Journey to the West

25

The Immortal Zhen Yuan Captures the Pilgrim Priest

Monkey Makes Havoc in the Wuzhuang Temple

"The meal is cooked," the three disciples said as they entered the hall, "what did you call us for?"

"I'm not asking about the meal, disciples," said Sanzang. "This temple has things called manfruit or something that look like babies. Which of you stole and ate some?" "I don't know anything about it, honest I don't−−I never saw any," said Pig.

"That grinning one did it," said Pure Wind, "that grinning one."

"I've had a smile on my face all my life," shouted Monkey. "Are you going to stop me smiling just because you can't find some fruit or other?"

"Don't lose your temper, disciple," said Sanzang. "As men of religion we should control our tongues and not eat food that befuddles our minds. If you ate their fruit you should apologize to them, instead of trying to brazen it out like this."

Seeing that his master was talking sense, Brother Monkey began to tell the truth. "I didn't start it, master," he said. "Pig heard the Taoist boys eating something called manfruit next door to him and wanted to try one himself. He made me go and get three so that we three disciples could have one each. But now they've been eaten, there's no point in waiting around here."

"How can these priests deny that they are criminals when they've stolen four of our manfruits?" said Bright Moon.

"Amitabha Buddha," exclaimed Pig, "if he pinched four of them why did he only share out three? He must have done the dirty on us." He continued to shout wildly in this vein.

Now that they knew that the fruit really had been stolen, the two boys started to abuse them even more foully. The Great Sage ground his teeth of steel in his fury, glaring with his fiery eyes and tightening his grip on his iron cudgel. "Damn those Taoist boys," he thought when he could restrain himself no longer. "If they'd hit us we could have taken it, but now they're insulting us to our faces like this, I'll finish their tree off, then none of them can have any more fruit."

Splendid Monkey. He pulled a hair out from the back of his head, breathed a magic breath on it, said "Change," and turned it into an imitation Monkey who stayed with the Tang Priest, Pig and Friar Sand to endure the cursing and swearing of the Taoist boys, while the real Monkey used his divine powers to leap out of the hall by cloud. He went straight to the garden and struck the manfruit tree with his gold−banded cudgel. Then he used his supernatural strength that could move mountains to push the tree over with a single shove. The leaves fell, the branches splayed out, and the roots came out of the ground. The Taoists would have no more of their "Grass−returning Cinnabar." After pushing the tree over Monkey searched through the branches for manfruit, but he could not find a single one. These treasures dropped at the touch of metal, and as Monkey's cudgel was ringed with gold, while being made of iron, another of the five metals, one tap from it brought them all tumbling down, and when they hit the ground they went straight in, leaving none on the tree. "Great, great, great," he said, "that'll make them all cool down." He put the iron cudgel away, went back to the front of the temple, shook the magic hair, and put it back on his head. The others did not see what was happening as they had eyes of mortal flesh.

A long time later, when the two Taoist boys felt that they had railed at them for long enough, Pure Wind said to Bright Moon, "These monks will take anything we say. We've sworn at them as if we were swearing at chickens, but they haven't admitted anything. I don't think they can have stolen any, after all. The tree is so tall and the foliage is so dense that we may well have miscounted, and if we have, we shouldn't be cursing them so wildly. Let's go and check the number again." Bright Moon agreed, and the pair of them went back to the garden. When they saw that the tree was down with its branches bent out, the leaves fallen, and the fruit gone, they were horror−struck. Pure Wind's knees turned soft and he collapsed, while Bright Moon trembled and shook. Both of them passed out, and there is a verse to describe them: