CHAPTER 66

Golden Eye visits the gentry; Cloud Dragon Hua reads a familiar verse

HUA Qingfeng, the Sorcerer of the Ninth Palace, had walked out of the back gate of the Veiled Mountain Shrine toward the pagoda. His head was erect and his eyes looked eagerly in all directions. What he saw was a huge python. Its head was resting on the topmost peak of a mountain to the east. Its tail was coiled around the peak of a mountain to the west. It was many hundreds of yards long and as large in girth as one of the largest water jars.

Hua gasped and drew in the cold air. Then the huge python was gone like a puff of smoke left hanging in the air. Then he saw the same snake close by, now only a foot long. He watched with staring eyes and open mouth as it in turn disappeared. Behind him, he heard someone say, “Oh, Limitless One! Hua, my Daoist friend, did you see it?”

Hua Qingfeng turned his head and looked. It was indeed the Daoist Jiang. “I saw,” said Hua. “Will you come into the shrine and sit with me? Truly your mastery has no limits.”

“Friend Hua,” said Jiang, “our Daoist pursuits go well together. If you wish to use my talents, I will be with you, even unto death.”

“Very good indeed!” exclaimed Hua. The two talked on, from morning to night.

One day Jiang Tianrui, nicknamed Golden Eye, came to see his former teacher Hua at the Veiled Mountain Abbey. “What brings you here?” asked Hua.

“I am now staying in the Iron Buddha Temple, where I have been cultivating my knowledge of Dao,” replied Jiang. “It is an old temple very much in need of repair, but it is difficult to get enough money. I came to beg my teacher for any suggestions as to how I can do so.”

Hua Qingfeng did not say anything.

“You need not be concerned about it,” said the old Daoist Jiang. “How much silver would you need?”

“At least ten thousand ounces,” answered Golden Eye.

“Go back,” directed old Jiang. “Tomorrow I will be in Kaihua. Just put up a proclamation saying that the Iron Buddha will cure illnesses. In less than ten days I can give you eighteen thousand ounces of silver.”

“Good,” said Sorcerer Hua to Golden Eye Jiang. “Thank your teacher’s elder brother.” Jiang knelt and knocked his forehead on the floor. He then returned and posted the proclamation.

The old Daoist in his python form spit out poison into the streams and wells. Whoever drank the water would have symptoms of tumors. The old Daoist then would return to the temple and become the voice of the Iron Buddha, telling the wealthy to pay in silver and the poor to pay in cash. In the eight hundred villages of Kaihua, countless people were having the same illness, and the demonic spirit was bringing in vast amounts of money.

Who would have thought that today Ji Gong would appear? When he slapped the face of the image, the demon was frightened and fled in dismay. However, it then thought to itself, “If this poor, ragged monk drives me away, how will I maintain my connection with my Daoist friend and Sorcerer Hua? It would be better if I went back and ate this monk.”

Having made this decision, it returned as a great wind and dropped down and coiled around the monk in the form of a python thirty or forty feet long, with its head lifted to bite the monk. But when the monk grasped its neck from the back, it became motionless. The python’s eyes almost started from its head as it stared at the monk. The monk looked back at the snake. Meanwhile, the frightened people buying and selling in the temple were fleeing from fear.

Just as these things were happening, a voice was heard outside declaiming, “Oh, Limitless One!” The Golden Eye of Buddha had returned.

Now when Golden Eye Jiang had hurried off to the little hamlet in the west, taking Cloud Dragon Hua with him, he was met by an assembly of gentlemen who greeted the two, asking, “What are the honorable Daoists’ names?”

Jiang told them, and then inquired, “Why did you ask us to come?”

The spokesman for the village gentry explained. “Just now here in our village, household after household was becoming ill with tumors. Perhaps this is Buddha’s only way of showing that the temple needs to be repaired. If the honorable Daoist will persuade Buddha to be compassionate, we villagers who have now recovered would like to assist by paying for the repair of the temple. But we do not know whether we may trouble you in this our plan to help Buddha.”

“Easily managed,” said Golden Eye Jiang. “If you wish to come together in repairing the temple, I can certainly beg Buddha to cause all these illnesses to cease.” Just as he was saying this, a servant came in to say that two monks from the Iron Buddha Temple had come to talk with the Daoist about an urgent matter.

As soon as Golden Eye Jiang heard this, he quickly took his leave from the gentlemen and went outside. There he saw the two outlaws dressed in monks’ robes who had been collecting the silver and strings of cash, each of them still pale with fright. “What is it?” Jiang asked.

“Terrible things are happening,” said one of them. “The monk, Ji Dian, is at the temple making trouble. You must come back and see.”

Cloud Dragon Hua wanted to flee as soon as he heard this news, but Golden Eye said to him, “Second Brother, if you can control your shock, just wait until I bring an end to his life. I will take this Ji Dian and avenge you with his death.”

Cloud Dragon Hua knew that Jiang had great ability, and so Cloud Dragon Hua returned to the Iron Buddha Temple with him. As soon as Jiang saw that Ji Gong was wrapped in the coils of the python, Jiang reached back and seized his precious sword saying, “Now, my good monk, you came here to seize me with no law or reason on your side.”

