Chapter 24

The Great Immortal of Longevity Mountain Detains an Old Friend; at the Five Hamlets Monastery Pilgrim Steals Ginseng Fruit

Now the three went threading through the wood, and there was the Idiot bound to the tree, crying out between each breath, past all bearing of the pain. Pilgrim came up smiling. "A fine son-in-law! It is late morning and you have not risen to thank the bride's family, nor gone to tell the master the happy news — instead you are doing tumbling tricks here for sport. Tsch! Where is your mother-in-law? Where is your wife? A fine roped-and-wrapped son-in-law, upon my word." The Idiot, seeing he had come to jeer at his shame, set his teeth, bore the pain, and dared not cry out. Sha Monk could not bear the sight, put down the luggage, came up, loosened the ropes, and brought him down. The Idiot could only knock his head to them in thanks, his shame being in truth past bearing. There is a West River Moon to prove it:

Beauty is a sword that wounds the body: covet it, and ruin is certain.A sixteen-year-old beauty, fair in her adornment — fiercer than a yaksha, and stronger.There is only the one original fund; no smallest gain will ever pad the purse.Guard your capital close, hoard it well; hold fast, and let no squandering loose.

Bajie scooped up a pinch of earth for incense and bowed toward the empty sky. "Did you recognize those bodhisattvas?" asked Pilgrim. "I had fainted dead away, my eyes swimming — how would I know who they were?" Pilgrim handed him the note; seeing it was a hymn, Bajie was ashamed the more. "Second brother has won high honor," laughed Sha Monk, "to move four bodhisattvas to become his kin." "Brother, never mention it again — it is not to be spoken of," said Bajie. "From this day on I will never dare such folly. If it breaks my bones to the last joint, I will only shoulder and carry and follow my master to the western lands." "That is the right thing to say," said Tripitaka.

Pilgrim then led the master back onto the main road. They had gone a long while when a high mountain suddenly barred the way. Tripitaka reined in his horse and stayed his whip. "Disciples, there is a mountain ahead: we must be careful, for fear of demons playing havoc and harming our company." "Ahead of your horse stand the three of us," said Pilgrim. "What demons to fear?" So the elder went forward with an easy heart. And that mountain was truly a fine one:

The high mountain rises sheer; its grandeur towers stern.Its roots take hold of the Kunlun veins; its crown rubs the midst of the sky.White cranes come always to roost in the juniper and cypress; dark gibbons now and again hang in the vines.Sun on the bright woods: a thousand folds of red mist winding; wind out of the shaded ravines: ten thousand ribbons of colored cloud flying.Hidden birds clamor in the green bamboo; golden pheasants preen among the wildflowers.There: the Peak of a Thousand Years, the Peak of Five Blessings, the Lotus Peak, towering and dread, streaming thin rays of light;the Rock of Ten Thousand Ages, the Tiger-Fang Rock, the Rock of Three Heavens, jutting and glittering, breathing auspicious vapor.Grass grows fine before the crags; plum scents the ridges.Brambles thick and dark; zhi orchids faint and clean.In the deep wood hawks and phoenixes gather, a thousand birds; in ancient caves the qilin herds ten thousand beasts.The ravine water, full of feeling, winds and bends in many a turn; the peaks unbroken, fold upon fold, circle back on themselves.Green locusts, speckled bamboo, blue pines, tender through a thousand years, vie in splendor; white plums, red peaches, kingfisher willows, blazing through three springs, contend in beauty.Dragon moans, tiger roars; cranes dance, gibbons cry.Elk step out from the flowers; the azure luan sings against the sun.It is an immortal mountain, a true blessed land: Penglai's fairy gardens could not be more so.And there were flowers blooming and fading on the mountaintop, clouds going and coming on the ridges' peaks.

Tripitaka's heart lifted in the saddle. "Disciples, all the way west I have seen many mountains and waters, all of them craggy and perilous — nothing like the beauty of this mountain, truly a secluded delight beyond the common. If the Thunderclap Monastery were near, we could compose ourselves in all solemnity and appear before the World-Honored One." "Early days, early days," Pilgrim laughed. "It is just what we cannot reach." "Brother, how far is it to the Thunderclap?" asked Sha Monk. "A hundred and eight thousand li," said Pilgrim, "and of ten parts we have not yet walked one." "Brother, how many years' walking before we arrive?" "For you two worthy brothers, ten days and a little over might do it," said Pilgrim. "For me, I could walk it fifty times a day and still see the sun. For our master — never think it, never think it." "Wukong, when do you say we can arrive?" "Walk from childhood to old age, grow young again from age, old and young a thousand times over — still it would be hard. But see your own nature in sincerity, and in every thought the place you turn your head to look back from is Vulture Peak itself." "Brother," said Sha Monk, "though this is not the Thunderclap, from these prospects some good person must dwell here." "Well said," said Pilgrim. "No evil thing haunts this ground. It must be the home of some holy monk or elder immortal. Let us stroll and take our time." — but of this, no more.

Now this mountain was called Longevity Mountain, and in it stood a monastery called the Five Hamlets Monastery. In the monastery dwelt an immortal, whose Taoist name was Zhenyuanzi, and whose by-name was the Lord Coeval with the World. In that monastery grew a rare treasure: in the days when chaos first divided, when the primal murk was first discerned and heaven and earth not yet opened, this numinous root was brought forth. Of all the four great continents under heaven, only the Ox-Gift Continent's Five Hamlets Monastery bears it: it is called the Grass of the Returned Elixir, and again the ginseng fruit. Three thousand years to flower, three thousand years to set fruit, three thousand more before it ripens: a good ten thousand years, at the least, before it can be eaten. In all those ten thousand years it bears but thirty fruits. The fruit's likeness is that of a child not yet three days old, four limbs complete, the five features all in place. If a man has the destiny, and the fruit is held to his nose, one breath of it and he lives three hundred and sixty years; eat one, and he lives forty-seven thousand years.

That day the Great Immortal Zhenyuan received a note from the Celestial Worthy of the Primordial Beginning, inviting him to the Miluo Palace in the Heaven of Highest Clarity to hear the lecture on "The Fruit of the Way of Primal Unity." The unattached immortals gone out from the Great Immortal's gate are past counting; he had at present forty-eight disciples, all perfected ones who had attained the Way. That day he led forty-six of them up to the upper world to the lecture, leaving the two very youngest to keep the house: one called Clear Breeze, one called Bright Moon. Clear Breeze was only one thousand three hundred and twenty; Bright Moon had just turned one thousand two hundred. Zhenyuanzi charged the two boys: "I may not defy the Celestial Worthy's note; I go to the Miluo Palace to the lecture. You two keep careful watch at home. Within days an old friend will pass this way: do not neglect him. Knock down two of my ginseng fruits and give him to eat, as a token of the old affection." "Who is your old friend, Master? Tell us your disciples, that we may receive him well." "He is the holy monk under the throne of the Great Tang in the Land of the East, the Taoist name Tripitaka, the monk now bound for the Western Heaven to worship the Buddha and fetch scriptures." The two boys smiled. "Confucius says: those whose Way differs take no counsel together. We are of the Mystery Gate of the Grand One; how should we be acquainted with that monk?" "How should you know?" said the Great Immortal. "That monk is Golden Cicada reborn, second disciple of the Tathagata Buddha, the Venerable Sage of the West. Five hundred years ago I made his acquaintance at the Ullambana Assembly. He passed me tea with his own hands; the Buddha's son did me honor — and so he is an old friend of mine."

