Journey to the West (vol. 2) Read online

  Monkey, Pig and Friar Sand, joined in a common cause, neatened up their clothes and went to meet the carriage. “There is no need to escort us a long way, Your Majesty. We shall take our leave of you here.”

  Sanzang stepped down from the royal carriage, raised his hands together to the queen, and said, “Please go back now, Your Majesty, and allow me to fetch the scriptures.” When the queen heard this her face went pale with shock. She grabbed hold of the Tang Priest and said, “Dear emperor's brother, I have offered you the wealth of my realm to become my husband. Tomorrow you are going to take the throne as monarch, and I am going to be your consort. We have already eaten the wedding feast. How can you go back on your word now?”

  This was too much for Pig, who went wild. Thrusting his snout about and waving his ears he rushed to the royal coach shouting. “What would monks like us want to marry a powdered skeleton like you for? Let my master go!” This rough and violent behavior so frightened the queen that her souls all went flying and she collapsed in the coach. Friar Sand pulled Sanzang out of the crowd and helped him mount the horse. Just then a woman shot forward from the roadside shouting, “Don't go, Tang emperor's brother. You and I are going to make love.”

  “You ignorant, wicked creature,” Friar Sand shouted at her, striking at her head with his staff. The woman then made a whirlwind that carried the Tang Priest off with a great roar. He had disappeared without shadow or trace. Indeed

  He escaped from the net of beauties

  To encounter a lecherous ogress.

  If you don't know whether the woman was a human being or a monster, or whether the master lived or died, then listen to the explanation in the next installment.

  Chapter 55

  The Tang Priest Is Tempted with Sex and Debauchery

  Because His Nature Is Upright He Resists Unharmed

  The story tells how the Great Sage and Pig were just about to use their magic to immobilize all the women when they suddenly heard the noise of a wind. Friar Sand, who was shouting, looked round at once to find the Tang Priest gone.

  “Who's taken the master?” Monkey asked.

  “A woman made a whirlwind and carried him off in it,” Friar Sand reported. At this news Monkey jumped up with a whoosh to stand on his cloud and shade his eyes as he looked all around. He saw the gray dust cloud of a whirlwind that was heading Northwest.

  “Brothers,” he turned back to shout, “come straight up on your clouds. We're going after the master.” Pig and Friar Sand tied the luggage on the horse and both sprang noisily into the air.

  All this gave such a fright to the queen of Western Liang and her subjects that they fell to their knees in the dust and said, “He is an arhat who has flown away in broad daylight. Do not be alarmed, Your Majesty. The Tang emperor's brother is a dhyana monk who has mastered the Way. We were too blind to see who this man of China really was, and we allowed ourselves all that longing for nothing. Please ride back to the palace in your carriage, Your Majesty.” The queen felt ashamed as she went back into her capital with her officials, and we shall say no more of them.

  Monkey and the other two disciples meanwhile were riding their clouds through the air after the whirlwind. They chased it to a high mountain, where the gray dust settled and the wind fell, so that they did not know which way the demon had gone. The brothers brought their clouds down to land to search for the way. Suddenly they noticed a gleaming rock shaped like a screen. Leading the horse round behind it they found a pair of stone doors above which was written:

  DEADLY FOE MOUNTAIN PIPA CAVE

  In his ignorance Pig went up to the doors and was about to beat on them with his rake when Monkey rushed forward to stop him. “Don't be in such a hurry, brother,” he said. “After following the whirlwind we had to look around for a while before we found these doors. We don't know what's behind them. If they're the wrong doors we'd stir up trouble offending the wrong people, and we don't want to do that. You two take the horse round to the front of the rock screen and wait a moment. I'm going to take a look around and find out what's happening here. Then it'll be much easier to know what to do.”

  Friar Sand liked this idea. “Splendid, splendid,” he said, “You've found the subtle solution when things were looking rough, the calm way out of the crisis.” The two of them then led the horse to the other side of the rock screen.

  Monkey then showed his magic powers. Making a spell with his hands and saying the words he shook himself and turned into an exquisite bee. Just look at him:

  Fine wings bending in the wind,

  A narrow waist gleaming with the sun.

  With his sweet mouth he searched for stamens,

  While the sting in his tail killed toads.

  Great was his achievement in making honey,

  And he always entered the hive with courtesy.

  Now be would use a brilliant plan

  As he flew in under the eaves of the doorway.

  Monkey squeezed in through the crack between the outer doors then past the inner doors to see a female monster sitting in a flower pavilion with serving girls in brightly-coloured embroidered clothes and their hair sticking upwards in two bunches. They were all very pleased, but he could not hear what they were talking about. Monkey flew up to them very quietly, perched on the lattice of the pavilion, and cocked his ear to listen. He saw two women with their tangled hair tied in a bun carrying two piping hot dishes of food to the pavilion and saying, “Madam, this dish has steamed rolls with human flesh in them, and that one has vegetarian ones with sweet beanpaste fillings.”

