they went; and just as they were walking, an old woman came out from the willow shade of two tall rows beside the road, leading a small child by her right hand, and called out to the Tang Monk: “Monk, go no further. Turn your horse east this minute. Everything west of here is a road to your death.” That gave Tripitaka such a fright that he sprang down from the horse and made his greeting, saying: “Venerable Bodhisattva, the ancients said, 'The sea is wide, so fish leap as they please; the sky is empty, so birds fly where they will.' How can it be that going west there is no road at all?” The old woman pointed west with her hand. “Five or six lǐ that way lies the Dharma-Destroying Kingdom.
“In some former life that king contracted a grudge, and in this life he piles up guilt for no cause at all. Two years ago he swore a Great Vow of the Whole Heaven: to kill ten thousand monks. These two years, little by little, he has killed his fill of nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-six nameless monks. He is only waiting on four monks with names, to make up the ten thousand and round the thing off nicely. If you go on and reach that city, every one of you is a Bodhisattva delivering up his own life.” Tripitaka heard this and his heart went cold. Trembling, he said: “Venerable Bodhisattva, I am deeply obliged for your kindness. My thanks are past telling. But may I ask whether there is some convenient path that does not go through the city?
“This poor monk would rather go round.” The old woman laughed. “There is no going round it. No going round it. Unless you can fly. Then you would get past.” Bajie, standing to one side, ran his mouth. “Mother, none of your dark talk. We can all of us fly.”
Pilgrim, with his fiery eyes and golden pupils, truly knew good from bad: the old woman leading the child was in fact the Bodhisattva Guanyin, and the Boy Sudhana with her. In his fluster he threw himself down in worship, calling: “Bodhisattva! Your disciple failed to greet you, failed to greet you.” The Bodhisattva mounted a wisp of blessed cloud and rose lightly. That startled the Tang elder so that he had nowhere to put himself, and he could only kneel and knock his head on the ground. Bajie and Sha Monk knelt in haste too, and bowed towards heaven. In a moment the blessed cloud thinned to nothing and went straight back to the Southern Sea.
Pilgrim got up and helped his master up. “Please rise. The Bodhisattva has gone back to her precious mountain.” Tripitaka got up. “Wukong, if you knew it was the Bodhisattva, why did you not say so sooner?” Pilgrim laughed. “You had not finished asking your questions before I was already bowing. How is that not soon enough?” Bajie and Sha Monk said to Pilgrim: “We are grateful for the Bodhisattva's warning. Ahead must be the Dharma-Destroying Kingdom, where they kill monks. What are the likes of us to do?” Pilgrim said: “Idiot, no need to be afraid. We have run into poisonous fiends and vicious monsters, tigers' dens and dragons' pools, and were never the worse for it. Here it is only a kingdom of ordinary mortals. What is there to fear?
“Only this is no place to stop. The light is going, and there will be country folk coming back from selling in the city. If they see we are monks and shout it about, that would not be safe. Let us take the master down off the highway, find somewhere out of the way, and there we can talk it over.” Tripitaka did as he was told, and the whole party slipped down off the road and settled below a hollow. Pilgrim said: “Brothers, you two look after the master properly. Wait while old Monkey changes himself and goes to take a look at that city, and finds a back road, and we will travel through the night.” Tripitaka charged him: “Disciple! Do not treat this as a small matter. The king's law spares nobody. You must be careful.”
Pilgrim laughed. “Set your mind at rest, set your mind at rest. Old Monkey has his own ways.”
Fine Great Sage! The words were hardly out of his mouth before he gave his body a heave and shot up whistling into the air. A marvel:
Nothing above pulling him up on a rope; nothing below propping him with a pole.
Born of the same parents as anyone else, and his bones are simply lighter.
He stood still up at the edge of the clouds and looked down. He saw the city brimming with a happy air, and blessed light rippling over it. Pilgrim said: “What a fine place. Why destroy the Dharma?” He watched a while, and by degrees the sky darkened, and then he saw this:
At the crossroads the lamplight blazes; in the nine-tiered hall the incense hangs and the bell sounds.
Seven bright stars light the blue-green vault; travellers from the eight directions lay down their tracks.
In the camps of the six armies, faintly, the painted horn has only just sounded;
In the five drum-towers, drop by drop, the bronze vessel begins to fall.
On four sides the night mist hangs dim; over the three markets the cold smoke drifts thick.
Two by two, husbands and wives go back behind embroidered curtains; and one round bright moon comes up in the east.
He was thinking: “I want to go down and scout the streets for a road. But with a face like this, anyone I run into is bound to say I am a monk. Let me change myself first.” He made the sign, spoke the words of power, gave his body a shake, and turned into a lamp-diving moth:
Slight of body, its wings thin and nimble; it puts out lamps and beats at candles, throwing itself towards the light.
Its true face came into being by transformation.
Out of rotting grass its quickening answers.
Always it loves the blaze and touches the flame, whirling about without rest.
In purple coat and scented wings it chases the drifting fireflies.
Best of all it likes the deep night when the wind is still.
See him now, fluttering and tumbling, flying off towards the six streets and three markets, hugging the eaves, close by the corners of the roofs. Just as he was going, he saw at a bend on a street corner a curve of houses, and at every door a lantern hanging. He said: “These people must be keeping the Lantern Festival. Why else would they all have lanterns lit in a row like this?” He stiffened his wings and flew up close for a careful look. Right in the middle was one household with a square lantern, and on it six characters: Lodging for Merchants Coming and Going. Below that, four more: The Inn of Wang the Second. Only then did Pilgrim understand that it was an eating house. He stretched his head out for another look, and saw eight or nine men who had all eaten their supper, loosened their clothes, taken off their headcloths, washed their feet and hands, and gone to bed one after another.
Pilgrim was secretly delighted. “The master can get through.” And how, do you suppose, did he know they could get through? He was setting his mind on a piece of villainy: wait until those men were asleep, steal their clothes and headcloths, and go into the city dressed as laymen.
Ah! But here is the sort of thing that never goes to plan. Just as he was turning it over, up came Wang the Second and gave out: “Gentlemen, be careful. In my house the honest and the otherwise are mixed together. Every one of you look after his own clothes and baggage.” Now think about it: which man doing business away from home is not careful? And hearing the innkeeper give his warning they grew more cautious still. They all climbed up and said: “The landlord speaks sense. We travellers work hard, and the fear is that once asleep we shall not wake in a hurry, and if we come to grief then, what is to be done? Take these clothes and headcloths and saddlebags of ours inside, and when day is about to break, hand them back so we can set out.”
And Wang the Second did indeed carry the whole lot of clothes and the rest into his own room. Pilgrim, being impatient, spread his wings, flew straight in after them, and settled on a headcloth stand. Then he saw Wang the Second go to the door, take down the lantern, let the shutter fall, close doors and windows, and only then go into his room, undress and lie down. Wang the Second had a wife, and she had two children with her, squalling and making a racket, and she was in no hurry to sleep. And the woman took out a worn coat and set to patching and darning at it, and showed no sign of sleeping either.
Pilgrim thought to himself: “If I wait for this woman to sleep before making my move, shall I not fail the master?” And fearing besides that the night would deepen and the city gates be shut, he could not hold himself back: down he flew and threw himself at the lamp. Truly: he gives up the body and dives at the flame, scorches his brow and gropes for the life that is left. The lamp was out on the instant. He shook himself again and turned into a rat, gave two squeaking cries, jumped down, gathered up the clothes and headcloths and made for the door. The woman said in a flurry: “Old man! Something is wrong! The night rat has turned into a spirit!” Pilgrim heard her, worked another trick, blocked the doorway, and called out in a hard voice: “Wang the Second! Do not listen to your wife talking nonsense.
“I am no night rat turned spirit. An honest man does nothing in the dark. I am the Great Sage Equal to Heaven come down among men, guarding the Tang Monk on his way west to fetch the scriptures. Your king here has no principles. I have come on purpose to borrow these clothes and caps to dress my master in. Once we are through the city I shall send them straight back.” Wang the Second heard it, rolled straight out of bed, groped about in the pitch dark, and being a man in a panic, grabbed his trousers for a shirt: put his left arm in and it would not go, pulled it over on the right and that would not go either.