The two immortal boys heard and reverently obeyed. As the Great Immortal was leaving he charged them again: "My fruits are numbered. Only two for him, and no more may be spent." "When the grove was opened we all ate two together; twenty-eight remain on the tree. We dare not spend more," said Clear Breeze. "Tripitaka Tang is an old friend, but you must guard against his followers making trouble. Do not let him know of it," said the Great Immortal. The boys took their orders, and the Great Immortal, attended by his disciples, rose aloft and made straight for the heavenly realm.

Now the Tang monk's four were roaming the mountain when they looked up and saw a cluster of pines and bamboo, and stories of towers rising among them. "Wukong, what place is that, do you think?" said the Tang monk. Pilgrim looked and said, "If that spot is not a Taoist cloister, it is a Buddhist temple. Let us walk on a little; there we will know for certain." In no long while they stood at the gate and looked, and saw this:

Pine slopes cold and still; bamboo paths quiet and deep.White cranes crossing and recrossing escort the drifting clouds; gibbons high and low from time to time present their fruit.Before the gate the pool is broad, the trees' shadows long; the stones are fissured, the moss flowers broken.Palace halls rank on rank, the purple eminence high; towers and terraces dim in the air, the vermilion mists descending.Truly a blessed land, a numinous region: the cloud grottoes of Penglai.Clear and vacant: few affairs of men. Silent and still: the heart of the Way is born.The blue bird carries letters for the Queen Mother; the purple luan bears the Lord Lao's scriptures.Beyond seeing is that air of towering virtue and the Way: truly a dwelling of the gods, far and remote.

Tripitaka came down from the saddle, and by the left of the mountain gate they saw a stone tablet with ten great characters: "Longevity Mountain, Blessed Land; Five Hamlets Monastery, Grotto Heaven." "Disciples, it is truly a monastery," said the elder. "Master, the prospect is so bright and clear that some good person must live here," said Sha Monk. "Let us go in and see; if ever we complete the journey and return east, this too will be a sight to remember." "Well said," said Pilgrim, and they all went in together. On the inner gate was a pair of spring couplets: "A mansion of immortals, long-lived and never aging; a house of the Way, coeval with heaven." Pilgrim laughed. "This Taoist talks big enough to frighten people. Five hundred years ago, when old Sun wrought havoc in the Heavenly Palace, I never saw words like that even at the Supreme Lord Lao's gate." "Never mind him," said Bajie. "In, in — maybe this Taoist has some virtue in him after all; who can say?"

Inside the second gate two little boys came hurrying out. How were they dressed? Look:

Bones clean, spirits bright, their faces beautiful; on their crowns twin knots, short hair a-fluff.Their Taoist robes of themselves gather mist in the lapels; their feathered mantles flutter wind from the sleeves.Cord girdles bound tight in dragon-head knots; straw sandals lightly laced with silkworm floss.A bearing beyond the common, no vulgar pair: these were the two immortal boys, Clear Breeze and Bright Moon.

The boys bowed low, hunching their backs, and came out to greet them. "Reverend teacher, forgive our poor welcome. Please be seated." The elder, delighted, went up with the two boys into the main hall to see. It was a great hall of five bays facing south, its carved lattices bright above and dark below. The immortal boys pushed back the lattices and asked the Tang monk into the hall, where on the middle of the wall hung the two great characters "Heaven" and "Earth," wrought in five colors; a vermilion carved-lacquer incense table stood beneath, on it a censer and vase of gold, and beside the censer sticks of fine incense.

The Tang monk stepped forward, took incense in his left hand, set it in the censer, and bowed three times around. When the bows were done he turned and said, "Immortal boys, your Five Hamlets Monastery is truly an immortal world of the west. Why make no offerings to the Three Pure Ones, the Four Sovereigns, and the host of the whole heaven, but serve incense only to the two words 'Heaven and Earth'?" The boys smiled. "To tell you the truth, reverend teacher, of these two words the upper one is proper to honor; the lower one is not fit to receive our incense. It was our master's flattery that put it up." "What flattery is that?" asked Tripitaka. "The Three Pure Ones are our master's friends; the Four Sovereigns, his old acquaintances; the Nine Luminaries, his juniors; the Year Spirits, his inferiors at table," said the boys. At this Pilgrim laughed till he doubled over. "Brother, what are you laughing at?" "I thought only old Sun could spin tall tales; turns out these Taoist boys can tie the wind in knots." "Where is your master?" asked Tripitaka. "The Celestial Worthy of the Primordial Beginning sent down a note inviting him to the Miluo Palace in the Heaven of Highest Clarity, to hear the lecture on 'The Fruit of the Way of Primal Unity.' He is not at home," said the boys. Hearing this Pilgrim could not hold back, and burst out: "You stinking Taoist boy! You do not know the people you name — before whom are you spinning your lies, propping up hollow airs? Who in the Miluo Palace is a Grand-One immortal of heaven, to invite your foul ox-hooves to lecture anything?"

Seeing his anger, and fearing the boys would answer back and quarrel their way into trouble, Tripitaka said, "Wukong, no more wrangling. We have come in; let us be off — to stay would show small neighborliness. The proverb says: the heron does not eat heron flesh. Their master is away; why should we disturb his house? You go walk the horse before the mountain gate; Sha Monk will watch the luggage; Bajie shall undo the bundle, take out some rice and grain, borrow their stove, and cook us a meal. When we leave we will leave them a few coins for firewood, and that is an end. Let each to his office, and leave me to rest here; when the meal is done we go." The three of them went each to his office.

Bright Moon and Clear Breeze, to themselves, praised them without end: "A fine monk, truly a sage of the west come down among men, his true essence unclouded. Our master bade us receive the Tang monk, knock down ginseng fruit for him to eat, as a token of old affection, and guard against his followers making trouble. And truly those three have fierce and unruly faces and coarse tempers. Happily we have sent them off about their business; had they stayed near, might they not have laid eyes on the ginseng fruit?" "Brother," said Clear Breeze, "we do not yet know whether the monk is indeed our master's friend. Let us ask him, and make no mistake." The two boys came forward again. "May we ask, reverend teacher, are you Tripitaka Tang of the Great Tang, bound west for the scriptures?" The elder returned their courtesy. "I am he. How should immortal boys know my poor name?" "When our master left he charged us to come far out to meet you. That your carriage came so suddenly — our welcome failed. Be seated, reverend teacher, while your servants prepare tea." "You are too kind," said Tripitaka. Bright Moon hurried to his room and brought a cup of fragrant tea to offer the elder. When tea was done, Clear Breeze said, "Brother, we must not fail our master's word. Come, let us fetch the fruit."