  “Little ones,” said the she-devil with a smile, “Bring the Tang emperor's brother out.” Some of the serving girls in embroidered clothes went to the room at the back to help the Tang Priest out. His face was sallow, his lips white, and his eyes red as the tears streamed down his face, “The master's been drugged,” thought Monkey with a silent sigh.

  The she-devil went down from the pavilion and showed her ten fingers that were as delicate as spring onions as she grabbed hold of Sanzang and said, “Don't worry, emperor's brother. This may not be as rich and splendid as the palace in the Womanland of Western Liang, but it's peaceful and comfortable, and an ideal place for reciting the Buddha's name and reading the scriptures. With me as your companion we'll be able to live in harmony till we're a hundred.” Sanzang said nothing.

  “Don't be upset,” the she-devil said. “I know that you had nothing to eat or to drink at your banquet in Womanland. Here are two dishes, one of meat and one of vegetarian food. Won't you take some to calm your nerves?”

  Sanzang thought deeply: “If I say nothing and eat nothing, this she-devil may murder me. She is worse than the queen, who was at least human and knew how to behave. What am I to do? My disciples don't know that I'm a prisoner here. If I let her murder me I'll be throwing my life away for nothing.” Though he racked his brains he could find no other plan, so he pulled himself together and asked, “What is the meat dish and what is the vegetarian one?”

  “The meat one is steamed rolls stuffed with human flesh, and the vegetarian one steamed rolls with sweet fillings,” the she-devil replied.

  “I would like some of the vegetarian ones,” said Sanzang.

  “Servant girls,” said the she-devil, “bring hot tea and give your master some vegetarian steamed rolls.” A servant girl then brought in a tray of tea that she set before the Tang Priest. The she-devil broke a vegetarian roll open and handed it to Sanzang, who offered a whole meat one to her. “Why won't you open it for me, emperor's brother?” the she-devil asked with a smile.

  “I am a man of religion, so I would not dare to break meat food,” said Sanzang.

  “In that case,” said the she-devil, “Why did you eat wedding cake at the Motherhood River, and why are you insisting on eating beanpaste now?”

  To this Sanzang replied,

  “When the river is high I'm carried away.

  When bogged down I have to slow down.”

  Monkey, who could
hear from his perch in the lattice just how friendly their conversation was getting, started worrying that the master's true nature might become disturbed. It was more than he could bear, so he resumed his own appearance and brandished his cudgel with a shout of “Behave yourself, you evil beast.” When the she-devil saw him she spat out smoke and light that covered the pavilion and told her underlings to shut the Tang Priest away.

  Then she seized her steel trident and leapt out through the door of the pavilion, shouting abusively, “Hooligan ape! How dare you sneak into my house to set your dirty eyes on me! Stay where you are and take this!” The Great Sage parried the lunge from her trident and fell back, fighting all the way.

  When they came to the outside of the cave where Pig and Friar Sand were waiting, the sight of the hard-fought battle so alarmed Pig that he led the white horse over to Friar Sand and said, “Look after the horse and the luggage. I'm joining in.” The splendid idiot then raised his rake with both hands and rushed forward with a shout, “Stand back, brother, while I kill this vicious beast.” Seeing Pig coming the she-devil used another kind of magic to breathe fire out of her nose and smoke from her mouth as she shook herself and charged him with her trident flying and dancing. Goodness only knows how many hands she had as she somersaulted towards them, lashing out furiously. Monkey and Pig were both fought to a standstill.

  “Sun Wukong,” said the she-devil, “you don't know when to keep your head down. I know who you are, but you don't recognize me. Even your Tathagata Buddha from the Thunder Monastery is afraid of me. Where do you think you two little wretches are going to get? Come here, all of you, and watch me beat every one of you.” It was a fine battle:

  Great was the she-devil's prowess

  As the Monkey King's anger rose.

  Then Marshal Tian Peng joined in the fight,

  Showing off wildly wielding his rake.

  One was a many-handed mistress of the trident,

  Surrounding herself with smoke and with light;

  The other two were impatient and their weapons powerful,

  As they stirred up many a cloud of mist.

  The she-devil was fighting to win a mate,

  But the monk would never lose his vital seed.

  Ill-matched male and female fought it out,

  Each showing heroism in the bitter struggle.

  Calmly the female had built up her strength, longing for action;

  The male was on guard in his love of pure stillness.

  This made peace between them impossible

  As trident fought for mastery with cudgel and rake.

  Powerful was the cudgel,

  Even stronger the rake,

  But the she-devil's trident was a match for them both.

  Nobody would yield on Deadly Foe Mountain;

  No mercy was given outside Pipa Cave.

  One was happy at the thought of the Tang Priest as a husband;

  The other two were going with him to collect the scriptures.

  Heaven and earth were alarmed by the battle,

  Which darkened sun and moon and displaced all the stars.

  When the three of them had been fighting for a long time without anyone emerging as victor, the she-devil shook herself and used the sting in her tail to jab the Great Sage in the head. Monkey yelled in agony at the unbearable pain and fled, defeated. Seeing that things were going badly Pig withdrew too, dragging his rake behind him. The victorious she-devil put her steel trident away.