The Great Sage worked a spell of gathering and was already away on a cloud. He turned over once more and came straight down to the edge of the hollow below the road. Tripitaka, seeing the starlight and the bright moon, leaned out and stared, and when he saw it was Pilgrim coming up close, he called: “Disciple! Can we get past the Dharma-Destroying Kingdom?” Pilgrim came forward, set down the clothes and said: “Master, if we are to get through the Dharma-Destroying Kingdom, being monks will not do.” Bajie said: “Brother, who is it you are squeezing? Not being monks is easy enough. Just leave off shaving for half a year and the hair will grow out.” Pilgrim said: “Who can wait half a year? We all have to be laymen right now.”
The Idiot took fright. “But everything you say makes no sense at all. We are monks as of now, and we are to be laymen right away — so how are we supposed to wear headcloths? Even if the brim grips, there is nowhere to draw the crown-cord tight.” Tripitaka shouted him down: “No more clowning. Get on with the real business. What is the situation exactly?” Pilgrim said: “Master, I have looked this city of theirs over. The king has no principles and kills monks, and yet for all that he is a true Son of Heaven — there is blessed light and a happy air above the walls. I know the streets inside the city. The local speech here I understand too, and can speak. Just now I borrowed these few clothes and headcloths from an eating house. Let us dress as laymen, go into the city and take lodging, get up at the fourth watch and have the innkeeper put together a fasting meal.
“Drag it out to the fifth watch, press through the city gate, and make for the high road west. Even if somebody runs into us and lays hold of us we shall have an answer: say we are commissioned from a superior court, and the Dharma-Destroying King will not dare hold us up, but will let us through.” Sha Monk said: “Elder brother's arrangement is the most fitting. Let us do as he says.”
The elder had no help for it: off came the narrow robe, off the monk's cap, on went a layman's clothes and a headcloth. Sha Monk changed too. Bajie's head was too big to take a headcloth, so Pilgrim fetched needle and thread, tore two of them open, sewed them into one, and draped it over him; and picked out a roomy coat and put that on him too. Then he changed into a suit himself and said: “Gentlemen, on this trip put away the words master and disciple.” Bajie said: “If we drop those four characters, what do we call each other?” Pilgrim said: “We are all to speak as brothers. The master is to be called Tang the Senior Gentleman, you are Zhu the Third Gentleman, Sha Monk is Sha the Fourth Gentleman, and I am Sun the Second Gentleman.
“Once we are at the inn, none of you say a word. Let me alone open my mouth and answer. When they ask what our business is, say only that we are horse traders, and make this white horse the sample. Say we are ten brothers, and that we four have come on ahead to rent rooms and sell horses. The innkeeper is bound to treat us well; we shall enjoy it, and when we leave I shall pick up a bit of broken tile, turn it into a lump of silver to thank him with, and off we go.” The elder had no help for it and gave way.
The four of them hurriedly led the horse and shouldered the load, and ran across to the other side. This was a peaceable district: it was the hour when the watches begin and the gates were not yet shut, so they went straight in. Coming up to the door of Wang the Second's inn, they heard shouting inside. One was saying: “I have lost my headcloth.” Another was saying: “I have lost my clothes.” Pilgrim simply pretended to know nothing, and led them off to lodge at a house diagonally opposite. That household had not yet taken in its lantern. He went up to the door and called: “Innkeeper! Have you a spare room for us to lodge in?” A woman inside answered: “Yes, yes, yes — come upstairs, gentlemen.” Before she had finished speaking a fellow came out to take the horse, and Pilgrim handed it over to be led inside.
He led his master up behind the shadow of the lantern, straight through the upstairs door, where there were serviceable tables and chairs. They pushed the lattice open and sat down together in the moonlight. Someone came up with a lamp lit; Pilgrim blocked the doorway and blew it out with a single breath. “With a moon like this we have no need of a lamp.”