The two boys took leave of Tripitaka and went together to their room; one took up the golden mallet, one the cinnabar tray, with a green kerchief laid to line the bottom, and went straight into the ginseng grove. Clear Breeze climbed the tree and knocked down fruit with the golden mallet; Bright Moon stood below, waiting with the cinnabar tray to catch. In a moment two fruits were knocked down and caught in the tray, and they carried them straight to the front hall and presented them. "Master Tang, our Five Hamlets Monastery lies in a poor and wild corner of the hills, with nothing to offer: two plain fruits of the place, to quench your thirst for the moment." At the sight the elder trembled and drew back three feet. "Goodly! Goodly! This year is a year of plenty and ripened harvests — how comes this monastery to practice famine and eat people? This is a child not three days old: how can you offer it to me to quench thirst?" Clear Breeze thought to himself: "This monk has lived so long in the market of tongues and sea of quarrels that his eyes are mortal flesh; he does not know the rare treasure of the immortals." Bright Moon came forward. "Reverend teacher, this thing is called the ginseng fruit. To eat one would do you no harm." "Nonsense, nonsense," said Tripitaka. "His parents carried him in the womb, who knows with what sufferings, before he was born. Not yet three days, and you would take him for a fruit?" "It truly grew on the tree," said Clear Breeze. "Wild talk, wild talk!" said the elder. "When did a tree bear human children? Take it away — such a thing may not be."

Seeing the thousand refusals and the fruit uneaten, the two boys could only carry the tray back to their room. The fruit is a strange thing and will not keep: left long, it stiffens and is no good to eat. So in their room they sat, one to each fruit, on the edge of the bed, and fell to with a will.

Ah! But here is how things stood. Their Taoist room adjoined the kitchen wall to wall, and soft words on one side were heard on the other. Bajie was at the stove cooking; he had already marked it when he heard them speak of fetching the golden mallet and taking the cinnabar tray; and when he heard them say the Tang monk did not know the ginseng fruit and they had taken it into their room to eat themselves — his mouth watered past controlling. "If only I could taste one for novelty!" But his own body was too clumsy to manage it, so he waited for Pilgrim to come and take counsel with him. At the stove mouth he had no heart for the fire, but every now and then craned his head and poked it out to watch. Before long he saw Pilgrim leading the horse, tying it to the locust tree, and heading toward the back. The Idiot waved his hands wildly. "Here, over here!" Pilgrim turned and came to the kitchen door. "Idiot, what is the racket? Short of rice, are we? Let the old monk eat his fill; we can beg our food at some great house farther on." "Come inside. It is not the rice," said Bajie. "This monastery has a treasure — do you know of it?" "What treasure?" Bajie laughed. "Tell you of it, you have never seen it; put it in your hand, you would not know it." "The Idiot makes game of old Sun. Five hundred years ago, seeking the immortals' Way, old Sun wandered cloud-borne to the corners of the sea and sky — what have I not seen?" "Brother, have you ever seen a ginseng fruit?" Pilgrim started. "That I truly never saw. Only I have heard it said: the ginseng fruit is the Grass of the Returned Elixir; eaten by a man, it lengthens life mightily. Where is there one to be had now?" "They have them here. The boys brought two for the master to eat, but the old monk did not know them, took them for children not three days old, and did not dare eat. Then those boys, too lazy-hearted! If the master would not eat, they should have offered them to us; instead they hid it from us, and just now, in the room next door, one to each, gobble-gobble, they ate them up. My mouth floods to think of it. If only I could taste one for novelty! You are the nimble one: slip into their grove and steal a few for us to try — what do you say?" "Easy," said Pilgrim. "Old Sun goes, and his hand arrives and it is done." He made to start off at once, but Bajie caught his sleeve. "Brother, I heard them say in that room they knock them down with something called a golden mallet. Do it neatly, and let no breath of it escape." "I know, I know," said Pilgrim.

The Great Sage played his art of hiding the body and slipped into the boys' room: the two, having eaten their fruit, were in the front hall talking with the Tang monk, not in the room. Pilgrim looked all about for the golden mallet, and saw only this: hanging on the lattice, a rod of pure gold, some two feet long, a finger thick, with a head like a knob of garlic at the bottom and an eye at the top, through which ran a green velvet cord. "No doubt this is what they call the golden mallet," he said, took it down, left the room, and went straight back, pushed open the double doors, and looked up — ah! It was a garden! And what a garden:

Vermilion balustrades, treasured rails; winding stone mounts heaped into hills.Rare flowers vied in beauty with the brilliant sun; kingfisher bamboo matched its green against the blue sky.Beyond the Wining-Cup Pavilion a bend of green willows trailing like smoke; before the Moon-Viewing Terrace clusters of tall pines splashed like indigo.Red and rustling, the brocade-nest pomegranates; green and clinging, the embroidered-turf grasses; azure and downy, the jade-sand orchids; swaying freely, the water by the stream.Cassia reflected against golden well and wutong tree; brocade locusts beside vermilion rail and jade masonry.Peaches of a thousand petals, red or white; chrysanthemums of ninth-month autumn, fragrant or yellow.The rubus trellis mirrored in the Peony Pavilion; the hibiscus terrace joining the Peony Bed.Beyond seeing, the gentleman bamboo that defies the frost, the grandee pines that mock the snow.And a crane farm, a deer lodge, square ponds and round pools; springs running broken jade, calyxes heaped gold.The north wind's touch burst the plum blossoms white; with spring came dots to break the crabapple red.Truly the first immortal scene in the world of men, the chiefest garden of flowers in the west.

Pilgrim could not see it all; then he came to another gate, pushed it open, and found a kitchen garden:

Sown through the four seasons, the vegetables: spinach and celery, chard and ginger, cress;bamboo shoots and yams, melons and gourds, wild-rice stems; scallions and garlic, coriander, chives and shallots.Nest-mallows, young wormwood, bitter sowthistle; bottle gourds and eggplants, needing their planting;turnips and radishes, sheep-head roots set deep; red amaranth, green colewort, purple mustard.

Pilgrim laughed. "So he is a Taoist who grows his own greens and eats them too."

Past the kitchen garden was yet another gate. He pushed it open — ah! Dead in the middle stood a great tree: green boughs fragrant and dense, green leaves dark with shade, its leaves shaped like plantain fans, its height a good thousand feet, its girth at the root seven or eight zhang around. Pilgrim leaned at the foot of the tree and looked up: on a south-facing bough a ginseng fruit showed itself, truly like a little child. At its tail was a knobby stem; and there it hung on the tip of the bough, hands and feet stirring, head nodding, brain swaying, and in the passing wind a sound as if of speech. Pilgrim's delight was boundless, and to himself he cried, "What a thing! Rare indeed, rare indeed!" Against the tree he went — whoosh! — and shot up into it. Of all creatures, the monkey is first at climbing trees to steal fruit. He tapped once with the golden mallet, and the fruit dropped plump to the ground. He leaped down after to look for it — nothing, not a sound; he hunted through the grass on every side, and never a trace.

"Strange, strange," said Pilgrim. "If it has feet and walks, even so it could not leap the wall. I have it: the local earth god of this garden will not let old Sun steal the fruit, and has taken it in." He pinched the sign, murmured the spell of Om, and summoned the garden's earth god, who bowed to Pilgrim. "The Great Sage calls your humble god: what are your commands?" "Do you not know that old Sun is the famous master thief of all the world? In the old days I stole the peaches of immortality, pilfered the imperial wine, made off with the elixir — and no one dared claim a share of them. Today I steal one fruit, and you skim it off as your cut? The fruit grew on a tree; the birds that cross the sky deserve a taste as well. What great harm if old Sun eats one? Why, the moment it was knocked down, did you scoop it away?" "The Great Sage wrongs your humble god," said the earth god. "The treasure belongs to the immortals of earth; I am a ghost-immortal — how should I dare take it? I have not the fortune so much as to smell it."

"If you did not take it, why did it vanish the moment it was knocked down?" "The Great Sage knows only that the treasure lengthens life, and not its ways," said the earth god. "What ways?" "The treasure flowers once in three thousand years, sets fruit once in three thousand, and needs three thousand more to ripen: a good ten thousand years at the least, and it bears but thirty. For one with the destiny, a breath of it is three hundred and sixty years of life; to eat one is forty-seven thousand. But it stands in awe of the five phases." "How does it stand in awe of the five phases?" "Met with metal, the fruit falls; met with wood, it withers; met with water, it dissolves; met with fire, it scorches; met with earth, it sinks in. To knock it down you must use a golden implement, or it will not come away. Knocked down, it must be caught in a tray lined with silk. Let it touch any wooden thing and it withers — eaten then, it lengthens no life. To eat it you must use porcelain, dissolving it in clear water. Met with fire it scorches and is useless. As for sinking into earth: when the Great Sage just now knocked it to the ground, it bored straight down into the soil. This soil is forty-seven thousand years old: a steel drill could not pierce it a hair's breadth; it is three or four parts harder than raw iron. That is why a man who eats the fruit lives forever. If the Great Sage doubts it, strike the ground here and see." Pilgrim drew the gold-banded staff and struck the ground once: with a clang the staff rebounded, and the earth showed never a mark. "Truly, truly. This staff smashes stone to powder and dents raw iron, yet it could not mark this a hair? Then I wronged you. Go back," said Pilgrim, and the earth god returned to his little temple.

The Great Sage had his plan. He climbed the tree, the mallet in one hand, and with the other pulled up the lapel of his brocade gown to make a pouch and wait; then, threading branch and parting leaf, he knocked down three fruits and caught them in his lapel. He leaped down from the tree, came straight on, and went into the kitchen. "Brother, did you get any?" said Bajie, laughing. "Is this not it? Old Sun's hand arrives, and it is done." "And we will not keep Sha Monk out of it. Call him over." Bajie beckoned and called, "Wujing, come here." Sha Monk set down the luggage and ran in. "Brother, what do you want with me?" Pilgrim opened the pouch in his gown. "Brother, what do you make of this?" "Ginseng fruit," said Sha Monk. "Well now! So you know it. Where have you eaten it?" "I never ate it, but in the old days, as the Curtain-Raising General, attending the imperial carriage to the Peach Banquet, I saw the immortals from beyond the seas present this fruit to the Queen Mother on her birthday. Seen I have seen it; eaten, never. Brother, give me a taste?" "Say no more," said Pilgrim. "One for each of us brothers."

The three of them each took his fruit and ate. But Bajie had a big belly and a bigger mouth; and hearing the boys eating had already set his glutton-worm squirming. No sooner did he have the fruit in hand than he opened wide and gulped it down whole, round and round, in one swallow. Then, rolling his white eyes and brazening it out, he turned to Pilgrim and Sha Monk: "What were you two eating?" "Ginseng fruit." "And what does it taste like?" "Wujing, pay him no mind," said Pilgrim. "You ate yours first — who are you asking?" "Brother, I was in too great a hurry. Unlike you two, who chewed it small and slow and tasted it, I never knew whether it had a pit or none — down it went. Brother, do a thing for a man thoroughly: you have whetted my glutton-worm now; go get another, and old Pig will eat it properly this time." "Brother, you do not know where enough stops. This is not rice or noodles, to be gorged on sight. Ten thousand years to bear thirty of them: that we ate one apiece is great destiny, no small matter. Enough, enough, enough." He rose from his seat, flicked the golden mallet through the window slit into the boys' room, and paid him no more heed.

But the Idiot kept on mumbling and grumbling. Now the two boys came back into the room to fetch tea to serve, and heard Bajie still complaining of how "the ginseng fruit went down unsatisfied — one more to eat would be the thing." Clear Breeze heard, and suspicion rose in him. "Bright Moon, do you hear that long-snouted monk: 'one more ginseng fruit to eat would be the thing'? Our master charged us at parting to guard against his followers making trouble. Can they have stolen our treasure?" Bright Moon turned. "Brother, bad news, bad news — how does the golden mallet come to be lying on the floor? Let us go look in the grove."

The two hurried off, and found the garden gate open. "I shut this gate myself. How is it open?" said Clear Breeze. Hurrying around past the garden, they found the kitchen-garden gate open too. They hastened into the ginseng grove, leaned at the foot of the tree, counted upward, back and forth — and made it twenty-two. "Can you reckon the account?" said Bright Moon. "I can. Say the figures," said Clear Breeze. "The fruit were thirty at first. When our master opened the grove we ate two, and twenty-eight remained. Just now we knocked down two for the Tang monk, and twenty-six remained. Now only twenty-two are left: are not four missing? No need to say it, no need: that pack of villains has stolen them. Let us go denounce the Tang monk."

Out of the grove the two came straight to the hall, and there they pointed at the Tang monk — "baldy" before and "baldy" behind — foul words and filthy speech scolding without pause; "thieving skull, rat's brain, stinking this, reeking that" — railing on in their temper without stop. The Tang monk could bear no more. "Immortal boys, what is this uproar? Be calm. Speak your words slowly and there is no harm; do not run on in wild talk." "Are you deaf?" said Clear Breeze. "Is my speech barbarian to you, that you cannot understand? You stole and ate the ginseng fruit — why may we not say so?" "What does a ginseng fruit look like?" asked the Tang monk. "We but now brought them for you to eat. Did you not say they were like children?" said Bright Moon. "Amitabha!" said the Tang monk. "The sight of those things made my heart quake and my gall shudder — should I dare steal and eat them? If I were dying of the glutton's sickness I would not do this thieving deed. Do not wrong the wrong man." "You did not eat, but your followers may have stolen a taste," said Clear Breeze. "That may well be," said Tripitaka. "Do not shout yet; let me question them. If they truly stole it, they shall make it good to you." "Make it good!" said Bright Moon. "Where is there money enough to buy one?" "Money or none, there is nowhere to buy it," said Tripitaka. "But the proverb says: good faith and honor are worth a thousand gold. Let them make you a bow of amends, and there is an end. Besides, we do not yet know that it was they." "How is it not they? Even now they are quarreling over an unequal share!" said Bright Moon. "Disciples!" called Tripitaka. "Come here, all of you." Sha Monk heard and said, "It is bad — the thing is out. The old master calls us; the little Taoist boys are raging: if our old talk has not leaked, what has?" "Mortifying past bearing," said Pilgrim. "It is only a matter of food and drink; but spoken of, it makes us stealthy eaters. Whatever happens, do not own to it." "Right, right," said Bajie. "Deny it and done." The three could only leave the kitchen and go up into the hall.

But how they would deny it to their faces — listen to the next chapter to find out.

