Now Tang Sanzang and his disciples arrived at Wuzhuang Temple.
The two young attendants, Qingfeng and Mingyue, remembered their master Great Immortal Zhenyuan's instructions. They welcomed Tang Sanzang warmly and invited him into the temple's main hall.
On the center of the main wall hung the two great characters for "Heaven and Earth," decorated in five colors. Before them stood a vermilion incense table carved and lacquered, bearing a gold incense burner and vase, with incense beside the burner.
Tang Sanzang stepped forward, took incense in his left hand, placed it in the burner, and bowed three times.
After his bows, he asked, "Young immortals, your Wuzhuang Temple is truly an immortal realm of the Dao. Why do you not enshrine the Three Pure Ones, the Four Emperors, and all the sovereigns of the celestial heavens, but offer incense only to the words 'Heaven and Earth'?"
Qingfeng and Mingyue smiled. "To tell you the truth, the Three Pure Ones are our master's friends, and the Four Emperors are his old acquaintances. The Nine Luminaries are his juniors, and the Yuanchen are his lesser guests."
Wukong laughed when he heard this, thinking the young attendants were boasting and telling lies.
For Zhen Yuanzi was a divine being from the first opening of heaven and earth, and Wukong had never heard his name.
Tang Sanzang asked, "Where is your honored master?"
Qingfeng and Mingyue answered, "Yuanshi Tianzun invited our master to Miro Palace in Shangqing Heaven to hear a discourse on the Primordial Unity Dao Fruit. He is not at home."
Hearing this, Wukong felt all the more that Qingfeng and Mingyue were spouting wild nonsense, and could not resist arguing with them.
Tang Sanzang feared the argument would lead to trouble, so he said:
"Wukong, stop quarreling. Since their master is away, we should not trouble them. Go tend the horse outside the gate. Sha Wujing, watch the luggage. Bajie, unpack our bundles and take out some rice. Borrow their stove and pots and make us a meal. When we leave, we can give them a few coins for firewood, and that will be enough. Each of you attend to your duties and let me rest here a while. We shall leave after the meal."
The three disciples went off to their respective tasks.
Qingfeng and Mingyue still remembered that they were to offer Tang Sanzang Ginseng Fruit. But Wukong and his two companions had fierce faces and rough manners, so the attendants had been reluctant to bring out the fruit while they were present. Now that all three had gone their separate ways, the attendants approached Tang Sanzang alone and asked:
"May we ask, Elder, are you Tang Sanzang of the Great Tang, undertaking the Journey to the West to fetch the scriptures?"
Tang Sanzang returned their greeting. "This humble monk is indeed he."
Qingfeng and Mingyue said, "Before our master left, he instructed us to go some distance to welcome you. But your arrival came upon us unexpectedly, and we failed to meet you. Please be seated, Elder, while we prepare tea for you."
"You are too kind," Tang Sanzang replied.
After serving tea, Qingfeng and Mingyue returned to their room. One took the Golden Striker, the other a platter, lining its bottom with a silk handkerchief, and they went straight to the Ginseng Fruit garden.
Qingfeng knocked down the fruit with the Golden Striker, while Mingyue caught it on the platter. They gathered two Ginseng Fruits, then returned to the front hall and offered them to Tang Sanzang, saying:
"Elder Tang, our Wuzhuang Temple lies in a remote and barren mountain region, and we have nothing worthy to offer you. Please accept these two plain fruits, a humble local gift, to quench your thirst."
Tang Sanzang trembled at the sight and backed three feet away, saying:
"Mercy! Mercy! This has been a year of abundant harvests. How can your temple still eat people? These children are not even three days old! How could they quench my thirst?"
The Ginseng Fruit was a treasure produced by a primordial spiritual root. It truly resembled a child, with moving hands and feet and a nodding, bobbing head. How could Tang Sanzang have recognized it?
Qingfeng and Mingyue urged him earnestly, but Tang Sanzang refused to eat. They had no choice but to take the platter back to their room.
Once separated from the spiritual root, the fruit could not be kept for long. If left too long, it would stiffen and become unfit to eat. So Qingfeng and Mingyue took one each, sat beside their beds, and ate to their hearts' content.
As luck would have it, the two young Daoist attendants' room was separated from the kitchen by only a single wall.
Bajie was cooking in the kitchen and heard everything about the Ginseng Fruit and the Golden Striker. He could not help wanting a fruit to taste himself.
Just then, Wukong came back from tending the horse, and Bajie beckoned to him. "Brother, come here! Come here!"
