Leave aside for the moment how the Tang monk and his companions endured the night's rain in the ruined hall of the Huaguang shrine and kept themselves alive. In the walled town of Diling county, in the prefecture of Tongtai, there was a gang of ruffians who had run through their family money on whores, drink and dice and had no way left to live. A dozen or so of them banded together to turn thief, and reckoned up which house in the town was richest and which second richest, meaning to rob a little gold and silver for their keep. One of them spoke up. “There is no need to go scouting, and no need to work anything out. There is only the household of Squire Kou, who saw the Tang monks off today — rich as they come.”
“We can go in under tonight's rain,” he said. “There will be nobody watching the street, the fire-watch will not be out on their rounds, and we can set to work then and there and strip him of a little capital. Then off we go again to the girls and the dice tables. Would that not be fine?” The whole gang was delighted. Each took short knives, caltrops, hooked bars, cudgels, hempen rope and torches, and came on through the rain. They broke open the great gate of the Kou house and burst in shouting.
The whole household, big and small, men and women alike, were thrown into such a panic that they hid themselves away to the last one. The old wife hid under the bed; the old man slipped in behind the door; Kou Liang, Kou Dong and the children of the immediate family all scattered in terror to save their lives. The thieves, knives in hand and torches burning, broke open the chests and cases and looted at will the gold and silver, the ornaments and clothing, the vessels and the household goods.
The squire could not bring himself to let it go. Staking his life on it, he came out of the door and pleaded with them. “Your worships, take what will serve your turn and let that be enough. Leave an old man a few clothes to be buried in.” They would not hear a word of it. They rushed forward, landed a kick in the squire's groin, and knocked him sprawling. Pity him — his three souls drifted away to the shades below, and his seven spirits floated off, parted from the world of men.
The thieves, having got what they came for, went out of the Kou house, made a rope ladder at the foot of the wall, and let themselves down over the battlements one after another. Braving the rain, they made west through the night. When the servants saw that they had gone they finally showed themselves, and found the old squire already dead on the ground. They raised a cry — “Heaven! The master has been beaten to death!” — and threw themselves down over the body and wept.
As it came on towards the fourth watch, the old wife fell to brooding. She hated the Tang monk and his company for not accepting the offerings she had made them, and blamed the gaudy fuss of the send-off for having brought this calamity down on the house. So a vengeful thought took shape in her. She took hold of Kou Liang and said, “Child, there is no need to weep. Your father fed monks yesterday and fed monks today. Little did he know that the day he made up his full count was the day he fed that pack of life-taking monks.”
Her sons said, “Mother, what do you mean, monks who took his life?” The old wife said, “The thieves were fierce and violent, and came killing their way into the room. I hid myself under the bed, and trembling as I was I kept my wits about me and looked towards the lamplight, and saw it all clearly. Who do you think it was? The one who lit the fire was the Tang monk. The one with the knife was Zhu Bajie. The one who carried off the gold and silver was Sha Monk. And the one who beat your father to death was Sun Wukong.”
The two sons heard her out, took it for the truth, and said their mother had seen it clearly, so that settled it. “The four of them lodged in our house for half a month. They had our gates and walls, our window lattices and inner lanes, all learned by heart. Wealth stirs the heart of a man, and so they took advantage of this night's rain to come back, and having robbed us of our goods they murdered our father besides. At daybreak we will go to the prefecture and lodge a complaint of robbery, naming them.” Kou Dong asked how the complaint should be written, and Kou Liang said, just as their mother had said. And they wrote:
The Tang monk lit the fire; / Bajie called out to kill.
Sha Monk robbed and carried off the gold and silver; / Sun Wukong beat my father to death.
The whole household was in an uproar, and before they knew it day had broken. On one side they sent for their relatives and set about arranging a coffin; on the other Kou Liang and his brother went off to the prefecture to lodge the complaint. Now the prefect of Tongtai, seated in his own hall of office, was a man of whom it could be said:
Upright the whole of his life; / by nature good and worthy.
In his youth he studied at a desk lit by snow; / in his early years he answered policy questions in the Hall of the Golden Bells.
He carried always a heart of loyalty and duty; / he held close at every turn a mind of kindness and mercy.
His name goes up in the green histories and spreads a thousand years, and in him Gong and Huang are seen again;
his fame shakes the yellow hall and passes down ten thousand ages; / in him Zhuo and Lu are born once more.