The Great Immortal of Longevity Mountain Keeps an Old Friend; Pilgrim Steals Ginseng Fruit in the Wuzhuang Monastery

The three went into the wood and found the Idiot strapped to the tree, crying out with pain he could not bear. Pilgrim came up laughing and said: "Fine son-in-law! The morning is half gone and you have not got up to thank the family, nor gone to tell the master the good news. Here you are, hanging about and showing off tricks. Well! Where is your mother-in-law? Where is your wife? A fine trussed-and-tied son-in-law you are." The Idiot, stung by the taunt, ground his teeth, bore the pain, and did not dare cry out. Sha Monk could not bear the sight. He set down the luggage, came up, undid the ropes, and got him down. The Idiot could only bow his head to the ground before them, for the shame was more than he could carry. There is a West River Moon poem to prove it:

Lust is a sword that wounds the body; covet it, and ruin is sure.A lovely girl of sixteen in her fine dress may be fiercer than a yaksha demon.There is only the one original stock, and no small profit left to fill the purse.Store your capital well and keep it; hold it fast, and never let it run to waste.

Bajie scooped up a little earth, burned incense, and bowed toward the sky. Pilgrim said: "Do you know those bodhisattvas now?" Bajie said: "I had fainted and was dizzy, my eyes swimming. How could I tell who they were?" Pilgrim handed him the paper slip. When Bajie saw it was a verse, his shame grew deeper. Sha Monk laughed and said: "Second brother, what an honor. You moved four bodhisattvas to come and marry you." Bajie said: "Brother, never mention it again. It is not a thing to speak of. From now on I will never dare run wild. Even if it breaks my bones with toil, I will rub shoulders and shoulder the load, and follow the master to the Western Land." Tripitaka said: "That is the right thing to say."

Pilgrim led the master back to the main road. They walked a long while, and suddenly a high mountain blocked the way. Tripitaka reined in his horse and stopped his whip: "Disciples, there is a mountain ahead. We must be careful. A demon may be at work there, to do us harm." Pilgrim said: "With the three of us in front of the horse, what demon is there to fear?" So the elder went forward with an easy heart. And that mountain was truly a fine one:

A high mountain, steep to the utmost, grand and imposing in its whole sweep.Its roots took hold of the veins of Kunlun; its top brushed the middle of the sky.White cranes came often to roost in the junipers and cypresses; dark gibbons hung at times in the vines.Sunlight fell on sunlit woods, wrapped fold over fold in a thousand ribbons of red mist; wind rose in the shaded ravines, and ten thousand streaks of colored cloud went flying.Hidden birds chattered wildly in the green bamboo; pheasants in bright plumage fought among the wild flowers.There were the Thousand-Year Peak, the Peak of Five Blessings, the Lotus Peak, tall and stern and sending out rays of light; the Ten-Thousand-Year Rock, the Tiger-Fang Rock, the Three-Heaven Rock, jutting and glittering with lucky air.Before the cliffs the grass was lush; on the ridge the plum was sweet.Brambles stood thick and dark; zhi fungus and orchid gave a faint clean scent.In the deep woods hawks and phoenixes gathered with a thousand birds; in the old caves the qilin ruled over ten thousand beasts.The ravine water had feeling, winding and turning with many a lingering bend; the peaks went on without end, range upon range, circling back on themselves.Green locusts, speckled bamboo, dark pines leaned close, vying in splendor through a thousand years; white plums, red peaches, kingfisher willows blazed, contesting beauty through the three months of spring.Dragons sang and tigers roared; cranes danced and gibbons cried.Elk came out from the flowers; blue birds of heaven called against the sun.It was a true blessed land of the immortals' mountains; Penglai and the fairy gardens could be no fairer.And there were flowers opening and falling on the hills, and clouds going and coming over the peaks of the ridge.

Tripitaka said happily from the saddle: "Disciples, all the way west I have passed through many mountains and rivers, and they were all craggy and dangerous places. None of them had scenery like this. It is a rare, quiet delight. If Vulture Peak were anywhere near, we could tidy ourselves and go solemnly to see the World-Honored One." Pilgrim laughed and said: "Still far, still far. Nowhere near yet." Sha Monk said: "Brother, how far is it to Vulture Peak?" Pilgrim said: "A hundred and eight thousand li. Of ten parts we have not yet walked one." Bajie said: "Brother, how many years will it take to get there?" Pilgrim said: "This road, for you two younger brothers, would take ten days or so. For me, walking, I could cover it fifty times in a day and still see the sun. For the master—do not think of it, do not think of it." The Tang monk said: "Wukong, when do you say we shall arrive?" Pilgrim said: "You could walk from youth to old age, be young again, and grow old again a thousand times over, and it would still be hard. But if you see your own nature and keep a sincere will, then every moment you turn your gaze back is Vulture Peak itself." Sha Monk said: "Brother, this is not Vulture Peak, but scenery like this means some good person must live here." Pilgrim said: "That is well said. There is surely no demonry here. This must be the home of some holy monk or elder immortal. Let us walk slowly and look about as we go"—and we say no more.

This mountain was called Longevity Mountain. In it stood a monastery called the Wuzhuang Monastery. In the monastery lived an immortal whose Daoist name was Zhenyuanzi, with the nickname Lord Even with the World. In that monastery grew a rare treasure: when chaos first split and the vast murk first divided, before heaven and earth were opened, this spiritual root was formed. Of all the four great continents under heaven, only the Wuzhuang Monastery in the Western Continent of Niuhe grows it. It is called the Grass-Returning Elixir, and also the ginseng fruit. It flowers once in three thousand years, bears fruit once in three thousand years, and needs three thousand more to ripen. At the least it takes ten thousand years before it can be eaten. In all those ten thousand years the tree bears only thirty fruits. Each fruit looks just like a child not three days old, with all four limbs complete and all five features in place. If a man has the destiny to smell one, he lives three hundred and sixty years. If he eats one, he lives forty-seven thousand years.

Now the Great Immortal Zhenyuan had received a note from the Original Venerable One, asking him to come to the Miluo Palace in the heaven of Highest Clarity to hear a lecture on "the Chaotic Unity, the fruit of the Way." The scattered immortals who had gone out from his gate are past counting; at this time he still had forty-eight disciples, all perfected adepts who had found the Way. That day he took forty-six of them up to the heaven to hear the lecture, and left two of the very youngest to keep the house. One was called Clear Breeze, and one Bright Moon. Clear Breeze was only one thousand three hundred and twenty years old, and Bright Moon had just turned one thousand two hundred. Zhenyuanzi told the two boys: "I must not disobey the Great Venerable's note, and I am going to the Miluo Palace to hear the lecture. You two stay home and be careful. Before long an old friend of mine will pass this way. Do not fail in courtesy to him. Take two of my ginseng fruits and give him to eat, as a sign of our old friendship." The two boys said: "Master, who is this old friend? Tell us, so we may receive him well." The Great Immortal said: "He is a holy monk under the throne of the Tang in the Land of the East, whose Daoist name is Tripitaka, a monk on his way west to worship the Buddha and fetch the scriptures." The two boys laughed and said: "Confucius said, 'When ways differ, men do not plan together.' We are of the Highest Unity and the dark gate of the Dao. How could we have anything to do with that monk?" The Great Immortal said: "How would you know? That monk is Golden Cicada reborn, the second disciple of the Tathagata Buddha, the holy old one of the West. Five hundred ago I met him at the Ullambana Feast. He poured tea for me with his own hands, and the Buddha's son honored me. That is why he is an old friend."