That man had only just gone down when a maid brought up four bowls of clear tea, which Pilgrim took. Then a woman came up from below, of about fifty-seven or fifty-eight by the look of her, straight up the stairs, and stood to one side. She asked: “Gentlemen, where have you come from? What goods have you?” Pilgrim said: “We are from the north, with a few rough horses to trade.” The woman said: “You are young yet for horse traders.” Pilgrim said: “This one is Tang the Senior Gentleman, this one Zhu the Third, this one Sha the Fourth, and your student here is Sun the Second.” The woman laughed: “Different surnames.” Pilgrim said: “Just so — different surnames living together. There are ten of us brothers all told, and we four have come on ahead to take rooms and get a fire lit;
“the other six are lodging outside the walls with a drove of horses, since it was too late to bring them in. Once we have taken the rooms they will all come in tomorrow morning. We shall not go back until the horses are sold.” The woman said: “How many horses in the drove?” Pilgrim said: “Big and small, a hundred-odd head, all built like this one of mine — only the coats are not all the same.” The woman laughed: “Mr Sun the Second is truly a man who knows the trade. It is as well you came to my house — no second household here would dare take you in. My yard is wide, the mangers and posts all in order, and there is fodder besides: several hundred horses could be kept here if you liked. But one thing: my house has kept an inn here many years and has a poor name of its own.
“My late husband's surname was Zhao; he has been gone these many years, more's the pity. They call it the Widow Zhao's Inn. In my inn we serve guests in three grades. Nowadays it is the small man first and the gentleman after: let us settle the room charge first, and the reckoning will be easier.” Pilgrim said: “Rightly said. Which three grades does your establishment serve? As the old saying has it: goods have high and low, three ranks of price; guests, near or far, are looked on all the same. How do you mean, three grades of service? Try telling me and let me hear.” Widow Zhao said: “Here we have upper, middle and lower — three grades. For the upper: a banquet of five fruits and five dishes, a table set with sugar lions and immortals and sugar-work in tiers, two guests to a table, with singing girls sent for to sing and to stay the night — five mace of silver a head, room included.”
Pilgrim laughed: “Cheap! Back where I come from five mace would not even cover the girls.” The widow went on: “For the middle: a shared table, only fruit and warm wine, poured out for you to play guessing games and drinking forfeits among yourselves, no girls — two mace of silver a head.” Pilgrim said: “Cheaper still. And what of the lower?” The woman said: “I dare not say it in front of honoured guests.” Pilgrim said: “No harm in saying it — we should like to pick whichever suits our pocket.” The woman said: “For the lower: nobody to wait on you, whatever rice is in the pot, and eat as you please; when you have eaten your fill, take a handful of straw, make up a bed on the floor, and sleep wherever there is room.
“At daylight, give what few coppers for the food you please — we shall certainly not haggle.” Bajie heard this and said: “What luck! What luck! Old Zhu's kind of bargain has come at last! Let me watch the pot, eat my fill, and sleep in front of the stove and be damned!” Pilgrim said: “Brother, what a thing to say. You and I on the road — where do we not make a few taels of silver? Set out the upper grade.”
The woman was delighted through and through, and called at once: “Bring the good tea! Kitchen — get things ready, and be quick.” Then down she went, calling as she went: “Kill a chicken, kill a goose, boil some salted meat to go with the rice.” And again: “Kill a pig, kill a sheep — what we cannot use today will do for tomorrow. Bring the good wine, cook white rice, and roll out cakes of white flour.” Tripitaka heard it from upstairs and said: “Sun the Second — what are we to do? She has gone off to kill chickens and geese and pigs and sheep. If it is sent up, we are all on a lifelong fast — who would dare eat it?” Pilgrim said: “I have a plan.” He went to the stairhead and stamped his foot. “Mother Zhao! Come up.”
Up she came. “What are your orders, Mr Second?” Pilgrim said: “Take no life today. We are keeping a fast today.” The widow was taken aback: “Are you gentlemen on a lifelong fast, or a monthly one?” Pilgrim said: “Neither. Ours is what we call the gengshen fast. Today happens to be a gengshen day, so we fast. Once the third watch is past it becomes xinyou, and the fast is broken. Kill tomorrow, then. For now go and get something plain made up — and we shall still pay at the upper-grade price.”
The woman was more delighted still, and ran down calling: “Don't kill! Don't kill! Fetch some wood-ear, Fujian bamboo shoots, beancurd and wheat gluten; pull some greens from the garden; make a noodle soup; raise dough and steam some rolls; then boil white rice and brew fragrant tea.” Ah! The cooks on duty had the trick of it from doing it every day, and in a moment everything was arranged and set out upstairs, with the sugar lions and immortals ready made besides, and the four of them fell to as they pleased. She asked again: “Will you take plain wine?” Pilgrim said: “Only Tang the Senior will not. The rest of us will take a few cups.” The widow fetched a pot of warmed wine. The three of them had only just poured when there came a sudden clatter of boards.
