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

At this the Tang Priest said, “Oh well, forget it.” Pig was still burning with a sense of injustice. “Master,” he said, “don't be taken in by him. He's talking rubbish. You just recite your spell and I guarantee he'll bring the king back to life for you.” The Tang Priest did indeed say the Band-tightening Spell, which squeezed Monkey so badly that his eyes bulged and his head ached.

If you don't know how the king was revived, listen to the explanation in the next installment.

A Pill of Red Cinnabar Is Brought from Heaven

After Three Years the Monarch Is Revived

The story tells how the Great Sage Sun, his head aching unbearably, pleaded with his master: “Stop, stop, I'll bring him back to life.” When Sanzang asked how, Monkey replied, “The only way is to go to the Underworld, find out which of the kings down there has his soul, and ask for it back to revive him with.”

“Don't trust Monkey, Master,” said Pig. “He told me earlier there'd be no need to go to the Underworld because he could get him brought back to life in the world of the living. He thought that would be a good way of showing off his powers.”

The venerable elder, taken in once again by this breath of evil, started reciting the Band-tightening Spell, which threw Monkey into such a desperate state that he accepted the condition gladly: “I'll cure him within the world of the living, I really will.”

“Don't stop,” said Pig, “carry on saying the spell.”

“You stupid, evil beast,” railed Monkey, “inciting the master to say that spell.” Pig was falling about with laughter.

“Brother, brother, you thought you could put one over on me, but you never imagined I'd put one over on you.”

“Stop, Master, stop,” pleaded Monkey. “I'll bring him back to life without leaving the world of the living.”

“And how are you going to do that?” Sanzang asked.

“With a single somersault of my cloud I can rush in through the Southern Gate of Heaven,” said Monkey. “I won't go to the Palace of the Dipper and the Bull or to the Hall of Miraculous Mist, but straight up to the Tushita Palace in the Lihen Heaven above the Thirty-third Heaven to see the Supreme Lord Lao Zi. I'll ask him for one of his Nine-cycle Soul-returning Pills and that, I guarantee, will bring him back to life.”

“Off you go then,” said Sanzang, delighted to hear this, “and be as quick as you can.”

“It's the third watch now; it'll be after dawn by the time I get back,” said Brother Monkey. “But it's an awful shame to see that king lying there dead and cold. There ought to be a mourner watching over him and weeping.”

“Don't tell me,” said Pig, “that ape wants me to be the mourner.”

“You most certainly will be,” said Monkey. “If you don't weep for him I won't be able to bring him back to life.”

“You go, brother,” said Pig, “and leave the crying to me.”

“There's more than one way of crying,” said Monkey. “Just yelling with your mouth is what they call wailing. Squeezing some tears out is weeping. What we need is sobbing and tears together, and sobbing as though your heart is broken, for really proper weeping and wailing.”

“Shall I give you a demonstration?” asked Pig. He tore a strip of paper from somewhere, twisted it into a spill, and pushed it up his nose twice, which made him sneeze several times. Just watch as the tears come streaming down and his nose runs as he starts to wail. He sobbed and sobbed uncontrollably, talking all sorts of nonsense as if someone really had just died.

It was so distressing a performance that the Tang Priest started to cry, so upset was he. “That's just the sort of grief I want,” laughed Monkey, “and you're not to stop crying. It was you who tricked the master into sending me off, you idiot, and I'll hear if you stop wailing. Carry on like this and you'll be fine; but if you stop for even a few moments I'll give you twenty blows of my cudgel on your ankles.”

“Off you go,” laughed Pig. “Once I get crying like this I can keep it up for a couple of days.” Hearing all this fuss and bother, Friar Sand fetched some incense sticks and lit them as an offering.

“Very good,” said Monkey. “As you are all being so respectful I'll be able to do my best.”

Thus the Great Sage left his master and two fellow-disciples in the middle of the night and shot up on a somersault cloud. He went in through the Southern Gate of Heaven, and was as good as his word: he did not go to the Hall of Miraculous Mist or the Palace of the Dipper and the Bull, but took his shining cloud straight up to the Tushita Palace in the Lihen Heaven. No sooner was he inside than he saw the Supreme Lord Lao Zi sitting in his elixir laboratory where immortal boys were using a plantain-leaf fan to fan the furnace where elixir was refined.

When the Supreme Lord saw that Monkey was there he told the boys who were looking after the elixir, “Be very careful: the elixir thief is back.”

Monkey paid his respects with a smile: “How dreary of you, old man. No need to be on your guard against me. I don't do things like that any more.”

“Ape,” said Lord Lao Zi, “you stole a lot of my magic pills five hundred years ago when you made havoc in Heaven. The Little Sage Erlang captured you and brought you up here to be refined for forty-nine days in my elixir furnace. Goodness only knows how much charcoal we used up. Since you've been lucky enough to escape and be converted to Buddhism, you've been escorting the Tang Priest on his journey to the Western Heaven to fetch the scriptures. When you subdued those monsters on Flat-top Mountain the other day you were very wicked; you refused to give me back my treasures. What are you here for now?”

“I really wasn't being late with them,” protested Monkey. “When the time came I gave you back your five treasures. What are you being so suspicious of me for?”

“Why have you come sneaking into my palace when you ought to be on your journey?” Lord Lao Zi asked.

“Since last I saw you,” said Monkey, “we've come to a country further West called Wuji, where an evil spirit disguised as a Taoist called up wind and rain, murdered the king, and turned himself into the king's double. Now he's sitting in the palace. Last night my master was reading sutras in the Precious Wood Monastery when he was visited by the king's ghost, who begged me to subdue the fiend for him and sort right from wrong. I didn't know whether to believe this, so I went with my fellow-disciple Pig into the palace gardens that night. We smashed our way in and found where he was buried in an eight-sided well with glazed-tile walls. We fished up his body, and it was in perfect condition. When we went back to the monastery to see my master he ordered me in his compassion to bring the king back to life. He won't let me go to the Underworld to ask for his soul back: I've got to find a way of saving him in the world of the living. The reason I've come to pay my respects to you is because there's no other place I can get him revived. I beg you, great Patriarch, in your mercy to lend me a thousand of your Nine-cycle Soul-returning Pills to save him with.”

“What outrageous nonsense, you ape,” said Lord Lao Zi. “A thousand? Two thousand? Do you want to make a meal of them? They're not just pellets of dirt. Clear off! I've none left.”

“What about a hundred or thereabouts?” asked Monkey.

“Not even that,” said Lord Lao Zi. “Ten or so?” asked Monkey. “Stop pestering me, you wretched ape,” said Lord Lao Zi. “None at all. Clear off!”

“If you really haven't got any,” said Monkey with a laugh, “I'll have to ask for help elsewhere.”