Number thirty-three: Zhenyuanzi is coming after us!

“Mmm...” With a soft moan, Qingfeng awoke from his dream. Opening his eyes, he realized that night had already fallen, and an odd feeling crept into his heart. Rising, he roused Mingyue and said, “Mingyue, how did we suddenly fall asleep?”

Mingyue shook her head. “I don’t know either. I just felt my eyelids grow heavy all at once, and before I knew it, I was asleep.”

Qingfeng could not shake the sense that something was amiss. As he puzzled over it, his eyes suddenly fell upon the empty fruit tray cast aside. He cried out, “Oh no, the ginseng fruit is gone!”

Mingyue glanced at the vacant tray and hesitated, “Could it have dropped to the ground while we slept?”

Qingfeng was equally uncertain. Had the fruit been stolen, or had it simply fallen and vanished while they unwittingly dozed? He looked around—the doors and windows remained intact, the golden mallet still hung securely on the wall. Perhaps, after all, they had merely let the fruit slip to the ground.

“Alas, our fortune truly is too shallow,” Mingyue sighed. “To lose the ginseng fruit after it was already in our hands!” She then asked, “By the way, what about that priest and his disciples?”

“Who knows?” Qingfeng replied offhandedly. “I heard the priest say at noon that after he cooked and ate, he would leave. By now, I suppose they’re far away.”

Yet a dreadful suspicion suddenly welled up in his heart. He turned to Mingyue, “When Master left, he repeatedly warned us to guard against the priest’s disciples stealing! We’d better go to the orchard and count the fruits again.”

Mingyue thought this wise, and together they hurried through the flower and vegetable gardens to the ginseng orchard. Leaning against a tree, they counted and recounted, but could only find eleven.

Suppressing her terror, Mingyue asked, “Qingfeng, can you do sums?”

Qingfeng, uneasy himself, replied, “I can. Go on.”

Mingyue began, “There were thirty fruits to start with. When Master opened the orchard, two were eaten, leaving twenty-eight. A thousand years ago, General Yuan and his seven sworn brothers stole eight, leaving twenty. Five hundred years ago, Lady Pansi broke in and stole two more, leaving eighteen. Just now, we knocked down two for the Tang Monk to eat, so there should be sixteen. But after counting, there are only eleven left—precisely five are missing! It must have been that villainous lot who stole them. Let’s go scold that sanctimonious Tang Monk!”

Thus, Mingyue and Qingfeng left the orchard and stormed into the main hall, only to find the Tang Sanzang and his disciples already gone—no trace of people, horses, or luggage remained.

“Well! That sneaky baldpate must have fled with his disciples in a guilty panic!” Qingfeng now hated Tang Sanzang with a passion, his words brimming with anger.

“What do we do now? We’ve lost so many fruits and the people have run off. Master will surely blame us!” Mingyue was now both frightened and on the verge of tears.

“What else can we do? Since that Tang priest has so little shame, we’ll simply tell Master the truth when he returns!” Qingfeng said, still seething.

“Alright,” Mingyue replied softly, her gaze lifting through the skylight to the deep, star-strewn heavens, her heart aching with hope that Master and the senior disciples would soon return from the skies above.

Meanwhile, on the Tang Sanzang’s side, the scene was entirely different—a picture of filial piety and brotherly harmony.

Far away in the Wild Boar Forest, thirty miles distant, Sun Wukong, bathed in moonlight, gathered a heap of dry branches and leaves and built a campfire. Sha Wujing spread a blanket on the ground and helped Tang Sanzang sit beside the flames, while the white dragon horse wandered the woods in search of night grass. Bear Wu Fan rested his load and dozed off; Zhu Bajie lay down with his head on a rock and was soon asleep. Before long, all slept peacefully under the bright moon.

Back at the Wuzhuang Temple, Zhenyuanzi, having returned from a meeting at Yuanshi Palace, led his disciples to the gates of Mount Wanshou’s Wuzhuang Temple, where he found Qingfeng and Mingyue dozing by the entrance.

Zhenyuanzi frowned and called sternly, “Qingfeng, Mingyue!”

“Master! Master, you’ve returned!” Qingfeng and Mingyue awoke with a start; the moment they opened their eyes, tears streamed down their faces. Kneeling and knocking their heads on the ground, they cried, “Master! Your old friend from the Eastern Land is no high monk—he’s nothing but a bandit!”