Pilgrim said: “Mother — has something fallen over down there?” The widow said: “No — it is some hired men from my little farm who brought the rent rice in late, and I have put them to sleep downstairs. With guests arriving and nobody to send, I set them to carry the sedan chair to fetch the singing girls for you — I expect a chair-pole knocked the floorboards.” Pilgrim said: “As well you mentioned it — don't go fetching them. For one thing it is a fast day; for another, our brothers have not arrived. Better they come in tomorrow, each of us send for a girl, and we amuse ourselves at your place until the horses are sold and we set off.” The widow said: “Good men, good men — no harm done to good feeling, and the strength kept up besides.”
She called: “Bring the chair back in. Don't go fetching them.” The four of them ate and drank, the things were cleared away, and everyone went off.
Tripitaka put his mouth to Pilgrim's ear and said quietly: “Where do we sleep?” Pilgrim said: “Upstairs, here.” Tripitaka said: “That is not safe. We are all worn out. If we fall asleep, and somebody from this household comes up again to clear things away, and sees a cap has rolled off and a bare scalp showing, and knows us for monks, and raises a shout — what then?” Pilgrim said: “True enough.” He went to the stairhead and stamped again, and up came the widow: “What else do you want, Mr Sun?” Pilgrim said: “Where are we to sleep?” The woman said: “Upstairs is good for sleeping — no mosquitoes, a south wind, the windows wide open. Very good sleeping.” Pilgrim said: “We cannot sleep there. This Zhu the Third of mine has a touch of cold damp, Sha the Fourth has a draught in the shoulder, Tang the eldest will only sleep in the dark, and I have some trouble with light myself. This is no place to sleep.”
The old woman went downstairs and leaned on the counter-rail, sighing. She had a daughter, who came up holding a small child and said: “Mother, as the old saying goes — ten days sitting at the rapids, then one day you run nine of them. It is high summer now, and though there is little trade, when autumn comes round there will be more business than we can get through. What are you sighing for?” The woman said: “Child, it is not want of business that worries me. This evening, just as I was shutting up the shop, at the hour the watches begin, these four horse traders came to take rooms, and they wanted the upper grade of service. I really hoped to make a few mace of silver out of them, but they keep a fast, so there is no money to be made — and that is what I am sighing about.”
The daughter said: “Since they have eaten, they can hardly take themselves off to another house. Tomorrow you can lay on meat and wine — how can there be no money in them?” The woman said: “They are all ailing — afraid of draughts, shy of the light — and they all want to sleep in the dark. Think — every house we have is single-course tile. Where would you find a dark place? Better to give them a meal for nothing and send them off to some other house.” The daughter said: “Mother, we have a dark place, and no draught either. Very good, very good.” The woman said: “Where is that?” The daughter said: “When Father was alive he had a big chest made. It is four chǐ across, seven chǐ long, three chǐ or so high, and six or seven people could sleep inside.
“Send them to sleep in the chest.” The woman said: “I wonder whether that would do. Let me go and ask them. — Mr Sun, my poor little house has no dark place at all, only one big chest: no draught gets in and no light either. How would it be to sleep in the chest?” Pilgrim said: “Good, good, good.” So she set some of the hired men to carry the chest out, open the lid, and asked the guests to come down.
Pilgrim led his master, Sha Monk took up the load, and they went along behind the lantern's shadow straight to the chest. Bajie, not caring which way was up, scrambled into the chest first. Sha Monk passed the baggage in, helped the Tang Monk through, and got in himself. Pilgrim said: “Where is my horse?” An attendant standing by said: “The horse is tied up in the back room, eating fodder.” Pilgrim said: “Bring it here, bring the manger over, and tie it up tight against the chest.” Only then did he get in, calling: “Mother Zhao, put the lid on, drive in the staple, lock the lock; and have a look for us where the light gets in, and paste a bit of paper over it. Come and open it early tomorrow.” The widow said: “You are over-careful.”
