Adventures of the Mad Monk Ji Gong

by Guo Xiaoting

  When the uncle, Hua Qingfeng, heard this, he replied, “You all came here with him, to my shrine, because you were afraid that Ji Gong would take my nephew. Is that right?”

  “That is so,” said Yang Ming.

  “And you sincerely want to help him,” continued Sorcerer Hua, “or were you false in your sincerity?”

  “Reverend Sir,” protested Yang Ming, “what language is this? If we had been insincere about helping him, why would we have come up the mountain with him?”

  “Well, since you are sincere about helping him, I want you all to lend me something to keep for a while. Will you do that or not?”

  “That depends upon what it is,” said Yang Ming. “If it is not something like our heads or lives, almost anything else you could certainly ask us to lend you.”

  “You all want to help save my nephew. If you will lend me your souls for a while to temper my sword, I will be able to cut off Ji Gong’s head.”

  Lei Ming was the first one to let his anger break loose. “You mixed-up, addlepated old Daoist sorcerer! You are talking nonsense! We were polite to you and it meant nothing. That’s enough. Brother Yang, let us leave here.”

  Yang Ming was so angry that his face had turned red. “You uncles and nephews!” he exclaimed. “You want it all one way and nothing the other way!” He stood up and was about to leave.

  Hua Qingfeng laughed loudly. “If you little folks want to leave, you will have to get my permission,” he said. “You’re going to have enough trouble getting into hell, to say nothing of heaven. Golden Eye, would you come out here and help me keep these people under control?”

  The Daoist Jiang, known as Golden Eye, had been waiting in the next room. He immediately came out and recited some hypnotic spells that immobilized the four friends so that they were unable to escape. They were now indeed in danger of losing their lives.

  CHAPTER 71

  The murderous Black Wind Ghost is murdered; the killer, Golden Eye, is slain

  WHILE Golden Eye kept the four friends motionless with his hypnotic spells, the sorcerer went out to the exercise courtyard. There on an incense table, he set out the five kinds of things necessary for tempering his sword with the blood of five men. Cloud Dragon stood to one side, watching silently.

  “Well, very good, Hua,” said Yang Ming. “We came here on your behalf and now we are going to die. Perhaps that’s the way it should be.”

  When Cloud Dragon Hua heard these words spoken by Yang Ming, he finally spoke up. “Uncle, do be compassionate! These are my friends. Look me in the face. Don’t kill them!”

  “So, you’re still begging for them, Cloud Dragon,” said Sorcerer Hua. “You think them to be your friends. Did you know that there at the mountainside the one named Lei wanted to help the headmen capture you, and that the one named Yang said that he could secretly take a rock and throw it at you? It struck the headman by mistake. You are still asleep and dreaming!”

  “Strange! Even the things we said,” thought Yang Ming, “how could the Daoist know all that? Really, he must have the gift of foreknowledge!” Lei Ming was still uttering curses.

  Sorcerer Hua Qingfeng ordered that the four men be securely bound and taken into the exercise courtyard. When they reached there, they saw the five kinds of grain all arranged upon a square “eight immortals” table, together with an incense burner and a lighted candle in a candlestick. There were also writing materials, orchid root for preparing the inkstone, clear water, square pieces of yellow paper, a writing brush, and other things. The four men were dragged toward the incense table.

  “This is the end,” said Chen Liang. “I never thought we could come here to die. We should have heeded Ji Gong’s warning. He said that for one month we should not leave the abbey and that, if we failed to listen, we would be in danger of losing our lives. He cannot save us now. It’s all because Liu Tong did not pay attention. He drew us all out of the abbey.”

  “Now that it has turned out this way, we need not talk about it,” said Yang Ming.

  Lei Ming looked at Chen Liang. “If we two die, it really doesn’t matter. We have no parents or children but you, Brother Yang, have an old white-haired mother, a wife, and a young child. If you die, who will take care of them?”

  These words could not help but make Yang Ming feel badly. He let out a deep sigh. “I need not say that there is a place to be born and one to die. At the third watch, who dares to say that we will live to the fifth? But death is always happy.”

  “How can it be happy?” asked Chen Liang.

  “Have you not read the story of the three kingdoms?” asked Yang Ming. “When those three warriors took their oath in the peach orchard, they said, ‘Though we three were not born together, we can die together.’ Now, like those famous men, are we not all about to die together on the same date?”

  The Daoist sorcerer was not listening to his victims but talking to his protégé, Golden Eye. “Now I will take their lives and with their blood imprison their souls in my sword,” said Hua Qingfeng.

  “Teacher,” said Golden Eye, “you need five souls to temper your sword. You have only four. Without one more, the charm will not work. We should go down the mountain now and find another man.”

  “Why do we need to go down the mountain?” asked the sorcerer. “We’ll just get that man who’s out in the kitchen eating and add him.”

  Now the man who was out in the kitchen eating was the Black Wind Ghost, Jiang Ying. He had been waiting in the woods while Cloud Dragon Hua had gone to buy darts. Jiang Ying had waited a long time without seeing Cloud Dragon Hua return. Just as he was becoming uneasy, he saw Yang Ming, Lei Ming, Chen Liang, Kong Gui, and Liu Tong coming south down the mountain. Jiang Ying was shocked and surprised. Without showing himself, he stole toward them to watch, carefully concealing himself, for he feared for his life should he be seen.

  While he watched and listened, he saw the headmen and their deputies chasing Cloud Dragon Hua. Then he heard Lei Ming say, “Let us help them catch Cloud Dragon.” And he saw Yang Ming throw the rock. The rascal Jiang, still fearing Yang Ming, hurried back to the Veiled Mountain Shrine. Arriving there first, he told his story to Hua Qingfeng. Otherwise the sorcerer would not have known what really occurred. He, after all, was no immortal who could foretell the future. This was how Jiang Ying happened to be in the kitchen eating.

  When Golden Eye went out to the kitchen, he said, “Jiang Ying, the master is about to temper his sword with the blood of five men, and he needs one more.”

  “I can go down the mountain and find one,” said Jiang Ying.

  “You need not go looking,” said Golden Eye, while fixing him with his hypnotic glare. “The master has said you will be added. You will just have a few less years to live.”

  Jiang Ying’s face grew white with fear. “Oh, don’t add me!” he exclaimed.

  “You have no choice,” said Golden Eye, tying his victim’s hands while he held him under his spell. He led him helpless into the courtyard.

  Jiang Ying was begging, “Teacher, save my life!”

  When Yang Ming saw him, he understood everything that had happened. “If Sorcerer Hua had not needed another man, I would never have known,” he thought and began to curse. “Jiang Ying, you beast! I helped you once and this is how you repaid me, then and now! You miserable creature! I never expected to meet you again like this.”

  Jiang Ying continued begging Hua Qingfeng to spare his life. Sorcerer Hua, who was a thoroughly evil man, did not answer him. “Golden Eye,” he said, “watch to see where the charm falls. Whichever person’s head it falls upon will be the one from whom we will take the first soul.”

  The sorcerer carefully wrote out a charm on a square of yellow paper. Then he pierced it with the tip of his sword and held it in the flame of the lighted candle while he recited a spell. When the paper began to burn, he flourished the sword in the air over the heads of his five prisoners until the burning paper charm flew off from his sword point. It fell directly on the
head of Jiang Ying, the Black Wind Ghost.

  “That’s it,” said Yang Ming. “At least I will see Jiang Ying die before my eyes. I will then be glad to close my own eyes in death, even though I must go down beneath the Yellow Springs.”

  The sorcerer could be heard giving orders. “Now, Golden Eye,” he said, “aim carefully and thrust the sword into Jiang Ying’s chest.” They heard a cry as the blood poured forth and life left the man’s body. Then the sorcerer chanted in a loud voice, as if addressing the soul of Jiang Ying: “Now I command most strictly that this soul, as it leaves this man’s body, shall enter into the sword and remain in the sword, strengthening and guiding my arm until the ragged monk is dead and his soul cut off from existence forever.”

