Meanwhile, Ao Tu and the others paid homage to the Three Pure Ones.
Wukong stood in the air, focusing his eyes for a closer look.
He saw the Taoists gathered together, expounding and chanting the Precious Edicts Sutra and the Tao Te Ching.
Above them hung a pair of couplet scrolls, with twenty-two large characters embroidered on yellow brocade.
"The Alchemy Furnace burns bright; we give thanks to the Three Pure Ones for sustaining wondrous arts. Spring returns to the jade steps; we rejoice to behold His Majesty healed of his lingering illness."
Seven or eight hundred Taoists had gathered there, with three old Taoists at their head. Presumably, these were the three so-called "immortal masters." Wukong studied them with his Fiery Golden Eyes and saw at a glance that they were a tiger, a deer, and a goat in transformed shapes. He thought that they were indeed monsters.
Looking farther ahead, he saw another Taoist in front of those three old monsters. His bearing transcended the mortal world, unlike that of any ordinary man, but Wukong could not tell what kind of monster had taken this form.
Wukong examined him with his Fiery Golden Eyes, but a haze of purple qi and precious radiance obscured him, preventing a clear view.
Wukong thought, Who knows where this precious robe came from? This old monster must have stolen it and come here to falsely claim the Taoist lineage. I'll go down and play a trick on them. But a single strand cannot make a thread, and one palm cannot clap. There are so many of them-I'll fetch Bajie and Sha Wujing to join me.
Wukong returned to their room and found Bajie, Sha Wujing, and Tang Sanzang all fast asleep. He called to Bajie, but the fool merely grunted and would