The evil serpent glared at the monk, who was holding it by its neck. Then, as the sword came closer, the monk said, “Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum,” and the Daoist’s sword fell upon the python’s neck instead of Ji Gong’s. There was an awful sound, and the blood came rushing out as the python’s head fell to the floor. Then the demonic presence disappeared in a puff of black smoke. One stroke of the sword had destroyed hundreds of years of Daoist arts.

Ji Gong watched the python disappear and then said, “Thank you, my Daoist friend. I’m afraid you have gone to a great deal of trouble. I hope you will forgive me.”

“You have destroyed my great project, and with no justice or reason,” said Golden Eye. “How could I ever forgive you?”

“If there is anything more to say,” said Ji Gong, “how about our going back behind the temple? Is that what you want?”

“Good!” said Golden Eye Jiang. “Come with me, my three dear friends.” Cloud Dragon Hua and the two other outlaws in monks’ clothing joined Golden Eye as they walked out through the back gate of the temple.

When they reached a place where they were alone, the group stopped and the monk said to Golden Eye, “Well, Jiang Tianrui, what have you to say?”

“Ji Dian,” said Golden Eye Jiang, “you need to learn that your duty is to kneel and call me your ancestor three times and knock your head on the ground to me. Then by the holy Daoist deities, if I find I have an ounce of pity, I may pardon you. Otherwise, I will put an end to your life.”

“Jiang Tianrui!” exclaimed the monk, “You worthless piece of trash! You are a person who leaves the world and does not know enough to fear heaven and be content with his lot. You have simply become a river pirate hiding out in a Daoist robe! You dare to use these devilish spells to delude the public and to call forth these monstrous spirits to cause harm to the populace. You did these things for mere silver, angering heaven above and mankind below. And then when you see me, the monk, you dare to be impolite. Even if you should kneel down and knock your head to me and call me your ancestor three times, as a monk I still could not forgive you!”

As Golden Eye Jiang listened, he was boiling with fury. He tried to split open the monk’s head with a chop of his sword, but the monk avoided it and twisted around behind Jiang. Then Jiang aimed a thrust of his sword at the monk’s heart, and again the monk avoided the thrust by twisting and turning. Slashing and stabbing, Jiang Tianrui was growing impatient. Ji Gong circled around him, pushing, pulling, pinching, and slapping! With a twist of his body the Daoist broke out of the circle and cried, “There are no two ways about it. You came here seeking your own death! You have angered the hermit and you will feel the hermit’s powers!”

“Today,” said the monk, “I must let you understand something.”

The monk pointed and recited, “Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum.” Golden Eye Jiang began to slap his own face. “That’s right. Slap a few more times,” said the monk. Jiang slapped until his lips began to bleed.

“You deserved that beating,” the monk said, “but stop now and straighten out your beard and mustache.” Jiang stopped as he was told and began to rearrange his whiskers. “You brought this upon yourself,” said Ji Gong. “Are you going to change your behavior now, or not? If you do not, you will certainly terminate your existence.”

Golden Eye Jiang’s pain had made him understand that the monk could indeed be dangerous. Now he said, “Teacher, have compassion for me. From now on I will behave differently. I will certainly never dare to do those things again.”

“I’m afraid you don’t sound sincere,” said the monk. “You must swear and then I will release you.”

“If I ever do such things again,” said Golden Eye, “may lightning strike me dead.”

“Go then, Jiang,” said the monk, “but Cloud Dragon Hua, where do you think you are going?” Cloud Dragon Hua stood still in his fright, looking down. The two other outlaws, still wearing their monks’ costumes, had already run away to the south. Suddenly, Cloud Dragon Hua ran off to the west, with the monk chasing after him.

Cloud Dragon Hua ran on like a dog running home to its kennel or a frightened fish in the water. Truly he ran for his life. He never dared to look back. It was very hard to put enough distance between them so that he could no longer hear the sound of the monk’s straw sandals. At last he stopped. His body was covered with sweat. Before him he saw a small temple. It looked weather-beaten and deserted with tiles missing, gates and doors hanging crookedly, and weeds choking the courtyard. He thought he might hide here.

A woman’s voice came screaming from inside. “Save me! A robber monk! You dare to seize a respectable woman! Let me go at once!”

“There is a wicked monk in this temple,” thought Cloud Dragon Hua. “I will go and have a look.” Stealthily he walked into the courtyard. There was one building with three sections on the north, a second building on the south, and a third on the west. It was from the north building that the woman’s voice came.

Cloud Dragon Hua looked in through the window and saw a man dressed in monks’ clothes. The man’s face was turned inward. His shoulder-length hair was held in place by a gold circlet around his head. He was struggling with a rather nice-looking woman, who continued to cry for help. “If I came up behind him, I could easily kill him,” Hua thought, “and I will keep this woman for myself.”

He entered, and with one slash of his sword the monk’s head fell to the floor. Cloud Dragon gasped as he looked at the man’s face.