Sanzang went paler still with shock. None of their arguments, however outrageous, had the slightest impact on him. “We've been talking to you very nicely, monk,” the devil servant said, “but you don't pay the slightest attention. If we lose our tempers and start our rough, country way of doing things we'll drag you off and see to it that you can never be a monk any longer or ever marry a wife. After that your life will be pointless.”

The venerable elder's heart remained as hard as metal or stone and he obdurately refused to do as they asked, wondering all the time where his disciples were looking for him. At the thought his tears flowed unquenchably. Smiling and sitting down next to him the woman produced a silk handkerchief from her emerald sleeve with which she wiped away his tears.

“Don't be so upset, noble guest,” She said. “You and I are going to taste the pleasures of love.” Sanzang jumped up and shouted at her to go away and would have left at once if they had not held him there by force. The row went on till daybreak.

Suddenly Sanzang heard a call of, “Master! Master! We can hear you. Where are you?” Monkey, Pig and Friar Sand had been searching everywhere all night, leading the white horse and carrying the baggage. They had gone through all the thorns and brambles without a moment's rest and by now had reached the Western side of the 250-mile-wide cloud-capped Thorn Ridge, This was the shout they gave when they heard Sanzang's angry yells. Sanzang broke free, rushed outside, and called, “Wukong, I'm here. Help! Help!” The four ancients, the devil servant, the woman and her maids all disappeared in a flash.

A moment later Pig and Friar Sand were there too. “How ever did you get here, Master?” they asked.

“Disciples,” said Sanzang, clinging to Monkey, “I have put you to a lot of trouble. I was carried here by the old man who appeared last night and said he was a local deity bringing us vegetarian food-the one you shouted at and were going to hit. He held my hand and helped me inside that door there, where I saw three old men who had come to meet me. They kept calling me 'holy monk' and talked in a very pure and elegant way. They were marvellous poets, and I matched some verses with them. Then at about midnight a beautiful woman came with lanterns to see me and made up a poem herself. She kept calling me 'noble guest'. She liked the look of me so much she wanted to sleep with me. That brought me to my senses. When I refused they offered to be matchmakers and guarantors, and to marry us. I swore not to agree and was just shouting at them and trying to get away when to my surprise you turned up. Although they were still dragging at my clothes they suddenly disappeared. It must have been because it was dawn and because they were frightened of you too.”

“Did you ask them their names when you were talking about poetry?”

Monkey asked. “Yes,” Sanzang replied, “I asked them their titles. The oldest was Energy, the Eighteenth Lord; the next oldest was the Lone Upright Lord; the third was Master Emptiness; and the fourth the Ancient Cloud-toucher. They called the woman Apricot Fairy.”

“Where are they?” Pig asked, “where've they gone?”

“Where they have gone I don't know,” Sanzang replied, “but where we talked about poetry was near here.”

When the three disciples searched with their master they found a rock-face on which were carved the words “Tree Immortals' Hermitage.”

“This is it,” said Sanzang, and on looking carefully Brother Monkey saw a big juniper, an old cypress, an old pine and an old bamboo. Behind the bamboo was a red maple. When he took another look by the rock-face he saw an old apricot tree, two winter-flowering plums, and two osman-thuses.

“Did you see the evil spirits?” Monkey asked.

“No,” said Pig.

“It's just because you don't realize that those trees have become spirits,” said Monkey.

“How can you tell that the spirits were trees?” Pig asked.

“The Eighteenth lord is the pine,” Monkey replied, “the Lone Upright Lord the cypress, Master Emptiness the juniper and the Ancient Cloud-toucher the bamboo. The maple there was the red devil and the Apricot Fairy that apricot tree.”

When Pig heard this he ruthlessly hit with his rake and rooted with his snout to knock the plum, osmanthus, apricot and maple trees over, and as he did blood flowed from their roots. “Wuneng,” said Sanzang, going up to him to check him, “don't harm any more of them. Although they have become spirits they did me no harm. Let's be on our way again.”

“Don't be sorry for them, Master,” said Monkey. “They'll do people a great deal of harm if we let them develop into big monsters.” With that the idiot let fly with his rake and knocked pine, cypress, juniper ad bamboo all to the ground. Only then did he invite his master to remount and carry along the main route to the West.

If you don't know what happened as they pressed ahead, listen to the explanation in the next installment.

A Demon Creates a False Thunder Peak

All Four Pilgrims Meet with Disaster

The cause and effect this time revealed

Should make one do what's good and shun the evil.

Once a thought is born

The Intelligence is aware of it.

And lets it become action.

Why strive to learn stupidity or skill?

Both are medicines for heartlessness.

Do what is right while you are still alive;

Do not just drift.

Recognize the root and the source,

Escape from the trunk and the husk.

If seeking long life you must grasp this.

Watch clearly at every moment,

Refine your thoughts.

Go through the three passes, fill up the black sea;

The good will surely ride on the phoenix and crane.

Then your gloom will change to compassion

As you ascend to absolute bliss.

Tang Sanzang's thoughts were so pure that not only did the heavenly gods protect him: even the vegetable spirits had taken him along a part of his journey for a night of elegant conversation, thereby saving him from having to go through the thorns and brambles. Nor were there any more creepers to entangle them. As the four of them carried on West for another long period winter ended and spring returned.

All things begin to flower,

The handle of the Dipper returns to the East.

Everywhere the grass is green,

As are the leaves of willows on the bank.

The ridge covered in peach blossom is red brocade;

The mist over the stream is a translucent gauze.

Frequent wind and rain,

Unbounded feeling.

Flowers open their hearts to the sun,

Swallows carry off the delicate moss.

Wang Wei should have painted the beauty of the mountains;

The birdsong is as persuasive as Su Qin's golden tongue.

Though no one sees these fragrant cushions of flowers

The butterflies and singing bees adore them.

Master and disciples made their way across the flowers and the grass ambling along with the horse until they made out in the distance a mountain so high that it touched the sky. Pointing at it with his riding crop Sanzang said, “I wonder how high that mountain is, Wukong. It touches the heavens and pierces the firmament.”

“Isn't there some ancient poem that says, 'Heaven alone is supreme: no mountain can equal its height?'“ Monkey replied. “However high a mountain is it can't possibly join up with the sky.”

“Then why's Mount Kunlun called the pillar of heaven?” Pig asked.

“Evidently you don't know that part of the sky has always been missing in the Northwest,” Brother Monkey replied. “As Kunlun's in the Northwest corner it plugs that hole in the sky. That's why it's called the pillar of heaven.”