  Monkey had his hands round his head and his face screwed up in agony as he shouted, “It's terrible, it's terrible.”

  “Brother,” said Pig, going up to him, “why did you run away howling in pain just when you were fighting so well?”

  “It's agony, agony,” groaned Brother Monkey, still holding his head.

  “Is it an attack of your migraine?” Pig asked.

  “No, no,” said Monkey, hopping around in pain.

  “But I didn't see you get wounded,” said Pig, “so how can your head be hurting?”

  “It's unbearable,” groaned Monkey. “Just when she saw that I was beginning to beat her trident she braced herself and jabbed me in the head. I don't know what weapon she used, but it's made my head ache so unbearably that I had to run away, beaten.”

  “In quiet places you're always boasting that your head was tempered in the furnace,” said Pig with a laugh, “so why was that too much for you?”

  “Yes,” replied Monkey, “after my head was refined I stole the magic peaches and immortal wine and Lord Lao Zi's golden elixir tablets. When I made havoc in Heaven the Jade Emperor ordered the Strongarm Demon King and the Twenty eight Constellations to take me to be beheaded at the Dipper and Bull Palace. The gods used their cutlasses, axes, hammers and swords on me, struck me with thunderbolts and burned me with fire. Then Lao Zi put me in his Eight Trigrams Furnace and refined me for forty-nine days. None of that harmed me at all. Goodness only knows what weapon that woman used to make my head hurt like this.”

  “Put your hands down and let me have a look,” said Friar Sand. “Has it been cut open?”

  “No, no,” said Monkey.

  “I'd better go back to Western Liang to get you some ointment to put on it,” said Pig.

  “It's not cut open or swollen; I don't need ointment,” said Monkey.

  “Brother,” laughed Pig, “I wasn't at all ill when I was pregnant or after I lost the baby, but you've got a carbuncle on your forehead.”

  “Stop teasing him, brother,” said Friar Sand. “It's getting late, our eldest brother's been wounded in the head, and we don't know whether the master is dead or alive. What on earth are we going to do?”

  “The master's all right,” groaned Brother Monkey. “I flew in as a bee and saw the woman sitting in a flower pavilion. Before long two servant girls came in with two dishes of steamed rolls, one with fillings of human flesh and one with sweet fillings of beanpaste. She sent two other serving girls to help the master come out to eat something to soothe his nerves. She was talking about being his companion. At first he wouldn't reply or eat any of the rolls, but she was giving him so much sweet talk that he said he'd have a vegetarian one. Goodness knows why. The woman broke one open and gave it to him, and he passed her an unbroken meat one. 'Why won't you open it for me?' She asked, and he said, 'I am a man of religion, so I would not dare to break meat food.' Then she said, 'In that case, why did you eat wedding cake at the Motherhood River, and why are you eating sweet fillings now?' The master did not catch what she was driving at, and replied, 'When the river is high I'm carried away; when bogged down I have to slow down.' Listening to all this from the lattice I got worried that the master was going to forget himself, so I turned back into myself and hit at her with my cudgel. She used magic too, breathed out clouds, told them to shut the master away, and drove me out of the cave with her trident.”

  Friar Sand bit his finger and said, “That low bitch must have followed us at some stage, she knows so much.”

  “From what you say,” said Pig, “we mustn't rest. From dusk to the middle of the night we've got to keep going back and challenging her to fight. We'll have to yell and make such a din that she can't go to bed or have it off with our master.”

  “I can't go back,” said Monkey. “My head's hurting too badly.”

  “We can't challenge her to battle,” said Friar Sand. “Our eldest brother's head is aching and our master is a true monk. He won't let the illusion of sex disturb his nature. Let's spend the light sitting somewhere under the mountain that's sheltered from the wind. Then we can build up our energy and think of something else in the morning.” The three brother disciples tethered the white horse and guarded the luggage as they spent the night resting under the slope of the mountain.

  The she-devil then put aside thoughts of murder and started to wear a mile again as she said, “Little ones, shut the front and back doors tight.” Then she sent out two scouts to keep an eye on Monkey, and ordered them to report the moment any soun
d was heard at the door. “Maids,” she commanded, “tidy the bedroom and get it ready. Bring candles, burn incense, and ask the Tang emperor's brother in. I'm going to make love with him.”

  The Tang Priest was then helped out from the back, while the she-devil, looking utterly bewitching, took him by the hand and said, “As the saying goes, pleasure's worth more than gold. You and I are going to have some fun as man and wife.”

  The venerable elder clenched his teeth and let out not a sound. He would have preferred not to go with her but he was afraid she might kill him, so in fear and trembling he accompanied her into the bridal chamber, he was as if stupefied and dumb. He would not lift his head and look up, let alone catch sight of the bed and the curtains in the room, and even less did he see the intricately carved furniture or her hairstyle and clothing. He was deaf and indifferent when she spoke of her desire. He was indeed a fine monk:

  His eyes saw no evil beauty,

  His ears heard no voluptuous words.

  To him the brocade and the lovely face was dung,

  The gold, the jewels and the beauty so much dirt.