“Well, that’s something new,” Zhenyuanzi chuckled instead of getting angry. “Don’t be afraid—tell me slowly what happened.”

Choking with sobs, Qingfeng recounted, “Master, not long after you flew off this morning, a Tang Monk from the Eastern Land passed by with his four disciples and a horse, making six in all. Not daring to disobey your instructions, I asked their names and then served them two ginseng fruits. But that Tang Sanzang, blind and ignorant to the treasures of our immortal realm, insisted they were newborn infants and refused to eat them. So we thought we’d each eat one ourselves. But before we could, we fell asleep! When we woke, it was already night—the fruits were gone, and the Tang Monk had long since fled!”

As they finished, tears kept streaming down Qingfeng and Mingyue’s faces, their grief so heartrending that all the disciples nearby could not help but feel sorrowful.

The senior disciples hurried forward, asking, “And then? Did the monk beat you?”

Mingyue replied, “He didn't beat us, but we lost five ginseng fruits!”

Qingfeng added, looking up, “There were exactly five of them in the Tang Monk’s party. If they didn’t steal the fruits, who else could it have been?”

“Don’t cry, don’t cry! I was worried the ginseng tree might have been knocked down by that monkey!” Zhenyuanzi said gently. He was not angry, but rather consoled them: “You don’t know—Tang Sanzang’s eldest disciple is Sun Wukong, a most formidable free immortal among the Taiyi. Still, to steal my ginseng fruits and leave without so much as a word is inexcusable. I shall teach that arrogant monkey a lesson myself!”

“But Master, they’ve already run far away!” Mingyue exclaimed.

“They said they would leave after lunch, so they must have escaped then!” Qingfeng mused.

“No matter!” Zhenyuanzi stroked his long beard and smiled. “You two come with me. The rest of you, prepare the instruments of punishment—I’ll deal with them on my return!”

With that, Zhenyuanzi, Mingyue, and Qingfeng soared westward on auspicious clouds, covering a thousand miles in a flash.

From the clouds, Zhenyuanzi looked west, but could not see Tang Sanzang and his disciples. Puzzled, he glanced east and discovered he had overshot by more than nine hundred and fifty miles: it turned out the Tang Monk and his party, traveling only by day and resting at night as if nothing were amiss, had covered just thirty miles the previous afternoon before stopping. Even after sunrise the next day, their dawdling progress saw them cover less than twenty miles before noon. Meanwhile, Zhenyuanzi’s cloud had whisked him a thousand miles ahead—who would have thought that the thieves of the ginseng fruit would be so bold as to not even hurry away under cover of night, but instead meander as if on a pleasure trip?

Qingfeng pointed to the monk on the ground below. “Master, the one on the white horse is Tang Sanzang; the others are his disciples.”

Zhenyuanzi nodded. “I see them. You two go make ready the ropes. I’ll go down and meet them myself.”

He descended from the clouds, transforming himself into an itinerant Taoist: clad in a patchwork robe, a green sash at his waist, waving a horsetail whisk and tapping a wooden fish drum. Straw sandals on his feet, a sun scarf wrapped around his head, his sleeves billowed in the wind, and he sang a tune to the bright moon.

“Tang Sanzang, greetings,” Zhenyuanzi called from the roadside to the Tang Monk astride his dragon horse.

Tang Sanzang hastily dismounted and bowed in return, but before he could speak, his eldest disciple Sun Wukong stepped forward, shielding his master and eyeing the Taoist with a cold smile.

Zhenyuanzi was unperturbed and asked, “From where does Tang Sanzang come, and to where is he bound?”

Tang Sanzang pressed his palms together and replied, “This humble monk hails from the Great Tang in the East, journeying west to worship the Buddha and seek the scriptures.”

Feigning surprise, Zhenyuanzi continued, “Since Tang Sanzang comes from the east, did he happen to pass by my temple?”

Tang Sanzang looked up at the unfamiliar Taoist and asked, “May I ask which temple you refer to?”

Zhenyuanzi smiled broadly. “None other than the grand, immovable Mount Longevity, the very source of earth immortals—Wuzhuang Temple. Did you pass by there?”