The two immortal boys heard this and followed their master's orders carefully. As the Great Immortal was leaving, he urged them again: "My fruits are counted out. You may give him two, and no more may be spent." Clear Breeze said: "When the garden was opened, we all ate two together. There are still twenty-eight on the tree. We will not spend more." The Great Immortal said: "Tripitaka the Tang monk is an old friend, but you must guard against trouble from the men under him. Do not let them know of it." The two boys took their orders, and the Great Immortal rose into the sky with his disciples and went straight to the heaven.

Now the Tang monk and his three companions were wandering about the mountain when they looked up and saw a stand of pines and bamboo with story upon story of towers. The Tang monk said: "Wukong, what place is that over there?" Pilgrim looked and said: "That is either a Daoist abbey or a monastery. Let us walk a little faster, and we will know when we get there." In a short time they came to the gate and looked. This is what they saw:

Pine slopes quiet and cool; bamboo paths clear and hidden.White cranes went to and fro, carrying drifting clouds on their wings; gibbons above and below offered fruit from time to time.Before the gate the pool was wide and the shadows of the trees were long; the stones were cracked and the moss flowers were broken.Palace halls rose dark and high toward the purple pole; terraces and towers hung faint where the red clouds come down.Truly a blessed land and a spirit region, a Penglai among the clouds and caves.Quiet and empty, with few human affairs; in the stillness, the heart of the Way was born.The blue bird carried letters from the Queen Mother; the purple luan often brought the Lord Lao's scriptures.There was no end to the towering air of the Way and its power—truly the far-stretching home of immortals.

Tripitaka left the saddle and got down. On the left of the mountain gate stood a tablet with ten great characters: "Longevity Mountain, a blessed land; the Wuzhuang Monastery, a heaven in the caves." The elder said: "Disciples, it truly is an abbey." Sha Monk said: "Master, the place is so bright and fresh that some good person must live inside. Let us go in and look. If we ever finish our work and return east, this will be a sight to remember." Pilgrim said: "Well said." They all went in together. On the second gate hung a pair of spring couplets: "The abode of immortals, unborn and unaging; the home of the Way, one age with heaven." Pilgrim laughed and said: "This Daoist talks big to frighten people. Five hundred years ago, when I wrecked the Heavenly Palace, I never saw words like these even at the door of the Supreme Lord Lao." Bajie said: "Never mind him. Go in, go in. Maybe this Daoist has some real virtue. You never know."

Inside the second gate, two young boys came hurrying out. See how they were dressed:

Clear bones, bright spirits, and beautiful faces; knots of hair on their crowns, short hair flying loose.Their Daoist robes were natural, with mist wreathing the lapels; their feathered jackets had wind blowing out of the sleeves.Cords bound them close, tied in dragon-head knots; straw sandals were wound light with silkworm floss.Their air was beyond the common run—no ordinary youths: these were the two immortal boys, Clear Breeze and Bright Moon.

The boys bowed low with curved backs, came out to welcome them, and said: "Old master, forgive our poor welcome. Please sit." The elder was delighted, and the two boys took him up to see the main hall. It was a great hall of five bays facing south, with carved lattice panels, bright above and dim below. The immortal boys pushed the panels open and asked the Tang monk into the hall. In the middle of the wall hung the two great characters "Heaven and Earth" in five colors. There was a vermilion carved and lacquered incense table, and on it a golden censer and vase, with sticks of plain incense beside the censer.

The Tang monk stepped forward, took incense with his left hand, placed it in the burner, and bowed three times around. When the bows were done, he turned and said: "Immortal boys, your Wuzhuang Monastery is truly a fairy world of the West. Why do you not worship the Three Pure Ones, the Four Sovereigns, and the host of officials of all heaven, and serve only the two characters 'Heaven and Earth' with incense?" The boys laughed and said: "To tell you the truth, old master, of these two characters, the one on top deserves the honor, but the one below cannot accept our incense. It was my master's flattering way of putting it." Tripitaka said: "What do you mean, flattering?" The boy said: "The Three Pure Ones are my master's friends; the Four Sovereigns are his old acquaintances; the Nine Luminaries are his juniors; the star gods of the hours are his humble guests." When Pilgrim heard this he laughed until he doubled over. Bajie said: "Brother, what are you laughing at?" Pilgrim said: "I thought only old Sun knew how to spin tales. Here is a Daoist boy who can tie the wind in knots." Tripitaka said: "Where is your master?" The boy said: "The Original Venerable sent a note asking my master to the Miluo Palace in the heaven of Highest Clarity to hear the lecture on the Chaotic Unity. He is not at home." When Pilgrim heard this he could not hold back, and he shouted: "You smelly Daoist boy, you do not know people. Before whom do you spin your yarns and put on these hollow airs? Who in the Miluo Palace would invite a foul thing like you, with your ox hooves, to come and hear lectures?"

Tripitaka saw his anger and feared the boy might answer and stir up trouble, so he said: "Wukong, stop quarreling. Since we have come in, let us go out, or we will show no manners. As the saying goes, 'The heron does not eat heron flesh.' Their master is not home. Why make a disturbance? You go put the horse out in front of the mountain gate. Sha Monk will watch the luggage. Let Bajie open the bundle, take out some rice, borrow their stove, and cook a meal. When we leave, we will give them a few coppers for firewood, and that is all. Each of you to his task, and let me rest here a while. When the meal is done we go on." The three of them went off each to his task.

Now Bright Moon and Clear Breeze were praising them to themselves without end: "What a monk! Truly a holy one of the West come down into the world, his true nature undimmed. Master ordered us to receive the Tang monk and give him ginseng fruit to eat, to honor their old friendship, and he also told us to guard against trouble from the men under him. And sure enough those three have ugly, unruly faces and coarse natures. It was lucky we sent them off. If they were near, how could we bring out the ginseng fruit?" Clear Breeze said: "Brother, we do not even know if that monk really is our master's old friend. Let us ask him, so we are not wrong." The two boys came forward again and said: "May we ask, old master, are you the Tang Tripitaka who is going west from the Tang to fetch the scriptures?" The elder returned their bow and said: "I am that poor monk. How do immortal boys know my humble name?" The boy said: "When my master left, he told us to come out far to meet you. We did not expect your carriage to come so soon, and we failed to welcome you. Please sit, old master, while we prepare tea." Tripitaka said: "You are too kind." Bright Moon hurried to his room and brought a cup of fragrant tea, which he offered the elder. When the tea was finished, Clear Breeze said: "Brother, we must not disobey the master's order. Let us go pick the fruits."

