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

Four walls covered with pearls,

A room full of silken embroideries,

Incense ever rising from a burner,

Clear water in a porcelain pot.

On either side were paintings by Wang Wei;

High above the seat hung a picture of the Devil Valley Hermit.

An inkstone from Duanxi County,

“Golden smoke” ink,

On which leant a large brush of finest hairs;

A forest of fiery pearls,

The prediction of Guo Pu,

As he diligently compared them to the Tai Zheng Xin Jing.

He was deeply versed in the six lines of the diagrams,

A great expert on the Eight Trigrams.

He understood the principles of Heaven and Earth,

And saw into the feelings of gods and devils.

He knew all about the cyclical numbers,

And had a clear picture of the constellations.

He saw the events of the future,

The events of the past,

As if in a mirror.

Which house would rise,

Which house would fall,

He could tell with divine perception.

He knew when good and bad was coming,

Could predict death and survival.

His words hastened wind and rain;

When he wielded his writing-brush, gods and devils trembled.

His name was written on a signboard:

Master of Divination Yuan Shoucheng.

Who was he? He was Yuan Shoucheng, the uncle of Yuan Tiangang the Imperial Astrologer. He was famous throughout the country, and the leading member of his profession in Chang'an. The dragon king went in to see him, and when they had greeted each other he asked the dragon king to sit down, while a servant brought tea.

“What have you come to ask about, sir?” asked the soothsayer, and the dragon king replied, “I beg you to uncover the secrets of the sky for me.” The soothsayer passed him a slip of paper from his sleeve and said, “Clouds obscure the mountain peak, mist covers the tree tops. If there is to be rain, it will certainly come tomorrow.”

“When will it rain tomorrow,” asked the dragon king, “and how many inches of rain will fall?”

“Tomorrow the clouds will gather at mid-morning; late in the morning there will be thunder; at noon it will start to rain; and in the early afternoon the rain will finish, after 3 feet 3.48 inches have fallen,” replied the soothsayer.

“I trust that you are not fooling,” said the dragon king. “If it rains tomorrow at the time and to the depth you have predicted I shall pay you a fee of fifty pieces of gold. If it does not rain, or if it does not rain at the time and to the depth you say it will, then I'm telling you straight that I'll smash up your shopfront, tear down your sign and run you out of Chang'an so that you won't be able to deceive the people a moment longer.”

“That is entirely up to you,” replied the other cheerfully. “We shall meet again tomorrow after the rain.”

The dragon king took his leave and went back to his watery palace from Chang'an. The greater and lesser water spirits greeted him with the question, “How did Your Majesty's visit to the soothsayer go?”

“It was all right,” he replied, “but he was a smooth-tongued fortune-teller. When I asked him when it would rain, he said tomorrow. When I asked what time of day it would be and how much would fall, he said that at mid-morning the clouds would gather, late in the morning it would thunder, at noon it would start to rain, and early in the afternoon it would stop raining. He also said that 3 feet 3.48 inches of rain would fall. I made a wager with him that if his prediction turned out to be true, I'd give him fifty ounces of gold; but if he got it at all wrong, I'd smash up his shopfront id drive him out, so that he wouldn't be able to deceive the public any longer. The watery tribe laughed and said, “Your Majesty is the General Superintendent of the Eight Rivers and the Great Dragon God of the Rain, so only you can know whether there will be rain. How dare he talk such nonsense? That fortune-teller is bound to lose, absolutely bound to.”

Just as all the dragon sons and grandsons were laughing and talking about this with the fish ministers and crab soldiers a shout was heard from the sky: “Dragon King of the Jing River, prepare to receive an Imperial Decree.” They all looked up and saw a warrior in golden clothes coming towards the watery palace with a decree from the Jade Emperor in his hands. This alarmed the dragon king, who straightened his clothes, stood up solemnly, burnt incense and received the decree. The gold-clad warrior returned to the sky. Giving thanks for the imperial grace the dragon king opened the letter and read:

“We order the Superintendent of the Eight Rivers to travel with thunder and lightning and succor the city of Chang'an with rain.”

The time and the amount on the decree were exactly the same as those foretold by the soothsayer, which so startled the dragon king that he passed out. When he came round a moment later he said to the watery tribe, “How can there be a man of such powers in the mortal world? He is really someone who knows everything about Heaven and Earth-I'm bound to be beaten by him.”

“Your Majesty should not worry,” submitted General Shad in a memorial. “There will be no difficulty about beating him. Your subject has a humble plan that I can guarantee will shut that scoundrel's mouth.” When the dragon king asked what the plan was, the general replied, “Make it rain at the wrong time and not quite enough, so that his predictions are wrong, and then you will surely beat him. There will be nothing to stop you smashing his sign to smithereens and running him out of town.” The dragon king accepted his advice and stopped worrying.

The next day he ordered Viscount Wind, Duke Thunder, the Cloud Youth and Mother Lightning to go to the sky above the city of Chang'an. He waited till late in the morning before spreading the clouds, unleashed the thunder at noon, started the rain in the early afternoon, and stopped it in the late afternoon, when only three feet and 0.4 inches had fallen. He had thus changed the times by two hours and reduced the amount of rain by.08 inches. After the rain he dismissed his generals and his hosts and put away his clouds; then he changed back into a white-clad scholar and charged into Yuan Shoucheng's fortune-telling stall on West Gate Street. Without even asking for an explanation he smashed up Yuan's sign, his brush, his inkstone, and everything else, while the fortune-teller remained calmly in his chair without moving.

The dragon king brandished the door in the air, ready to hit him with it, and began to pour abuse on him: “You evil man, with all your reckless talk about blessings and disasters; you stinking deceiver of the masses. Your predictions are false, and you talk nonsense. You got the time and the amount of today's rain quite wrong, but you still sit there so high and mighty. Get out at once if you want me to spare your life.” Yuan Shoucheng, who was as calm and unfrightened as ever, looked up to the sky with a mocking smile.

“I'm not afraid,” he said, “I'm not afraid. I've committed no capital offence, but I fear that you have. You may be able to fool other people, but you can't fool me. I know who you are. You're no scholar; you're the Dragon King of the River Jing. You flouted a decree of the Jade Emperor by changing the time of the rain and cutting down the amount, which is a crime against the laws of Heaven. I'm afraid that you're for the executioner's blade on the Dragon-slicing Scaffold. Are you going to keep up that abuse of me?”

On hearing this the dragon king trembled from fear and his hair stood on end. Dropping the door at once he straightened his clothes and made gestures of submission, kneeling to the soothsayer and saying, “Please do not be angry with me, sir; I was only joking. I never thought that it would be taken seriously. Whatever am I to do if I have broken the laws of Heaven? I beg you to save me, sir. If you don't I shall haunt you after my death.”