He took his seat in the hall at the proper hour, dealt with the business before him, and gave orders for the plaint board to be carried out. Kou Liang and his brother came in clutching it, fell to their knees and cried out that they humbly brought a charge of robbery with theft of goods, and of wounding and murder — a matter of the gravest kind. The prefect took up the complaint, read it through, and asked at once, “Word came to me yesterday that your house had completed its vow of feeding monks, and that you had fed four eminent monks besides, arhats from the Tang court in the east; and that you saw them off with drums and music the whole length of the street, in a great gaudy show. How then does this business come about?”
Kou Liang knocked his head on the floor and said their father had fed monks for twenty-four years, and because these four came from far off they made his ten thousand exactly, so he held the completion ceremony and kept them lodging half a month. “In that time they came to know our roads and passages, our doors and windows, all by heart. They were sent off in the daytime and came back that same night. Under cover of the dark and the storm they came with torches lit and staves in hand, forced their way into the rooms, carried off the gold and silver and valuables, and beat our father to death on the floor besides. We beg your honour to see justice done for us common people.”
The prefect at once mustered his mounted and foot runners together with the militia and the office staff, a hundred and fifty men in all, each carrying a keen weapon, and out they went by the west gate in pursuit of the Tang monk and his three. Now as for the pilgrims: they had held out under the broken roof of the Huaguang shrine until daybreak, and only then came out and took the road west. And as luck would have it, those same robbers had plundered the Kou house that night, let themselves down over the wall, and had also gone off along the great westward road, travelling until dawn. They had passed the shrine and gone twenty li beyond it, and were now hidden in a fold of the hills, sharing out the gold and silver.
The division was not yet finished when they suddenly caught sight of the Tang monk and his three coming along the road. “Is that not the monks who were seen off yesterday?” said one, and the gang, whose appetite was still not satisfied, laughed. “Well come, well come! We too are in this line of business. These monks were at the Kou house a good while; there is no telling how much they have about them. Let us cut them off, take their travelling money and seize the white horse to put in the pot as well.”
So they took up their weapons, raised a shout, ran up onto the highway and spread themselves out in a line, calling, “Monks! Don't move! Set down the road money quickly and we will spare your lives. But if half a no comes grinding through your teeth, it is one knife each, and not one of you left standing.” The Tang monk was so terrified that he shook all over on his horse. Sha Monk and Bajie lost their nerve. “We bore up bitterly through half a night of rain, and now first thing we run into brigands blocking the road. This is truly what they call misfortunes never coming singly.”
Monkey said with a laugh, “Master, do not be afraid. Brothers, do not worry. Let old Monkey go and put a question to them.” He hitched up his tiger-skin kilt, gave his brocade tunic a shake, walked up close, folded his hands against his chest and said, “Gentlemen, what line of work would you be in?” The robbers barked at him. “This fellow doesn't know whether he's alive or dead. Have you no eyes under that forehead of yours? Hand over the road money at once and we will let you pass.”
Monkey heard this and said, his whole face wreathed in a smile, “So you are highway robbers, then.” The robbers flew into a rage. Monkey put on a great show of terror. “Great king! I am only a monk from the villages, I don't know how to talk properly, I meant no offence. If it is road money you want, don't ask those three. Ask only me. I am the one who keeps the accounts. Every scrap of scripture money and alms money, everything begged or given anywhere we have been, is in that bundle, and it all passes through my hands.”
“That one on the horse may be my master, but all he can do is chant scriptures. He takes no interest in worldly business, and hasn't a hair's worth on him. That black-faced one is a young fellow I picked up on the road, and all he can do is look after the horse. That long-snouted one is a hired hand I took on, and all he can do is carry a shoulder-pole. Let those three go past, and I will give you the travelling money and the begging bowl and everything.” The robbers all said, “This monk turns out to be an honest sort after all. Very well then, we spare your life. Tell those three to put down the luggage.”
Monkey turned his head and gave them a look. Sha Monk at once dropped the luggage and the carrying-pole, took the horse for his master, and went off west with Bajie. Monkey bent his head and opened the bundle, then scraped up a handful of dust from the ground and scattered it upward, reciting a spell — which was the body-fixing method — and barked one word: “Halt!” That gang of robbers, some thirty of them in all, stood every one stock still with their teeth clenched, their eyes staring and their hands flung out, unable to say a word and unable to move a step.
Monkey sprang out into the mouth of the road and called, “Master! Come back!” Bajie panicked. “This is bad. Our elder brother has given us up. He has no money on him and there is no gold in the bundle, so he must be telling the master to hand over the horse.” Sha Monk laughed. “Second brother, stop talking nonsense. Our elder brother is a capable one. He has subdued poisonous demons and vicious monsters before now — is he going to be afraid of a few small-time thieves? He is calling us over there, so he must have something to say.”
The elder turned his horse gladly and came back. “Wukong, what is it you have called us back for?” Bajie went up and gave one a shove. “Robber! How come you have stopped moving?” The robbers were utterly senseless and neither spoke nor made a sound. “They've gone nicely dumb,” said Bajie. Monkey said with a laugh that he had used the body-fixing method on them, that was all. “You've fixed their bodies, but you never fixed their mouths. How is it they can't make a sound either?”
“Master, get down off the horse and take a seat,” said Monkey. “As the old saying goes, there is such a thing as a wrong arrest, but never a wrong release. Brothers, flip these robbers over and tie them up, and make them give a statement. Let us see whether they are fledgling robbers or old hands at it.” Sha Monk said they had no rope, so Monkey plucked out some of his hairs, blew a magic breath on them, and changed them into thirty lengths of rope. They flipped the robbers over and trussed them up, every one with all four limbs drawn together behind, the way a horse is hobbled; then he muttered the spell that undoes it, and the gang came slowly back to their senses.
Monkey settled the Tang monk in the seat of honour, and the three of them stood with their weapons and barked, “Small-time thieves! How many are there in your band? How many years have you been in this trade? How much have you taken? Have you ever killed anybody? Is this a first offence, or a second, or a third?” The robbers cried for their lives. “Stop howling,” said Monkey. “Out with it truthfully.”
“Old master, we are not long-practised thieves. We are all of us sons of decent families. It was only through our own worthlessness — drinking and gambling, whoring and idling — that we ran through the whole of our fathers' and grandfathers' estates. We had it on inquiry that Squire Kou's household was enormously rich, so yesterday we banded together, and that evening, under cover of the dark and the rain, we went off to rob it. What we robbed was some gold and silver and clothing, and we were just splitting the takings in a fold of the hills when we saw your honours coming. We beg your honour's mercy: take away the goods we stole, and spare our lives.”
Tripitaka, hearing that the goods came from the Kou house, was suddenly startled and stood up in alarm. “Wukong! Old Squire Kou is so very fond of doing good — how did he come to bring down a disaster like this?” Monkey said with a laugh that it was all on account of the send-off — the coloured hangings and flowered banners, the great show of drums and music, which caught everybody's eye. Tripitaka said, “We put him to trouble for half a month and are deeply grateful. Would it not be a good deed to escort this property back to his house?” Monkey did as he said.
So he went with Bajie and Sha Monk into the hills, fetched out the stolen goods, packed them up and loaded them on the horse, and had Bajie shoulder one pole-load of gold and silver. Monkey wanted to finish the whole gang off with one blow of his cudgel, but fearing the Tang monk would blame him for taking human life, he could only give himself a shake and take back his hairs. The gang scrambled up and fled into the wilds to save their lives. And the Tang monk turned about and went back the way he had come, to carry the property home to the squire. This going of his was like a moth flying into a flame: he took the harm of it upon himself. There is a poem to prove it:
Kindness repaid with kindness is rare in this world; / instead they turn kindness and mercy into a grudge.
Go into the water to save a man and there is a loss in it at the last; / think three times before you act and you will have nothing to grieve over.
Tripitaka and his disciples, carrying the gold and silver and the clothing back with them, were just on their way when they suddenly saw spears and swords come thick towards them. “Disciples! Look at those weapons — what sort of thing is this, good or bad?” Bajie said trouble had come, that these were the robbers they had let go, come round the road to fight it out. Sha Monk said, “Second brother, those coming are not a bandit sort. Elder brother, look at it closely.”