The two boys left Tripitaka, went together to their room, took a gold-tapping mallet and a cinnabar tray, and lined the tray with a green cloth. Then they went straight into the ginseng garden. Clear Breeze climbed the tree and tapped the fruits with the gold mallet, while Bright Moon stood below with the tray to catch them. In a moment he tapped down two fruits, which were caught in the tray, and the boys brought them to the front hall and offered them: "Master Tang, our Wuzhuang Monastery stands in a poor and barren corner of the hills. We have nothing to offer you but two plain local fruits, to wet your throat." When the elder saw them, he trembled and backed away three feet, saying: "Goodness, goodness! This is a year of plenty and good harvests. Why does this monastery play famine and eat people? This is a child not three days old. How can you give it to me to wet my throat?" Clear Breeze said to himself: "This monk has lived so long in the marketplace of tongues and the sea of quarrels that his eyes have turned to common mortal flesh, and he does not know the rare treasure of our immortal house." Bright Moon came forward and said: "Old master, this thing is called a ginseng fruit. To eat one will do no harm." Tripitaka said: "Nonsense, nonsense. Its father and mother carried it in the womb—who knows what pain they suffered—before it was born. It is not three days old. How can you take it and treat it as a fruit?" Clear Breeze said: "It truly grows on a tree." The elder said: "Idle talk, idle talk. Since when do trees grow people? Take it away. It is not a thing to speak of."

When the two boys saw him refuse over and over and would not eat, they could only take up the tray and go back to their room. The fruit is a strange thing: it cannot be kept long. Left too long, it stiffens and is no good to eat. The two of them went into the room, took one each, sat on the edge of the bed, and ate them down with a will.

Ah! What a thing happened. Their room was divided from the kitchen by only a thin wall. A quiet word on one side could be heard on the other. Bajie was cooking in the kitchen. First he heard them say they were fetching the gold-tapping mallet and the cinnabar tray, and he took note. Then he heard them say that the Tang monk did not know it was ginseng fruit, and had taken the fruits to their room to eat themselves. His mouth watered in spite of him, and he said to himself: "If only I could taste one, fresh and new!" But his own body was too clumsy to get moving, so he waited for Pilgrim to come and talk it over. He had no heart for the fire at the stove mouth, and he kept stretching his head out to look. Before long he saw Pilgrim leading the horse and tying it to the locust tree, going toward the back. The Idiot waved his hand wildly: "Over here! Over here!" Pilgrim turned and came to the kitchen door, saying: "Idiot, what is all the noise? Is the food not enough? Let the old monk eat his fill, and we will beg more at some big house up the road." Bajie said: "Come inside. It is not about the food. There is a treasure in this abbey. Do you know of it?" Pilgrim said: "What treasure?" Bajie laughed and said: "If I tell you, you have not seen it. If I hand it to you, you would not know it." Pilgrim said: "This Idiot mocks old Sun. Five hundred years ago, when I went seeking the immortals' Way, I wandered to the ends of the earth. What have I not seen?" Bajie said: "Brother, have you ever seen a ginseng fruit?" Pilgrim said in surprise: "That I truly have not seen. But I have often heard it said that the ginseng fruit is the Grass-Returning Elixir, and that whoever eats it lives a very long life. Where are there any now?" Bajie said: "They have them here. The boys took two to give the master. The old monk did not know what they were and said they were babies not three days old, so he dared not eat. Those boys are shameless. If the master would not eat, they should have offered them to us. Instead they hid them from us, and now they are in the next room, one each, munching away in comfort. It set my mouth watering so. If only I could taste one, fresh and new! You are quick and nimble. Go into their garden and steal a few for us to taste. What do you say?" Pilgrim said: "That is easy. Old Sun will go, and my hand will have it the moment it arrives." He turned to go at once, and Bajie held him: "Brother, I heard them say in that room they would use some gold-tapping mallet to knock them down. Do it neatly, and do not let a breath of it slip out." Pilgrim said: "I know, I know."

The Great Sage used the invisibility spell and slipped into the boys' room. The two Daoist boys had eaten the fruits and gone to the hall to speak with the Tang monk, and were not there. Pilgrim looked all around for the gold-tapping mallet. On the window lattice hung a rod of pure gold, about two feet long and as thick as a finger. Its lower end was knobbled like a bulb of garlic; there was an eye at the top, with a green silk cord through it. He said: "This must be the thing they call the gold-tapping mallet." He took it down, left the boys' room, went straight to the back, and pushed open a pair of doors. He looked up. Ah! It was a garden. And what a garden:

Vermilion railings and precious beds, winding walks and heaped-up hills.Rare flowers vied in beauty with the bright sun; kingfisher bamboo contested green with the blue sky.Outside the Floating-Cup Pavilion a bend of green willows trailed like smoke; before the Moon-Viewing Terrace stood clusters of tall pines like spilled indigo.Red and swinging, the brocade-nest pomegranates; green and clinging, the cushion grasses; dark and downy, the blue sand orchids; drifting and free, the water by the stream.Red cassia shone against the wutong trees by the gold well; brocade locusts leaned on the vermilion railings and jade masonry.There were thousand-petaled peaches, some red and some white, and autumn chrysanthemums, some fragrant and some yellow.Trellised vines faced the Peony Pavilion; the hibiscus terrace ran on to the bed of peonies.There was no end to the gentleman bamboo that defies the frost, or the grandee pines that mock the snow.And there were crane yards and deer pens, square ponds and round pools; springs ran like broken jade, and the earth's edge heaped up gold.The north wind burst the white plum blossoms open; spring came and dotted the crab apple red.Truly the finest fairy scene in the world of men, the first flower garden of the West.

Pilgrim could not look enough. He came to another gate, pushed it open, and found a vegetable garden:

Vegetables sown for all four seasons: spinach, celery, chard, ginger, cress; bamboo shoots, taro, melons, bottle gourds, wild rice stems; onions, garlic, coriander, chives, and shallots.Endive, young artemisia, and bitter greens; gourds and eggplants to be planted; turnips and radishes bedded in the earth; red amaranth, green cabbage, purple mustard.

Pilgrim laughed and said: "So he is a Daoist who grows his own food and eats it."

Past the vegetable garden was yet another gate. He pushed it open and looked. Ah! In the very middle stood one great tree, truly dark with fragrance on its green boughs, its leaves deep and shaded, each leaf shaped like a plantain leaf. It rose more than a thousand feet, and its roots were seven or eight zhang around. Pilgrim leaned against the trunk and looked up. On a branch facing south a ginseng fruit hung out, looking truly like a little child, with a small stem at its base. It stuck there on the twig, its arms and legs moving, nodding and shaking its head, and as the wind passed it seemed to make a sound. Pilgrim was delighted past all telling, and he praised it to himself: "A fine thing! Truly rare, truly rare!" Leaning on the tree, he shot up with a whish. That monkey was the first of all creatures at climbing trees to steal fruit. He tapped once with the gold mallet, and the fruit dropped with a plop. He jumped down after it to look, but it was gone without a trace. He searched the grass on every side, and there was nothing to be found.

Pilgrim said: "Strange, strange. It must be a thing with feet that can walk—but even walking, it could not jump the wall. I know. The local earth god of this garden must not want old Sun to steal his fruit, so he took it in." He pressed his fingers in a sign, said one spell beginning with "Om," and summoned the local earth god of the garden. The god came, bowed to Pilgrim, and said: "The Great Sage calls this small god. What are your orders?" Pilgrim said: "Do you not know that old Sun is the most famous master thief under heaven? In my day I stole the peaches of immortality, robbed the imperial wine, and made off with the elixir pills, and no one dared take a share from me. How is it that today, when I steal one fruit of his, you go and skim a share off the top? This fruit grows on a tree. Even a bird passing in the air should have a share. If old Sun eats one, what great harm is that? How is it that the moment I knocked it down, you fished it away?" The earth god said: "Great Sage, you wrong this small god. This treasure belongs to an earthly immortal. I am a ghost immortal. How would I dare take it? I have not the fate even to smell it."

