The splendid Monkey touched the gold band round his head, tightened his kilt, went straight into the main shrine-hall, pointed at the three Buddha statues and said, “You may only be imitations made of gilded clay, but you must have some feeling inside. I'm here this evening to ask for a night's lodging because I'm escorting the holy Tang Priest to worship the Buddha and fetch the scriptures in the Western Heaven. Announce us this instant. If you don't put us up for the night I'll smash you gilded bodies with one crack of this cudgel and show you up for the dirt that you really are.”
While Monkey was indulging in this bad temper and bluster a lay brother responsible for burning the evening incense had lit several sticks and was putting them into the burner in front of the Buddhas. An angry shout from Monkey gave him such a fright that he fell over. Picking himself up he saw Monkey's face, at which he collapsed again, then rolled and staggered to the abbot's cell, where he reported, “Reverend sir, there's a monk outside.”
“You lay brothers really need more flogging,” said the abbot. “I've already said they can squat under the eaves, so why report again? Next time it will be twenty strokes.”
“But, reverend sir,” said the lay brother, “this is a different monk. He looks thoroughly vicious, and he's got no backbone either.”
“What's he like?” the abbot asked.
“Round eyes, pointed ears, hair all over his cheeks, and a face as ugly as a thunder god,” said the lay brother. “He's got a cudgel in his hand and he's gnashing his teeth in fury. He must be looking for someone to kill.”
“I'll go out and see him,” said the abbot. No sooner had he opened his door than Monkey charged in. He really was ugly: an irregular, knobbly face, a pair of yellow eyes, a bulging forehead, and teeth jutting out. He was like a crab, with flesh on the inside and bone on the outside. The old monk was so frightened that he fastened the doors of his quarters.
Monkey, who was right behind him, smashed through the doors and said, “Hurry up and sweep out a thousand nice clean rooms for me. I want to go to sleep.”
The abbot, hiding in his room, said to the lay brother, “It's not his fault he's so ugly. He's just talking big to make up for that face. There are only three hundred rooms in the whole monastery, even counting my lodgings, the Buddha Hall, the drum and bell towers and the cloisters, but he's asking for a thousand to sleep in. We can't possibly get them.”
“Reverend sir,” said the lay brother, “I'm terrified. You had better answer him, however you will.”
“Venerable sir,” called the abbot, shaking with fear, “you ask for lodging, but our little monastery would be most inconvenient, so we won't be able to entertain you. Please spend the night somewhere else.”
Monkey made his cudgel as thick as a rice-bowl and stood it on its end in the courtyard outside the abbot's cell. “If it would be inconvenient, monk,” he said, “you'd better move out.”
“But I've lived here since I was a boy,” the abbot said, “my master's master passed the monastery on to my master, who passed it on to my generation, and we'll hand it on in turn to our successors and our successors' successors. Goodness only knows what he's up to, charging in here and trying to move us out.”
“No problem at all, reverend sir,” said the lay brother. “We can go. He's already brought his pole into the yard.”
“Stop talking nonsense,” said the abbot. “There are four of five hundred of us monks, old and young, so where could we go? If we went there would be nowhere for us to stay.”
“If there's nowhere you can move to,” said Monkey, who had heard the conversation, “you'll have to send someone out to take me on in a quarterstaff fight.”
“Go out and fight him for me,” the abbot ordered the lay brother.
“Reverend Sir,” the lay brother protested, “you can't ask me to fight with a staff against a caber that size.”
“You must,” the abbot replied, adding, “'An army is built up for many years to be used in a single morning.'”
“Never mind him hitting you with that caber,” said the lay brother, “it would squash you flat if it just fell on you.”
“And even if it didn't fall on you and squash you,” said the abbot, “with it standing out there in the yard you might be walking around at night, forget it was there, and give yourself a dent in the head just by bumping into it.”
“Now you realize how heavy it is, reverend sir, how can you expect me to go out and fight him with my staff?” said the lay brother. This was how the monks quarreled among themselves.
“Yes,” said Monkey, hearing all this, “you're no match for me. But if I were to kill just one of you with this cudgel my master would be angry with me for committing murder again. I'd better find something else to hit as a demonstration for you.” Looking and seeing a stone lion outside the doors to the abbot's room, he raised his cudgel and smashed it to smithereens with a single resounding blow. When the abbot saw this through the window the fright turned his bones and muscles to jelly. He dived under the bed.
The lay brother climbed into the cooking-stove and kept saying, “Sir, sir, that cudgel's too heavy, I'm no match for you. I beg you, I beg you.”
“I won't hit you, monk,” said Monkey. “I've just got a question for you: how many monks are there in the monastery?”
“We have two hundred and eighty-five cells all told,” replied the abbot, shaking with fear, “and five hundred monks holding official ordination licenses.”
“I want you to draw those five hundred monks up on parade,” said Monkey, “get them dressed in long habits, and receive my master. Then I won't hit you.”
“If you won't hit me, sir,” said the abbot, “I'd gladly carry him in.”
“Hurry up then,” said Monkey.
“I don't care if the fright breaks your gallbladder, or even if it breaks your heart,” said the abbot to the lay brother. “Go out and tell them all to come here and welcome His Grace the Tang Priest.”
The lay brother had no choice but to take his life in his hands. Not daring to go through the front door, he squirmed out through a gap in the back wall and went straight to the main hall, where he struck the drum that was to the East and the bell that was to the West. The sound of the two together startled all the monks young and old in the dormitories on both sides.
They came to the main hall and asked, “Why are the drum and bell sounding now? It's too early.”
“Go and change at once,” said the lay brother, “then get yourselves into your groups under the senior monk and go outside the main gates to welcome His Grace from the land of Tang.” All the monks then went out through the gates in a most orderly procession to greet him. Some wore full cassocks, and some tunics; those who had neither wore a kind of sleeveless smock, and the poorest of all who had no proper garment draped the two ends of their loin-cloths over their shoulders.
“Monks, what's that you're wearing?” demanded Monkey.
“Sir, don't hit us,” they said, seeing his ugly and evil face, “let us explain. This is cloth we beg for in town. We don't have any tailors here, so these are paupers' wrappers we make ourselves.”
Monkey laughed inside at this, then escorted them all out through the gates to kneel down. The abbot kowtowed and called out, “Your Grace of Tang, please take a seat in my lodgings.”
Seeing all this, Pig said, “Master, you're completely useless. When you went in you were all tears and pouting so much you could have hung a bottle from your lips. How come that only Monkey knows tow to make them welcome us with kowtows?”
“Ill-mannered idiot,” said Sanzang. “As the saying goes, even a devil's afraid of an ugly mug.” Sanzang was most uncomfortable at the sight of them all kowtowing and bowing, so he stepped forward and invited them all to rise. They all kowtowed again and said, “Your Grace, if you would ask your disciple to show some mercy and not hit us with that caber we'll gladly kneel here for a month.”