Chapter Summaries

After completing their ordeal at Jindou Cave, Tang Sanzang and his companions reached a river that appeared safe but was linked to a kingdom’s national fortune. Sun Wukong warned them not to drink, and Little White Dragon identified it as the Mother-Child River.

• Tang Sanzang and his companions reflected on how their cultivation had advanced after defeating the Immortal Lord of Myriad Laws.
• The travelers reached a broad river and, overcome by thirst, considered drinking from it.
• Zhu Bajie, Little White Dragon, and Sha Wujin found no demonic or sinister presence in the water.
• Sun Wukong saw that an invisible channel of national fortune connected the river to a distant city and questioned why nobody guarded it.
• Sun Wukong stopped Zhu Bajie from drinking, and the group realized the unattended river might be a trap.
• Little White Dragon read the name Mother-Child River on a half-buried stone tablet.

The Preaching Squad learned that the Mother-Child River caused anyone who drank from it to become pregnant, while the Fetus-Dropping Spring that could cure them was said to have vanished. Surrounded by villagers begging for help, Tang Sanzang agreed to investigate the spring at Jieyang Mountain before deciding how to save them.

• Sha Wujin told the Preaching Squad that drinking the Mother-Child River's water caused fetuses to form in anyone's belly.
• Sun Wukong learned that the Fetus-Dropping Spring had disappeared and suspected the river and missing cure were part of a trap.
• A crowd of pregnant villagers surrounded the Preaching Squad and begged them to relieve their affliction.
• Tang Sanzang told the villagers that the squad would investigate the Fetus-Dropping Spring at Jieyang Mountain and seek another remedy if it was truly gone.

The Preaching Squad found the Fetus-Dropping Spring destroyed and learned that Ruyi True Immortal had severed it after a mysterious voice urged him to relinquish his attachment. Tang Sanzang and Sun Wukong exposed the voice as a Buddhist School scheme, leaving Ruyi True Immortal devastated and the Kingdom of Women without a remedy for the Mother-Child River.

• The Preaching Squad reached Birth-Preventing Cave and found the Fetus-Dropping Spring completely dried up and its source severed.
• Ruyi True Immortal admitted that he had destroyed the spring after golden light and a voice told him to relinquish it to attain the Dao.
• Little White Dragon explained that without the spring, people who drank from the Mother-Child River had no way to resolve their pregnancies.
• Tang Sanzang and Sun Wukong told Ruyi True Immortal that the voice had beguiled him as part of a Buddhist School scheme.
• Ruyi True Immortal realized he had been used, collapsed, and faced the consequences of leaving the Preaching Squad with no remedy for the river's calamity.

After Ruyi True Immortal explained that the Fetus-Dropping Spring’s power came from the principle of transformation, the Preaching Squad tried to recreate it using their combined abilities. Their efforts repeatedly failed because the spring’s roots in Jieyang Mountain’s earth veins had been severed.

• The Heavenly Venerates approved of the Preaching Squad’s decision to persuade Ruyi True Immortal rather than fight him.
• Ruyi True Immortal offered to share the principles he had learned while guarding the destroyed Fetus-Dropping Spring.
• Ruyi True Immortal explained how the spring transformed fetal energy and returned it to heaven and earth without harming its source.
• Tang Sanzang and the others realized they might use the principle of transformation to resolve the Mother-Child River calamity without spring water.
• The Preaching Squad tried to recreate the Fetus-Dropping Spring, but each attempt collapsed when the principle of transformation entered the water.
• Ruyi True Immortal explained that the spring could not be restored with outside magical power because its roots in Jieyang Mountain’s earth veins had been severed.

After failing to recreate the Fetus-Dropping Spring, Sun Wukong and the others helped Ruyi True Immortal recover his original aspirations so he could seek a new way to dissolve fetuses. Ruyi built Gathering Immortals Hermitage on the spring’s former site and resumed his cultivation.

• The Preaching Squad repeatedly failed to recreate the Fetus-Dropping Spring because its roots in Jieyang Mountain’s earth veins and Fortune had been severed.
• Sun Wukong proposed preaching to Ruyi True Immortal, arguing that the spring’s principles lived in the keeper who had tended it for decades.
• Tang Sanzang and the others offered Ruyi True Immortal their teachings, and he agreed to cleanse his heart, recover his original aspirations, and seek a method of dissolving fetuses.
• The five taught Ruyi True Immortal how to stabilize his Dao heart, discern falsehood, follow spiritual principles, cultivate steadiness, and concentrate his mind.
• Ruyi True Immortal recovered his sense of responsibility and contemplated the meaning of transformation instead of trying to reproduce the spring’s appearance.
• Ruyi True Immortal built Gathering Immortals Hermitage at the former spring site, where his Dao Resonance grew clearer and more condensed.

Ruyi True Immortal restored the Fetus-Dropping Spring by using his Dao heart to bring the spring’s true meaning of transformation back to life, and Sun Wukong taught him the Ruyi Great Dao. With the new spring formed and the Dao’s seed settled in Ruyi True Immortal’s spiritual seat, the Preaching Squad prepared to leave for the Kingdom of Women.

• Ruyi True Immortal used the true meaning of transformation to restore the Fetus-Dropping Spring inside the Gathering Immortals Hermitage.
• Tang Sanzang and the other members of the Preaching Squad recognized that Ruyi True Immortal had turned the Dao of guarding the spring into the spring itself.
• Sun Wukong taught Ruyi True Immortal the Ruyi Great Dao and its precepts.
• Jade Pure Primordial Heavenly Venerate reacted to Sun Wukong teaching the Dao of ruyi, while Supreme Pure Laozi and Upper Pure Master Tongtian teased him about the past.
• Ruyi True Immortal vowed to remember the teaching, and Sun Wukong led the Preaching Squad toward the Kingdom of Women.