Monkey said quietly to Sha Monk, “Our master's unlucky star has come round again. This will be government troops out after robbers.” Before he had finished speaking the soldiers were on them, spread out in a ring and closing round the four of them. “Fine monks! You rob a household of its goods and then stand about here swaggering!” They rushed forward in a mass, dragged the Tang monk down off his horse first and tied him with rope, then tied up Monkey and the other two as well. They ran carrying-poles through the ropes, two men to carry each of them, drove the horse along, seized the shoulder-load and went straight back to the prefectural city. And this is what you would have seen:
Tripitaka Tang, trembling and shaking, tears running down and hard put to speak;
Zhu Bajie, mumbling and grumbling, complaining away inside himself.
Sha Monk, stopped up and bunched tight, uncertain what to think;
Sun Wukong, grinning away, ready to work a trick.
The soldiers crowded round them, hoisted them up, and in no time had them into the city and delivered straight up to the prefect's hall under guard. The prefect sat squarely on the bench, rewarded the constables, examined the stolen goods, and ordered the Kou family sent for to take them away. Then he had Tripitaka and the others brought up and asked, “You lot of monks — you claim to have come from far off in the east and to be going west to worship the Buddha. But it turns out you are thieves who contrive ways to tread out the ground and study the entrances, and break into houses to rob them.”
“Your honour, permit me to speak,” said Tripitaka. “I am a poor monk and truly no thief. I carry a travel warrant on my person that you may inspect. It was only that the household of Squire Kou fed us for half a month, and their kindness ran deep. On the road we met robbers and took back from them the property they had stolen from the Kou house, and we were carrying it home to repay their kindness when the constables seized us and took us for thieves. Truly we are no thieves. I beg your honour to look into it closely.”
The prefect said, “You rascal — you were caught by government troops, and now you talk your way round it with fine words about repaying kindness. If you met robbers on the road, why did you not seize them too and bring them in? How is it there are only the four of you? Look here — Kou Liang has laid a complaint, naming you by name. Do you still dare to wriggle?” Tripitaka, hearing this, was like a boat swallowed by the open sea: his soul flew off and his spirit scattered. He called out, “Wukong! Why do you not come forward and argue it?” Monkey said, “The stolen goods are there and that is a fact. What is the use of arguing?” “Just so,” said the prefect. “Do you still dare deny it?”
He called to his men, “Fetch the head-band! Put one turn of it round this bald thief's shaven skull, and then beat him.” Monkey was alarmed, and thought privately that though it was fated his master should suffer this ordeal, he still could not let him be badly hurt. Seeing the bailiffs knotting up a head-band, he spoke up. “Your honour, do not band that monk. Last night at the robbery of the Kou house, the one who lit the lamps was me. The one who held the knife was me. The one who took the money was me. The one who killed the man was me. I am the head of the gang. If you want to beat somebody, beat me. It has nothing to do with the others — only do not let me go, and that will do.”
The prefect gave orders to band this one first. The bailiffs fitted the head-band on Monkey and drew it tight with one hard pull — and with a crack the cord parted. They knotted it again and banded him again, and again it went crack and parted. Three or four times running they banded him, and the skin of his head did not so much as wrinkle. They were just changing the cord when someone came in with a report that his lordship the Grand Guardian Chen had arrived from the capital, and the prefect was asked to go outside the wall and receive him.
The prefect at once ordered the clerk of the punishments office to put the thieves in the gaol and keep close watch on them; when he had received his lordship he would examine them further under torture. So the clerk pushed the Tang monk and his three in at the prison gate, and Bajie and Sha Monk carried their own luggage in on the pole with them. “Disciple, how has this come about?” said Tripitaka. Monkey said with a laugh, “In you go, master. There are no dogs barking in here — it will be rather fun.” Pity them — the four of them were thrust into the restraining frames, and the straps buckled and hauled tight: the belly-roller, the head-presser, the chest-clamp.
The turnkeys came and beat them at random. Tripitaka could not bear the pain of it, and only cried, “Wukong! What are we to do?” Monkey said they were beating them because they wanted money — as the old saying goes, in an easy place settle down, in a hard place spend money. Give them a little now and that would be the end of it. “Where would money of mine come from?” said Tripitaka. “If there is no money, goods will do,” said Monkey. “Give them that cassock, then.” When Tripitaka heard this it was as if a knife had gone into his heart; but seeing he could not stop the beating, he had to speak up. “Wukong — as you please, then.”
Monkey called out at once, “Gentlemen! There is no need to beat us. In those two bundles we carried in there is a brocade cassock worth a thousand in gold. Undo them and take it away.” The turnkeys undid the two bundles to look. There were a few cloth garments and a satchel, none of them worth anything. Then they saw a thing wrapped in several layers of oiled paper, blazing with coloured light, and knew it was something good. They shook it open to look, and this is what they saw:
Strung with marvellous pearls, / gathered close with rare Buddha-treasures.
Coiling dragons spread in embroidered knots, / soaring phoenixes edging the brocade.
Everyone crowded round to look, which disturbed the warden of the prison office. He came out and barked, “What are you all making a noise about in here?” The turnkeys knelt and said, “Sir, a hearing was held just now and four monks were sent down, a whole gang of robbers. They saw us give them a few blows and handed us these two bundles. When we opened them up we found this thing, and there was no way of dealing with it. If we all tear it up and divide it, that is a real shame; and if it goes to one man alone, the rest of us get nothing. Luckily your honour has come. Let your honour make the split.”
The warden looked, and it was a cassock; and he went through the other clothes and the satchel as well, checking everything. Then he opened the travel warrant inside the satchel and took one look, and saw the treasure-seals and signatures of every kingdom on it. “It is as well I came,” he said. “Otherwise you would all have brought trouble down on yourselves. These monks are no robbers. On no account touch their belongings. Wait till his honour examines them again tomorrow, and then we shall know the truth of it.” The turnkeys gave the bundles back, wrapped them up as before, and handed them over to the warden for safekeeping.
Little by little the night wore on. They heard the drum start up in the tower and the fire-watch going their rounds. When it had dragged on to the third point of the fourth watch, Monkey saw that all were fast asleep, and thought privately that it was written his master should have this one night of prison for his calamity — and that was the reason he had not opened his mouth to argue and had used no magic. Now the fourth watch was nearly out and the calamity nearly full; he had better go and make some arrangements, so that they could get out of the prison gate by daylight. He made his body small, a little smaller, and slipped out of the restraining frame.
With a shake of his body he changed into a gnat and flew out through a crack in the roof-tiles. He saw the starlight and the bright moon: it was a clear, mild, quiet night. He got his bearings and flew straight for the door of the Kou house, and saw one house on the west side of the street with its lamps still burning. Flying nearer, he found it was a family who made beancurd — an old man tending the fire and his wife squeezing the pulp. The old man suddenly said, “Wife — Master Kou had sons and he had money. He just had no length of years.”
“He and I were at school together as boys — I am five years his senior. His father was called Kou Ming, and in those days he had not a thousand mu of land; he put a little out at rent and could not even collect it. When he got to twenty, old Ming died and he took the family property in hand. And truly it was one lucky step of his: the wife he married was that daughter of Zhang Wang, called Chuanzhen, Threading-Needle, as a girl, and she turned out to bring her husband luck. From the day she came into his house, the fields he planted brought in a crop and the money he lent out came back with interest, until by now he has run up a private fortune of a hundred thousand.”
“When he got to forty he turned his heart to good works, and fed ten thousand monks — and then last night, past all expectation, he was kicked to death by robbers. Pity him! Only sixty-four this year, and just at the age to enjoy it all. Who would have thought that a man so given to good should get no good return for it, and should die by violence? A sad thing, a sad thing!” Monkey took it all in, one thing after another. By now it was the first point of the fifth watch.
Then he flew into the Kou house, and saw that the coffin was already standing in the main room, with a lamp burning at the head of it and incense, candles, flowers and fruit set out; the old wife was weeping at his side. He also saw his two sons come to bow and weep, and the two daughters-in-law carrying two bowls of rice to set before him. Monkey settled on the head of the coffin and gave a cough. It frightened the two daughters-in-law into running out with their hands and feet all anyhow, and Kou Liang and his brother lay flat on the ground and dared not stir.
They only cried, “Father! Oh — oh — oh —” But the old woman was bolder. She gave the coffin-head a slap and said, “Old squire! Have you come alive?” Monkey mimicked the squire's voice. “I have not come alive.” The two sons went to pieces altogether. The old woman steeled her nerve and asked again, “Squire — if you have not come alive, how is it you can speak?”
“I am sent by King Yama, with a ghost-runner detailed to escort me home to speak with you. That Zhang woman, Threading-Needle, with her false mouth and her lying tongue, has brought ruin on the innocent.” When the old woman heard him call her by her childhood name she was so frightened that she fell to her knees and knocked her head on the floor. “Oh, my good old man! At your age, still calling me by my little name! What lies have I told? Who is the innocent I have harmed?”
Monkey barked at her, “What is all this — the Tang monk lit the fire, Bajie called out to kill, Sha Monk robbed and carried off the gold and silver, Wukong beat your father to death? Your lying tongue alone has brought suffering on good men. Those four reverend teachers of the Tang court met bandits on the road, took the goods off them and brought them back to thank me for my kindness. What better intention could there be! But you faked up a complaint of robbery and set your sons to lay information. The authorities have not looked into it properly either, and now they have the four of them locked up.”
“The prison god, the local earth god and the city god are all in a panic over it, and have reported it to King Yama. Yama in his turn has detailed a ghost-runner to escort me home, to tell you to set them free at once. If you do not, I am to be let loose in this house to make trouble for a month, and of the whole household not one will be left alive.” Kou Liang and his brother knocked their heads and pleaded. “Father, please go back. When it is light we will go to the prefecture and put in a statement withdrawing the charge; we only ask that the living and the dead may both be at peace.” Monkey called at once, “Burn the paper — I am going!” And the whole household came to burn paper.
Monkey went up on a wing and flew straight on to the prefect's house, where there was already lamplight. He flew into the main hall, and saw hanging on the rear wall a scroll painting: an official riding a dappled horse, with attendants holding up a green umbrella and carrying a folding camp chair. There was no telling what story it was. Monkey perched himself in the middle of it.
Presently the prefect came out and bent over to wash and comb. Monkey gave a cough right there, which threw him into such a fluster that he ran back inside. When he had washed he put on his outer robe, came out, and burned incense before the picture, praying: “Spirit tablet of my late uncle, Lord Jiang Qianyi. Your dutiful nephew Jiang Kunsan, favoured by the merit inherited from his forebears, unworthily placed in the first grade of the examinations, now humbly holds the post of prefect of Tongtai, and serves your incense morning and evening without a break. Why do you speak today? Only do not turn into an evil thing or a haunting, and frighten the household.”
Monkey laughed to himself. “So this is his great-uncle's spirit portrait.” Then, putting on a solemn tone, he called out: “Kunsan, worthy nephew! You hold office on your forebears' merit and have been clean-handed all along — so how came you yesterday, in your ignorance, to take four holy monks for thieves, and lock them up without hearing what they had to say? The prison god, the earth god and the city god are unquiet over it, and have reported it to the king of the dead. He has dispatched a ghost-runner to escort me here to tell you: weigh the circumstances, look into the reason, and set them free at once. If you do not, I am to have you brought down to the shades below to argue it out.”
The prefect said in fear and trembling, “Great-uncle, please go back. When your nephew opens court he shall release them at once.” Monkey said that if that was so, they should burn paper — he was off to report back to the king of the dead. The prefect added more incense and made his grateful bow. Monkey flew out again, and away in the east it was already growing light. Flying on to Diling county, he saw the whole body of county officials assembled in their hall, and thought to himself that a gnat that talks would give the game away if anybody saw it.
So up in mid-air he changed into his great magic body, and let down one foot out of the sky that trod the whole county hall full. And he called, “Officers, listen! I am the Wandering Idle God sent by the Jade Emperor. It is said that in your prefecture's gaol you have beaten and wronged the Buddha's sons who go to fetch the scriptures, disturbing the gods of the three realms. I am told to give you the word: release them at once. And if there is any slip in it, I am told to come again with this foot: first to kick the prefecture and county officers to death, and then to trample the people of the four borders to death, and stamp the whole city into ashes.”
The whole body of county officers and clerks were so frightened that they knelt down together, knocking their heads. “Great sage, please go back. We will go into the prefecture now and report to his honour, and have them let out at once. Only whatever you do, do not move your foot.” Only then did Monkey put away his magic body, change back into a gnat, fly in through a crack in the roof-tiles of the prison, and burrow back into the middle of the restraining frame as before, and go to sleep.