With that they all shut their doors and went to sleep, and no more of that.
Now, the four of them once inside that chest — what a pitiful thing! For one thing they were newly wearing headcloths; for another the weather was blazing hot, the air was stopped up, and not a breath got through. They all took the headcloths off and stripped their clothes, and having no fan between them, flapped away with their monks' caps. You pressed against me and I against you, right up to about the second watch — and then they all fell asleep. Only Pilgrim, with mischief on his mind, could not get to sleep; he reached over and gave Bajie's leg a pinch. The Idiot pulled his leg back and grumbled: “Go to sleep. We are worn out — what sort of heart have you got, still pinching and poking about for fun?”
Pilgrim, playing the mischief-maker, said: “Our capital to start with was five thousand taels; the horses we sold before fetched three thousand; there are four thousand in the two saddlebags now; and this drove will fetch another three — capital and the same again in profit. Enough, enough.” Bajie, being a man who wanted his sleep, was in no state to answer.
Now as it happened, the waiters and the water-carriers and the stokers at that inn had long been in with a band of robbers; and hearing Pilgrim say there was all that silver, one of them sent a few men slipping out, gathered twenty-odd thieves, and they came with torches lit and staves in hand to rob the horse traders, and burst the door open. Widow Zhao and her women were so frightened that they shut the door of their room, trembling, and let the men do as they liked outside. As it turned out, the thieves did not want the inn's own goods. They were after the guests. Upstairs they found not a trace of them, so they lit torches and looked about on every side — and saw in the courtyard one big chest, with a white horse tied to the leg of it, the lid fast locked, and too heavy to turn over.
The thieves said: “Men who go about the rivers and lakes have hands and eyes. Look how heavy this chest sits — there must be baggage and money locked inside. Let us steal the horse, carry the chest out of the city, break it open and share it out. Would that not be a fine thing?” So the thieves duly got out ropes and carrying-poles, took the chest up and made off with it, and it swayed and swayed as they went. Bajie woke and said: “Brother, go to sleep. What are you rocking for?” Pilgrim said: “Say nothing. Nobody is rocking anything.” Tripitaka and Sha Monk woke suddenly too and said: “Who is it carrying us along?” Pilgrim said: “Don't shout. Don't shout. Let them carry. Carried all the way to the Western Heaven, and it saves us the walk.”
The thieves, having got their hands on it, did not go west but carried it east instead, killed the soldiers on the gate, broke the gate open and got out. At once it roused the watch-posts of the six streets and three markets, the fire-wardens and the labourers, and word went to the commander of the city patrol and to the eastern garrison office. The commander and the garrison office, the matter being their own concern, mustered horse and foot and bowmen at once and went out of the city after the thieves. The thieves, seeing the government troops in force, did not dare stand against them, but set down the great chest, dropped the white horse and made off into the scrub, each his own way. The government troops had not laid hold of half a bandit; all they did was take back the chest and catch the horse, and return in triumph.
The commander, seeing that horse by lamplight — a fine horse:
Mane parted into threads of silver, tail sweeping like a cord of jade.
Say nothing of the eight steeds and the dragon colts — it outdoes the Sushuang and the easy-paced.
A thousand in gold for the bones; a wind-chase of ten thousand lǐ.
Climbing the hills it meets the blue clouds every time; baying at the moon it is all of a whiteness with the snow.
Truly a sea-dragon come off its island; a joy that men have a unicorn of jade.
The commander would not ride his own horse but got up on this white one, and led his troops into the city, and had the chest carried to the general headquarters, and together with the garrison office wrote out a paper band and closed it up, and set men to guard it till daylight and then report and ask for a decision from the throne. The troops dispersed, and no more of that.
Now the Tang elder in the chest was reproaching Pilgrim: “You monkey-head, you have been the death of me. If we were outside and somebody laid hold of us and handed us to the Dharma-Destroying King, there would still be room to argue; but now, locked in a chest, carried off by thieves and taken back again by government troops, tomorrow we shall be brought before the king ready-made, laid out for the knife — and will that not just make up his tally of ten thousand?” Pilgrim said: “If people outside break the chest open and take us out, it will be either bound or else strung up. Bear it a while yet and you are spared the binding and the hanging. Tomorrow when we see that muddled king, old Monkey will have his own answer ready, and I promise you will not be harmed by so much as a hair.
“Now set your mind at rest and sleep.”
Waiting it out to about the third watch, Pilgrim worked a trick: he slid the staff out, blew a magic breath on it and called “Change!” It turned into a three-cornered drill, and at the foot of the chest he bored two or three times and bored a hole through. He put the drill away, gave himself a shake, turned into an ant and scrambled out. He took his own shape, mounted a cloud and went straight to the gate of the royal palace. That king was just then deep in sleep. He used his Great Body-Dividing Universal-Assembly Magic: pulled every hair off his left arm, blew a magic breath on them and called “Change!” They all became little Pilgrims. He pulled the hairs off his right arm too, blew a magic breath and called “Change!”
They all became sleep-insects. He spoke the true word Oṃ once over, and had the local earth-gods of that quarter lead a company out to scatter through the palace and the inner courts, the six ministries and the five offices, and the houses of every official great and small in all the departments: every man who held a rank got a sleep-insect of his own, so that all of them slept sound and none could turn over. Then he took the gold-banded staff in his hand, weighed it, gave it a shake and called: “Treasure — change!” It became a thousand and more head-shaving razors. He took one himself, told each little Pilgrim to take one, and off they all went into the palace and the inner courts, the six ministries and the five offices and every department, to shave heads.
Ah! This is exactly it:
The Dharma King destroys the Dharma, and the Dharma is without end; the Dharma runs through heaven and earth, and the Great Way goes through.
The ten thousand teachings come back at root to one body; the wondrous marks of the Three Vehicles were the same from the first.
Boring open the jade chest, the news comes clear; scattering the golden hairs, the veiling is broken.
It will surely bring the Dharma King to the true fruit — neither born nor perishing, coming and going in emptiness.
That half-night's shaving was brought off. He spoke the spell and dismissed the local gods of earth and soil. He gave his body a shake, and the hairs on both arms went back where they belonged. He pinched all the razors back into their real form, and it knew its own nature again and was a gold-banded staff as before; he took it back to its small size and stored it in his ear. He turned over again, became an ant once more, bored into the chest, took his own true shape, and stayed shut in with the Tang Monk — and no more of that.
Now in the palace and its inner courts, the maids of honour and the waiting-women got up to wash and dress before it was light — and every one of them had lost her hair; the eunuchs who serve through the palace, great and small, had lost their hair too. They came crowding together to the outside of the sleeping chamber and played music to rouse it, every one of them holding back tears and not daring to speak out. A little later the empresses of the three palaces woke, and they too had lost their hair. She hurried a lamp down to the dragon bed to look — and there in the brocade quilt slept a monk. The empress could not keep it in; the words came out and woke the king. The king opened his eyes in a hurry, saw the empress's head bare, and scrambled up at once: “My lady, how come you to be like this?”
The empress said: “Your Majesty is the same.” The emperor felt at his head, and the fright sent the three worms crying out and the seven souls flying into the air, and he said: “What am I to do?” In the middle of the panic, in came the concubines of the six courts, the palace maids and waiting-women, the eunuchs great and small, all of them bare-headed, who knelt and said: “Your Majesty, we have become monks.” The king saw them, and tears came into his eyes. “I suppose it is because I have killed monks…” And at once he gave the order: “None of you is to speak of this shaving of heads. I am afraid the civil and military officers will say the state is not rightly governed. Now all of you go up to the hall and hold court.”
Now as for the five offices and the six ministries and the officials of every department, great and small, they all had to go before daylight to attend the king and do reverence at the palace gate. And it turned out that in the night every one of them had lost his hair too. Every man of them wrote out a memorial to report the matter. One heard only this:
Three cracks of the silence-whip, and they attend the emperor; memorials report the reason for today's head-shaving.
And in the end there is no knowing what the commander did about the stolen goods in the chest he had taken back, nor what became of the lives of the Tang Monk and his three disciples. Listen to the explanation in the next chapter.
The danger is a shaved head, and nothing else. Almost every trap in this book is supernatural. This one is a haircut. The king of the Dharma-Destroying Kingdom has sworn to kill ten thousand monks and has managed nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-six, and the only thing that identifies a monk is a bare scalp. So the whole chapter turns into a problem of clothing: steal headcloths, sew two together for a head too big for one, refuse a lamp, refuse an airy room, and end up asking to be locked in a box. Pilgrim can fight armies. He cannot make his master's hair grow.