  Next, the sorcerer wrote a charm on a second piece of paper, pierced it with the point of his sword, lighted it in the flame of the candle, and tossed the burning paper into the air as he recited a spell. This paper fell onto Yang Ming. “Well, my three dear brothers,” said Yang Ming, “I am the next to leave. We will meet again inside the walls of the city of the dead.” The others looked at him as if they had each been fatally wounded by an arrow.

  Sorcerer Hua was giving orders to Golden Eye. Yang Ming closed his eyes and clenched his teeth as Golden Eye grasped his victim’s jacket with his left hand and drew back his other hand, holding the sword ready to strike at Yang Ming’s chest. Then there was a shout and a cry. Bright red blood shot into the air like a flash of crimson light and the dead body of Golden Eye fell to the ground. Yang Ming, who had been so close to death, was still alive and unharmed.

  Down below the shrine where the footpath forked, Liu Tong had waited for a long time with no sign of Yang Ming. Simple people have simple hearts, and so Liu Tong had been thinking, “If I wait here for Big Brother Yang, what will I do if I get hungry? There’s no place to eat!”

  Just as Liu Tong was thinking about eating, a man selling steamed bread came walking along the pathway. When he saw Liu Tong, who carried a great iron-tipped staff, and who looked to the bread-seller almost as solid as the bottom half of a dark pagoda, the man didn’t know what to think. He was so frightened that his color changed.

  “What would his lordship like?” the man asked.

  “His lordship would like bread,” replied Liu Tong in his naturally rough voice.

  “Five?” the man queried, “Ten?” He opened his hampers and spread on the ground trays each containing five small loaves. Finally the man had spread out all his wares, totaling 105 small, round steamed loaves, which everyone called “bread heads” because of their shape and size. Then without another word he took to his heels and ran, leaving everything behind.

  “Come back!” cried Liu Tong.

  “Do you want my clothes, too?” asked the man from a distance.

  “His lordship will give you silver,” said Liu Tong taking out five ounces of silver and giving it to the bread-seller, who only then realized Liu Tong was a good man.

  “But these bread heads do not come to anything like this amount of silver,” said the man.

  “Take it,” said Liu Tong, and so the man went off. Liu Tong looked at all the bread the man had left behind and let out a whistle. Saying, “Would you like me to eat you first?” he picked up the loaf he had addressed and ate it. Then he looked at another. “And do you want to be eaten, too?” and ate it as well. And so he went on talking to himself, saying, “When my companions return, there will still be enough for them all.” At this point he saw the monk walking toward him with another man.

  “Liu Tong!” said Ji Gong, “You still haven’t gone to look for your big brother Yang. He may be killed.”

  “Really?” asked Liu Tong.

  “Truly,” replied the monk.

  Liu picked up his iron-tipped staff and ran up the mountain, leaving the steamed bread abandoned on the ground. When he reached the shrine, he was tall enough to look over the wall. He could see Yang Ming tied up. Naturally, he was most alarmed and leaped inside. His staff rose and fell, cracking open Golden Eye’s skull in one whirlwind motion. But then Sorcerer Hua pointed and brought Liu Tong to a standstill. The Daoist drew his precious sword and placed the tip against Liu Tong’s chest.

  Liu Tong laughed at him. “My body is covered with iron,” he said. “I won’t tell you, but I fear only fire, being buried alive, and boiling water—those three, but you don’t know those three things and I won’t tell.” In his simple way, he had told everything while saying he wouldn’t tell.

  Hua Qingfeng told the novices to bring two big bundles of dry wood. “I will burn him to death,” he said, “and revenge the killing of my student Golden Eye.”

  When Liu Tong saw them bringing the wood, he said, “This is very bad. Who told you?”

  “Liu Tong is a simple person,” Yang Ming told the sorcerer. “He has a Buddha heart and has never had an evil thought. How can you treat him like this?”

  But heaven seemed to have turned away its eyes. “Teacher,” Liu Tong cried, “come quickly and save me!”

  From outside came an answering voice. “You thing! You dare to burn my follower! Do not be afraid, my disciple!” Everyone opened their eyes wide. It was indeed the lohan, who had come to help those in their direst need.

  CHAPTER 72

  Sorcerer Hua weaves his spell; the Chan master comes from the Iron Buddha Temple

  to save those in need

  JI Gong had arrived just as Sorcerer Hua Qingfeng was lighting the fire to burn Liu Tong. Except for having encountered Liu Tong on the pathway down below the shrine shortly before, Ji Gong had not seen any of this group of friends since he left them at the abbey and went off in pursuit of Cloud Dragon Hua. Along the way he had stopped to save the lives of three young men who had been wounded by Cloud Dragon’s poisoned darts. Then, after he had exorcised the python demon and driven Golden Eye and his band of outlaws from the Iron Buddha Temple, there were complaints that there was no longer any cure for those who had drunk from the wells poisoned by the python. As a result, Ji Gong had to supply a remedy of his own making.

  Next he saw to the transfer of the Painted Lame Man back to the Longyou district magistrate’s yamen, since it was in that district that the false cripple had been directly involved in one murder and indirectly in another. Ji Gong, having attended to all these details, said farewell to the Longyou magistrate, who thanked him profusely for his help. Then the monk went on his way down the road with the two headmen, Chai and She.

  “Teacher,” said Headman Chai, “since we left the capital, Linan, to capture Hua Yun Long, we have sought him hither and yon. One day you have said, ‘Today we will take him.’ Then on the next day you have said, ‘Tomorrow we will take him.’ As of today, we still have not taken him. At home we have left both old ones and young ones while spending so many days in this fruitless search. Probably we will never be able to take him.”

  “You two must not let yourselves be too impatient,” counseled the monk. “Surely we will take him!”

  There was nothing the two headmen could do. They simply walked onward. Suddenly the monk let out a cry. “Oh! Oh! I have too many lice on my belly! They’re biting me terribly!” With that he scratched about with his hand and picked one off from his chest, which he then placed on his back. Then he took another from his back and put it on his chest.

  “Teacher!” exclaimed Headman Chai, “don’t pick lice off and put them back on again! That’s a very dirty thing to do!”

  “I’m helping them move from one place to another,” explained the monk. “Otherwise, when they go swimming they will die.”

  “Teacher!” countered Headman Chai, “Don’t talk nonsense! The lice on a person’s body don’t go swimming. I still say just get them off quickly.”

  “Well, these lice still need a drink of water,” said the monk. Just ahead, a river came into view. “Ke tong!” The monk dived into the water.

  Headman Chai then realized that the monk wanted to leave them. “Teacher is off once more,” he sa
id. “Where will we meet again?”

  “Let’s meet at the Changshan district yamen,” the monk replied. Then he dived beneath the water and the headmen saw him no longer. Barely keeping their anger and resentment under control, the two headmen walked on.

  When the monk saw that the two men had gone, he came up out of the water and went straight up to the Veiled Mountain. As he walked along the path, he saw in front of him a vagabond who was carrying on his back a gilded papier-mâché emblem almost as large as he was. It represented an antique coin in the shape of a hand. It was meant to be carried high in the air on a long pole in a procession. On it there were four lines of characters:

  Today we join in the marriage feast;

  Tonight we sleep in an ancient temple.

  If we do no evil thing,

  What fear have we from any prince?

  “Where are you going to do your begging?” the monk asked.

  “I am going to wish someone a happy wedding,” the beggar answered.

  “Let us go together, then,” the monk offered.

  “Oh, no,” said the beggar. “What would you do there, monk?”

  “I would wish them a happy wedding as well,” replied the monk.

  “But, if someone were getting married,” said the beggar, “and you, a monk, came to the wedding, people wouldn’t like your being there.”

  “Very well, I’ll be quiet and put the lid on that idea,” said the monk. The two walked along together for a while until they came to the fork in the path beneath the Veiled Mountain Shrine and saw Liu Tong, with his bread heads, talking to himself.

  “Liu Tong, you still haven’t gone to look!” exclaimed the monk. “Your big brother Yang may be hurt by somebody up there!”

  “Really?” asked Liu Tong.

  “Truly!” replied the monk. Liu Tong promptly seized his staff and dashed up the mountain, abandoning all his steamed bread.

  “Gather up this bread,” said the monk to the beggar.