Now the prefect took his seat, and no sooner had he had the plaint board carried out than Kou Liang and his brother were there clutching it and calling out at the door on their knees. The prefect ordered them shown in, and they handed up their statement of retraction. The prefect saw it and grew angry. “Yesterday you handed in a complaint of robbery, and the thieves were caught and brought to you, and you took the stolen goods away. Why do you come today with a retraction?”
The two of them said with tears running, “Your honour, last night our father showed himself in spirit and said that those holy monks had caught the robbers first and taken the goods off them, and were kindly carrying the property back to our house — how is it that you have turned round and treated them as thieves? The earth god and the city god of the gaol are unquiet, and have reported it to King Yama, who has dispatched a ghost-runner to escort him here and tell us to appeal again; and if not, old and young alike shall perish.” The prefect heard him out and thought privately that their father was a warm corpse, and a newly dead man showing himself was credible enough; but his own uncle had been dead five or six years, and how was it that he too came last night? Looking at it, there must be a wrong here.
He was still turning it over when the magistrate of Diling county and his officers came running up into the hall. “Your honour! This is bad! Just now the Jade Emperor sent down the Wandering Idle God, to tell you to release the good men in your gaol at once. The monks who were taken yesterday are not robbers — they are the Buddha's sons who go to fetch the scriptures. And if there is the least delay, he will kick us officials to death, and moreover stamp the city and the people in it into ashes.”
The prefect changed colour with alarm again, and at once told the clerk to write out a warrant with all speed and have them brought out. And the prison gate was opened there and then. Bajie said gloomily, “Today they'll be beating us again, and no telling how.” Monkey said with a laugh, “I guarantee they won't dare give you a single stroke. Old Monkey has it all arranged and settled. When we go up into the hall, on no account kneel. He will come down himself and invite us to take the upper seats. And just let me ask him for our luggage and our horse — and if there is one thing short, watch me thrash him.”
Before he had finished they were at the door of the hall. The prefect, the county magistrate and the officers of prefecture and county, high and low, all came down at the sight of them to receive them. “Holy monks, when you came yesterday, first there was a superior to be met and we were pressed for time, and second we saw the stolen goods that had been taken, and we never got as far as asking closely into the truth of it.” The Tang monk pressed his palms together, bowed, and set out the whole business again in detail. The officers acknowledged it with one voice: a mistake, a mistake; no offence, no offence. Then they asked whether anything had gone amiss in the gaol.
Monkey came forward, glared with bulging eyes and shouted in a hard voice, “Somebody in this hall took my white horse, and somebody in the gaol took my luggage. Give them back to me at once. And today it falls to me to put you to the question. Seizing innocent men and making them out to be thieves — what punishment do you deserve for that?” The prefecture and county officers, seeing him turn nasty, were every one of them afraid, and at once called for whoever had taken the horse to bring the horse, and whoever had taken the luggage to fetch the luggage, and handed everything over one by one, all correct.
You should have seen the three of them swaggering, while the officers could only put it all down to the Kou family. Tripitaka smoothed it over. “Disciples — nothing here can be made clear. Let us go to the Kou house: first to pay our respects to the dead, and second to have it out with them face to face, and see who it was that saw us commit a robbery.” Monkey said, “Well said. Let old Monkey call up the dead man and see whom he says beat him to death.”
Sha Monk hoisted the Tang monk onto his horse there in the prefectural hall, and bawling and shouting they swept out in a body. And all those many officers of prefecture and county went along to the Kou house too. It frightened Kou Liang and his brother into knocking their heads at the gate as they showed them into the hall. Inside the mourning chamber the whole household were weeping behind the mourning curtains. Monkey called out, “You there — the good wife who told lies and framed innocent men — stop your weeping. Let old Monkey call your husband up, and we shall see whom he says beat him to death. That will shame you.”
The officers all took what Sun Wukong said for a joke. Monkey said, “Your worships, keep my master company a while and sit down. Bajie, Sha Monk — look after him well. I shall be back as soon as I have gone.” Fine Great Sage — he sprang out of the door and shot straight up into the sky. And there was seen: coloured cloud covering the whole house, and a sky of auspicious vapour guarding the primal spirit. Only then did the company recognise him for an immortal who rides the clouds and drives the mist, a sage who raises the dead and brings them back to life; and here they burned incense and did him reverence, one after another — but of that no more.
The Great Sage rode his cloud-somersault the whole way, straight to the borders of the shades, and burst in upon the Hall of Judgement. Which threw into a flutter:
The Ten Kings of the dead clasped their hands and received him; / the ghost judges of the five quarters bowed their heads in welcome.
A thousand trunks of the sword-forest all leaned aside; / ten thousand ridges of the knife-mountain lay level and flat.
In the City of the Wrongly Dead the goblins were transformed; / under the Bridge of the River Nai the ghosts were reborn.
Truly that divine light shone like a pardon from heaven, / and the dark offices of the shades were bright in every corner.
The Ten Kings received the Great Sage below, and when the greetings were done they asked what had brought him. Monkey said, “The ghost of Kou Hong of Diling county in the prefecture of Tongtai, who feeds monks — which of you has taken him in? Look him up quickly and hand him over to me.” The Ten Kings said, “Kou Hong is a good man; no ghost-runner was ever sent to fetch him. He came here of his own accord, fell in with Dizang's golden-robed boy, and the boy took him in to see Dizang.” Monkey took his leave at once and went straight to the Palace of Kingfisher Cloud to see the Bodhisattva Dizang, and laid the whole matter out.
The Bodhisattva said with pleasure, “Kou Hong's allotted span was reckoned to end just there; he departed the world without so much as taking to his bed. Because he fed monks and is a good man, I took him on as clerk of the ledger of good works. But since the Great Sage has come to fetch him, I shall extend his span by another twelve-year cycle, and let him go with the Great Sage.” The golden-robed boy then led Kou Hong out. He saw Monkey and cried out, “Teacher! Save me, save me!” Monkey said, “You were kicked to death by robbers, and this is the place of the Bodhisattva Dizang in the shades below. Old Monkey has come specially to fetch you to the world of the living, to clear this business up. Since the Bodhisattva has granted your return and added a twelve-year cycle to your span, you may come back here after twelve years.” The squire bowed and could not stop giving thanks.
Monkey thanked the Bodhisattva and took his leave, blew Kou Hong away into vapour and tucked him into his sleeve, and they went out of the shadowy offices together and returned to the world of light. Riding his cloud, he came to the Kou house and at once called Bajie to prise the coffin lid open, and pushed the soul back into its own body. In a moment the breath came through and he was alive. The squire climbed out of the coffin and knocked his head to the Tang monk and his three, saying, “Teacher! Kou Hong died out of his proper span, and by your favour was brought back alive from the shades below. This is the kindness of a second making.”
Turning his head and seeing the officers all ranged there, he knocked his head again and said, “Your worships — how is it you are all at my house?” The prefect said, “Your sons at the outset handed in a complaint of robbery, naming the holy monks, and I sent men at once to make the arrest. Unexpectedly the holy monks had met on the road the very thieves who plundered your house, taken the goods off them, and were carrying them home to you. My people arrested them by mistake, and without a proper hearing I had them sent to prison. Tonight you showed yourself in spirit, and my own late uncle came to the house with the same complaint, and in the county besides they had the Wandering Idle God come down. So many signs all at once — that is why I released the holy monks. And the holy monk has now gone and brought you back to life.”
The squire knelt and said, “Your worship — these four holy monks have truly been wronged. That night there were thirty-odd robbers, with torches lit and staves in hand, who carried off our property. I could not bear to give them up and reasoned with the thieves, and one of them, unlooked for, gave me a kick in the groin and killed me. What had these four to do with it?” He called his wife over. “Who was it that kicked me to death, that you dared make so wild an accusation? I beg your worship to fix the punishment.” At that the whole household, old and young, could only knock their heads. The prefect was generous and remitted the offence.
Kou Hong had a banquet laid on to thank the prefecture and county for their great kindness. Not one of them sat down, and they went back to their offices. Next day he hung out the monk-feeding board again and pressed Tripitaka to stay; but Tripitaka would not stay on any account. So once more they called in relatives and friends, got out banners and streamers, and saw him off as before. Ah! Truly it is:
Earth is wide enough to hold a deed of violence; / heaven is high, and does not fail a man of good heart.
At ease and steady of step on the Buddha's road, / on and on to the gate of Ultimate Bliss on the Spirit Mountain.
In the end there is no telling how they fared on seeing the Buddha; listen to the next instalment, and it will be explained.