Wukong came over. "Idiot, what are you shouting about? Not enough food, I suppose? Let the old monk eat his fill first. Once we leave and find a wealthy household, I'll beg some more for you."
"Come inside," Bajie said. "It's not that there isn't enough food. There's a treasure in this temple. Do you know about it?"
"What treasure?" Wukong asked.
Bajie grinned. "If I told you, you wouldn't know it. If I handed it to you, you wouldn't recognize it."
"You idiot," Wukong said, "making fun of Old Sun! Five hundred years ago, I roamed every realm and made friends at the ends of the earth. What haven't I seen?"
"Brother," Bajie asked, "have you ever seen Ginseng Fruit?"
Wukong was startled. "That, I truly haven't seen. I've only heard people say that Ginseng Fruit is the Grass-Returning Elixir, with extraordinary power to prolong life. Where could we find it?"
"They have it right here," Bajie said. "Those attendants just brought two for Master to eat, but the old monk didn't recognize them and wouldn't dare eat them.
"Those attendants had no sense. Since Master wouldn't eat them, they should have offered them to us. Instead, they kept it from us and ate them themselves in the room next door.
"Brother, you've always been good at picking fruit. Could you go into their garden and get a few, so we can taste something new? What do you say?"
"That's easy," Wukong said. "Once Old Sun goes, they'll be as good as in my hands."
Bajie also told Wukong about using the Golden Striker.
Wukong cast an invisibility spell and slipped into the attendants' room. The Golden Striker was a rod of pure gold about two feet long and as thick as a finger, hanging from the window lattice.
Wukong took it down, left the room, and went straight into the garden at the back.
There he saw vermilion railings and precious balustrades, winding stonework and rocky peaks. Beyond the Wine-Cup Pavilion and before the Moon-Viewing Terrace stood wondrous flowers and emerald bamboo, crimson cassias and brocade-like locust trees. Springs flowed like shattered jade; blossoms heaped the ground with gold.
A curve of green willows seemed to trail mist, while clusters of tall pines looked splashed with indigo.
The north wind coaxed white plum blossoms open; spring came to dot the crabapples red.
Wukong could not take in all the immortal scenery. He pushed through one gate only to find another, and searched a long while before at last finding the Ginseng Fruit garden within.
There stood a great tree, its green branches fragrant and its verdant leaves dense with shade. The leaves resembled those of a banana plant. The tree rose over a thousand feet high, and its trunk measured seventy or eighty feet around at the roots.
Wukong stood beneath the tree and looked up. A Ginseng Fruit showed among the branches, truly resembling a child. A stem at its bottom held it to the branch, where it wriggled about, seeming to make a sound whenever the wind passed.
Wukong was delighted beyond measure and thought, What a fine thing! Rare indeed!
He sprang up and knocked one down with the Golden Striker. It fell to the ground and silently vanished. He searched all around, but found no trace.
"Strange! Strange!" Wukong said. "How could it disappear when it hit the ground? The garden's earth god must have refused to let Old Sun steal his fruit and taken it away."
He formed a hand seal and recited the Spirit-Binding Spell, compelling the earth god to appear.
The earth god bowed to Wukong. "Great Sage, what commands do you have for this humble god?"
"Don't you know that Old Sun is the most famous chief of thieves under heaven?" Wukong demanded. "When I stole the Peaches of Immortality, pilfered the imperial wine, and snatched the Spirit Pills, no one ever dared claim a share. Now I steal a single fruit, and you dare take a cut?"
"Great Sage, you have wronged this humble god," the earth god replied. "This treasure belongs to Great Immortal Zhenyuan. How would I dare take it? I wouldn't even dare sniff it."
"If you didn't take it," Wukong said, "then how did it disappear?"
"Great Sage, there is something you do not know," the earth god said. "This trea-
"-sure flowers once every three thousand years, bears fruit after another three thousand, and takes a further three thousand to ripen. In just under ten thousand years, it yields only thirty fruits. Whoever has the good fortune to smell one will live three hundred and sixty years; whoever eats one will live forty-seven thousand years. But it is vulnerable to the five elements."
"How is it vulnerable to the five elements?" Wukong asked.
"This fruit falls when it meets metal, withers when it meets wood, dissolves when it meets water, scorches when it meets fire, and sinks when it meets earth," the earth god explained. "Only a metal implement can knock it down. Once knocked down, it must be caught on a platter lined with a silk handkerchief. The one you just dropped onto the ground burrowed straight into the earth."
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