Wu Cheng-en - Journey to the West (vol. 1)

Before long the Taoist boys were back in their room, and they heard Pig moaning, “I didn't enjoy my manfruit; I wish I could have another.” Pure Wind's suspicion were aroused, and he said to Bright Moon, “Did you hear that long-snouted monk saying he wished he could have another manfruit? Our master told us when he went that we were to be careful of those gangsters and not let them steal our treasures.”

“This is terrible, terrible,” said Bright Moon. “What's the golden rod doing on the floor? We'd better go into the garden and take a look around.” The two of them hurried out and found the garden gates open.

“We shut this gate,” said Pure Wind, “so why is it open?” They rushed round the flower garden, found the vegetable garden gate open too, and tore into the manfruit garden. They leant on the tree and looked up into it to count the fruit, but however often they added the number up, it always came to twenty-two.

“Can you do arithmetic?” Bright Moon asked, and Pure Wind replied, “Yes. Tell me the figures.”

“There were originally thirty manfruits,” said Bright Moon. “When our master opened the garden two were divided up and eaten, which left twenty-eight. Just now we knocked two down to give the Tang Priest, which left twenty-six. But there are only twenty-two now, which means that we're four short. It goes without saying that those bad men must have stolen them. Let's go and tell that Tang Priest what we think of him.”

The two of them went from the garden to the front hall, where they pointed at Sanzang and poured the most filthy and stinking abuse on him, calling him “baldy” this and “baldy” that. It was more than Sanzang could stand, so he said, “What are you making all this fuss about, Immortal boys? Please stop. I wouldn't mind you being a bit offhand with me, but you can't talk in this outrageous way.”

“Are you deaf?” Pure Wind asked. “We're not talking a foreign language, and you can understand us perfectly well. You've stolen our manfruit, and you've no right to forbid us to mention it.”

“What does manfruit look like?” Sanzang asked.

“It's what we offered you just now and you said looked like babies.”

“Amitabha Buddha!” Sanzang exclaimed. “I shook with terror at the very sight of them-I couldn't possibly steal one. Even if I were being racked by the most terrible greed, I could never commit the crime of eating one of those. What do you mean by making so unjust an accusation?”

“Although you didn't eat any,” said Pure Wind, “those underlings of yours stole and ate some.”

“Even if they did, you shouldn't shout like that. Wait till I've questioned them. If they stole some, I'll see that they make it up to you.”

“Make it up?” said Bright Moon. “They are things that money can't buy.”

“Well then,” said Sanzang, “if money won't buy them, 'decent behavior is worth a thousand pieces of gold,' as the saying goes. I'll make them apologize to you, and that will be that. Besides, we still don't know whether they did it.”

“Of course they did,” retorted Bright Moon. “They're still quarrelling in there because they were divided unfairly.”

“Come here, disciples,” called Sanzang.

“We've had it,” said Friar Sand when he heard Sanzang calling. “The game's up. Our master is calling us and the young Taoists are swearing and cursing. The cat must be out of the bag.”

“How disgraceful,” said Monkey, “all that fuss about some food. But if we confess it, they'll say it was stealing food; the best thing is not to admit it at all.”

“Quite right, quite right, we'll cover it up,” said Pig, and three of them went from the kitchen to the hall.

If you don't know how they denied it, listen to the explanation in the next installment.

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: