The Journey to the West: Volume I

The travelers reach the Flowing-Sand River, where another monster attacks them. Pilgrim can’t fight the monster because he can’t fight in the water. Eight Rules is also having trouble fighting the monster, so Pilgrim cloud-somersaults to ask Guanyin for help in gaining safe passage for Tripitaka. This is the third monster that Guanyin had told to protect Tripitaka, and she tells Pilgrim this. Guanyin sends Hui’an with a gourd to go with Pilgrim. If Hui’an summons the monster out of the Flowing-Sand River and tells him who Tripitaka is, he will serve him. Then, Hui’an can instruct him to string skulls together to make a raft with the gourd to ferry Tripitaka across the river safely. The monster is taken care of without another fight and continues the journey as one of Tripitaka’s disciples. As it turns out, the sight of the Monkey King made Wujing fearful.

Tripitaka and his disciples continue their journey, and they come upon a farm occupied by a widow and her three daughters. The widow thinks Tripitaka, Pilgrim, Eight Rules, and Wujing would make good husbands for them all. Tripitaka pretends to be deaf and dumb, and he closes his eyes to calm his mind. Eight Rules believes they should listen to the widow’s offer, but Tripitaka kindly turns her down. Despite Tripitaka’s manners, the widow becomes upset and locks them outside of her home, refusing to serve them tea. Eight Rules is annoyed: He believes that the widow might have given them some food if Tripitaka had been more willing to listen to her. 

Eight Rules pretends he’s going to tend to the horse but instead goes to the back of the farmhouse to see the women. He tells the widow he’d like to marry one of her daughters. The widow blinds him with a handkerchief and says he can marry one of her daughters if he can catch one of them; he fails and falls on the ground, only to find himself bound there. Tripitaka, Pilgrim, and Wujing wake up in a grove of trees; the farmhouse and the women are gone. The women are bodhisattvas who left a poem behind: Tripitaka is virtuous because he resisted the urge to marry one of them, but Eight Rules did not. Eight Rules needs to reform himself, or the journey will be difficult.

Tripitaka and his disciples arrive at a temple on Long Life Mountain, where a tree has been growing since before Heaven and Earth were separated. It’s a ginseng tree, and its fruit takes 9,000 years to grow and ripen. To add to their rarity, the tree only makes 30 fruits at a time. The ginseng is so named because the fruits look like human babies, complete with limbs, eyes, and ears. 

When Tripitaka and his disciples arrive, he is offered two of the ginsengs, but he recoils in disgust because they look like humans. He demands to know how anyone could eat such a thing. Eight Rules overhears some of the temple attendants discussing the fruits, so he persuades Pilgrim to pick some. Pilgrim uses a special golden mallet to harvest the fruits, but when he tries to harvest from the tree, the fruits fall and disappear.

Pilgrim summons the garden deity, who tells him how to harvest the fruit; if the fruit encounter the five elements, they will disappear or rot instantly. He manages to harvest three, and he, Eight Rules, and Wujing each eat a ginseng. Eight Rules eats his fruit too quickly and wants Pilgrim to get him more, but Pilgrim tries to impress upon Eight Rules that they should not take more than one each because of how much time it takes for the fruit to grow. The servants of the temple overhear and complain to Tripitaka that his disciples ate their fruit. Pilgrim is embarrassed and suggests they deny taking the fruit.

Pilgrim creates a doppelgänger monkey, who knocks his own gold-ringed iron rod against the tree. The ginsengs fall and immediately disappear into the earth. Tripitaka and his disciples leave the temple. The Zhenyuan Immortal of the temple returns, and the attendants tell him what transpired. He follows Tripitaka and his disciples, catching up to them on a beam of light. When the Zhenyuan Immortal confronts Pilgrim about the ginsengs, Pilgrim denies ever visiting the temple. The Immortal and Pilgrim fight, but the Immortal takes them back to the temple. He threatens to fry Pilgrim in a giant pan of oil for killing the ginseng tree, but Pilgrim uses his powers to escape this fate. When the Immortal decides to fry Tripitaka instead, Pilgrim returns to volunteer himself.