The old woman on the road really was the Bodhisattva. An old woman appears from nowhere under two rows of willows, leading a small child, and warns four travellers off the road. Everything about the scene says fiend — the novel has trained its readers on exactly this shape — and she is Guanyin, with the pilgrim boy Sudhana beside her. Tripitaka is courteous to her and blind; Bajie tells her to stop being morbid; only Pilgrim, with his 火眼金睛, the fiery eyes and golden pupils the furnace gave him, sees who she is. That phrase has long since left the book: Chinese still says it of anyone who sees through a fraud at a glance.
A poem that counts down from ten to one. The verse describing the city at dusk is a parlour trick, and it is worth reading aloud. Every line opens on a number and the numbers descend — crossroads at ten, the nine-tiered hall, seven stars, eight directions, six army camps, five drum-towers, mist on four sides, three markets, couples two by two, and one round moon. ⚠ Seven comes before eight on purpose. 七點 is the seven stars of the Dipper and 八方 the eight directions of the compass; neither phrase means anything with the other number in it, so the poet kept both and let the sequence take the hit.
The fast Pilgrim invents is a real one. Cornered by a landlady who has just ordered a pig killed for four Buddhist monks, Pilgrim announces that they are keeping the 庚申 fast. It exists. Days run in a cycle of sixty, each named by a pair of characters, and on this one the Daoists held that the three worms living inside the body climb out while you sleep to report your sins to heaven — so the devout sat up all night. The lie is unbeatable: she can check the calendar and cannot check them, and the vigil ends in the small hours, which is exactly when he means to be through the gates. ⚠ Those same three worms come back at the very end, when the king feels his bare head and 三尸 start screaming inside him.
Two characters you will not have in your font. This chapter carries two characters from beyond the ordinary range, which is a first for the project — one for each of Pilgrim's two escapes. Both are shown on the study page and neither can be printed here. The first, in the verse about the horse, is a hand-radical character read xiǎn; the old dictionary settles it by giving the sound outright, and across the novel's three uses it always takes a solid thing after it — lips against dirt, hair against a coil, and here a tail sweeping like a cord of jade. The second is a foot-radical character read guā, a vernacular verb for scrambling or clambering, always with a direction after it. Bajie scrambles into the chest with it and Pilgrim, as an ant, scrambles out.
Nobody in this chapter does anything wrong except the pilgrims. Count the obstacles. Merchants who get out of bed to guard their bags because the innkeeper warned them. An innkeeper who takes their clothes inside for safekeeping. A wife who sits up mending. A landlady who charges in advance and says so politely, and then throws in a banquet at the vegetarian price. A daughter who solves a guest's problem by remembering her dead father's chest. Not one of them is dishonest, and every one of them makes things worse for four men who lied their way through the gate, stole the clothes off sleeping travellers, and mean to pay for dinner with a lump of roof tile.
The boast that costs them everything. Locked in the chest in the dark, with three of the four asleep, Pilgrim gets bored and starts talking loudly about money — five thousand in capital, three thousand from the last sale, four thousand in the saddlebags. He is performing for nobody; Bajie will not answer and the other two are out. But the inn's waiters and water-carriers are friends of a robber band and one of them is within earshot, which the chapter told us an hour earlier when a chair-pole knocked the floorboards and Pilgrim asked what the noise was and was told. Twenty-odd thieves arrive with torches. The one thing that undoes the whole careful operation is vanity.
The answer to a king who kills monks. Pilgrim could kill the king. He could frighten him, or carry the four of them out and slip away before morning. What he does instead is put every ranked official in the capital to sleep, turn the gold-banded staff into a thousand razors, and shave the entire government — the palace women, the eunuchs, the empresses, the ministries, the king. Nobody is harmed. The point is arithmetical: a shaved head is what marks a monk, and he has just given that mark to everyone who made the policy. Then he goes back into the chest to be found there in the morning, under an unbroken official band, while the king orders his household to say nothing about it — about ninety seconds before every official in the kingdom independently writes it up.