Pilgrim said: "If you did not take it, why did it vanish the moment it was knocked down?" The earth god said: "Great Sage, you know only that this treasure lengthens life. You do not know its story." Pilgrim said: "What story?" The earth god said: "This treasure flowers once in three thousand years, bears fruit once in three thousand years, and needs three thousand more to ripen. At the least it takes ten thousand years, and it bears only thirty fruits. A man with the destiny smells one and lives three hundred and sixty years; he eats one and lives forty-seven thousand years. But it stands in awe of the five elements." Pilgrim said: "What do you mean, it stands in awe of the five elements?" The earth god said: "This fruit falls at the touch of metal, withers at the touch of wood, dissolves in water, scorches in fire, and sinks into earth. To knock it down you must use a tool of metal, or it will not come off. When it has fallen, you must line the tray with a silk cloth to catch it. If it touches any wood, it withers, and eating it will no longer lengthen life. To eat it you must use porcelain, and dissolve it in clear water. In fire it scorches and is useless. As for sinking into earth: when you knocked it down just now, Great Sage, it burrowed straight into the ground. This earth is forty-seven thousand years old. A steel drill could not mark it—it is three or four tenths harder than raw iron. That is why a man who eats the fruit lives so long. If you do not believe it, Great Sage, strike the ground and see." Pilgrim pulled out his gold-banded staff and struck the ground a blow. With a clang the staff bounced back, and the earth showed no mark at all. Pilgrim said: "It is true, it is true. My staff smashes stone to powder and marks raw iron. How is it this blow did not hurt it a bit? If that is how it is, I wronged you. Go back." The earth god returned to his little temple.

The Great Sage had his own plan. He climbed the tree, worked the gold mallet with one hand, and pulled up the front of his brocade gown with the other to make a pouch. Working along branch and leaf, he tapped down three fruits and caught them in the pouch. He jumped from the tree, came straight forward, and went into the kitchen. Bajie laughed and said: "Brother, did you get any?" Pilgrim said: "What do you call this? Old Sun's hand reaches, and the thing is caught. We should not leave out Sha Monk. Call him." Bajie beckoned and called: "Wujing, come here." Sha Monk set down the luggage and ran into the kitchen: "Brother, what do you want me for?" Pilgrim opened the pouch of his gown and said: "Brother, what do you call this thing?" Sha Monk looked and said: "Ginseng fruit." Pilgrim said: "Well now! You know it. Where did you eat it before?" Sha Monk said: "I never ate one. But long ago, when I was the Curtain-Raising General and waited on the phoenix carriage to the Peach Banquet, I saw the immortals from over the seas offering these fruits to the Queen Mother to lengthen her years. I have seen them, but I never ate one. Brother, could you give me a taste?" Pilgrim said: "No need to ask. One for each of us brothers."

The three of them took the three fruits and enjoyed them. But Bajie had a big appetite and a big mouth. He had been drooling from the moment he heard the boys eating, and now, the fruit in hand, he opened wide and gulped it down whole. Then he rolled his eyes and made a false face at Pilgrim and Sha Monk: "What were you two eating?" Sha Monk said: "Ginseng fruit." Bajie said: "What did it taste like?" Pilgrim said: "Wujing, do not answer him. You ate yours first, and now you ask us?" Bajie said: "Brother, I ate in too much of a hurry. I did not chew it slowly like you two and taste the flavor. I do not even know if it had a pit—I swallowed it whole. Brother, if you do a thing for a man, do it through. You have waked up this glutton's worm of mine. Go get another one, and this old pig will eat it slowly this time." Pilgrim said: "Brother, you do not know when to stop. This thing is not rice or noodles, to be had in full whenever you like. On a tree that bears thirty fruits in ten thousand years, for us to eat one each is a great piece of destiny, no small matter. Enough, enough, enough." He half rose, and through the window he tossed the gold mallet into the boys' room, and paid him no more mind.

The Idiot kept on grumbling and muttering. Now the two Daoist boys came back into their room to fetch tea to serve. They heard Bajie still carrying on about "ginseng fruit—it was no treat. If only I could have another!" Clear Breeze heard it and grew suspicious: "Bright Moon, did you hear that long-mouthed monk? 'Ginseng fruit—I want another.' When the master left he told us to watch for trouble from the men under him. Could they have stolen our treasure?" Bright Moon turned and said: "Brother, this is bad, this is bad. How has the gold mallet fallen on the floor? Let us go look in the garden."

The two of them hurried off, and found the garden door open. Clear Breeze said: "I shut that door. How is it open?" They hurried around the garden and found the vegetable garden door open too. They rushed into the ginseng garden, leaned against the tree, and counted upward, going back and forth. Only twenty-two fruits were left. Bright Moon said: "Can you do sums?" Clear Breeze said: "I can. Say them out." Bright Moon said: "The fruits were thirty at first. When the master opened the garden we all shared and ate two, which left twenty-eight. Just now two were tapped for the Tang monk, which left twenty-six. Now only twenty-two remain. Are four not missing? No need for more talk. Those wicked men stole them. Let us go curse the Tang monk."

The two went out the garden gate and came straight to the hall. They pointed at the Tang monk and hurled insults about his shaved head, one foul word after another without a stop—thief's head and rat's brains, insults short and long, bawling in bad temper. The Tang monk could not stand it and said: "Immortal boys, what is this uproar? Calm down. If you have something to say, say it slowly. There is no need for all this wild talk." Clear Breeze said: "Are you deaf? Am I speaking barbarian talk that you cannot understand? You stole and ate our ginseng fruit. How can you not let us speak?" The Tang monk said: "What does a ginseng fruit look like?" Bright Moon said: "We just brought two for you to eat. Did you not say they were like little children?" The Tang monk said: "Amitabha! The sight of those things made my heart jump and my courage fail. Would I dare steal them to eat? Even if I were dying of gluttony, I would not dare such a thieving act. Do not blame the wrong person." Clear Breeze said: "You may not have eaten, but some of the men under you would steal a bite." Tripitaka said: "That may well be. Stop your shouting, and let me question them. If they truly stole them, I will make them pay." Bright Moon said: "Pay! With money, where would you buy them?" Tripitaka said: "Even if there were money, there would be nowhere to buy. As the saying goes, 'Goodness and honor are worth a thousand in gold.' I will make them bow an apology to you, and that will be an end. Besides, we do not yet know whether it was them." Bright Moon said: "How could it not be them? They could not share the loot fairly, and they are still quarreling about it in there." Tripitaka called: "Disciples, come here, all of you." Sha Monk heard and said: "This is bad. We are found out. The old master calls us, the young Daoist boys curse and rage. If the old story has not leaked out, what has?" Pilgrim said: "How shaming! This is only a matter of food. If it comes out, we are thieves of a mouthful. We must not admit it." Bajie said: "Right, right. Deny it." The three of them could only come out of the kitchen and walk up into the hall.

How would they deny it to him? Listen to the next chapter to find out.