“We will not go there,” said Sanzang. “When we have dried everything here we can pack up and find our way back.”
The fishermen, who passed the gulch to the South, happened to meet Chen Cheng. “You two old gentlemen,” they called, “the teachers who went to be sacrificed instead of your children the other year have come back.”
“Where did you see them?” Chen Cheng asked.
“Drying their scriptures in the sun on the rocks,” the fishermen replied.
Chen Cheng then took several of his tenants across the gulch, saw the pilgrims, and hurried towards them to kneel and say, “My lords, now that you are coming back with your scriptures, your achievement completed and your deeds done, why don't you come to my house? Why are you hanging around here? Won't you please come straight to the house?”
“We'll go with you when we've dried our scriptures in the sun,” Monkey replied.
“How did your scriptures and clothes all get wet, my lords?” Chen Cheng asked.
“The other year the White soft-shelled Turtle kindly carried us West across the river,” Sanzang replied, “and this year he carried us across it Eastwards. We were approaching the bank when he put some questions to me about the enquiries he had asked me to make with the Lord Buddha about how long he would live. Now I never made this enquiry, so he soaked us all in the water. That was how they got wet.”
Sanzang then told the whole story in all its details, and as Chen Cheng was so sincere in pressing his invitation Sanzang could do nothing but pack up the scriptures. As it was not realized that the ends of several rolls of the Buddhacaritakavya sutra had stuck to the rock when wet, the ends were torn off, which is why the Buddhacaritakavya sutra is incomplete to this day and there are still traces of writing on the rocks where the scriptures were dried in the sun.
“We were careless,” Sanzang said with remorse. “We did not pay enough attention.”
“You're wrong,” said Monkey with a laugh, “you're wrong. Heaven and earth are incomplete and this scripture used to be complete. Now it's been soaked and torn to fulfil the mystery of incompleteness. This is not something that could have been achieved through human effort.” When master and disciples had finished packing the surras they returned with Chen Chang to his village.
In the village one person told ten, ten told a hundred, and a hundred a thousand, till all of them, young and old, came out to welcome and see the pilgrims. As soon as Chen Qing heard of it he had an incense table set out to greet them in front of the gates; he also ordered drummers and players of wind instruments to perform. A moment later the travelers arrived and were welcomed and taken inside. Chen Qing led out his whole household to greet them with bows and thank them for their earlier kindness in saving their son and daughter. Tea and a vegetarian meal were then ordered; but since receiving the immortal food and immortal delicacies of the Lord Buddha and casting off his mortal body to become a Buddha, Sanzang had lost all desire for mortals' food. As the two old men's urgings were so insistent, he took some of the food as a mark of gratitude.
The Great Sage Monkey had never been one to eat cooked food, so he said, “That will be enough.”
Friar Sand did not eat either, and even Pig was not the Pig he used to be: he soon put his bowl down.
“Aren't you eating any more either, idiot?” Monkey asked.
“I don't know why,” Pig said, “but my stomach's gone weak all of a sudden.” The vegetarian banquet was then cleared away as the old men asked about how they had fetched the scriptures. Sanzang then gave them a detailed account that started with the bath in the Jade Truth Temple and the lightening of their bodies at Cloud-touching Crossing and went on to tell how they had seen the Tathagata at Thunder Monastery, been feasted at the jeweled tower, given the scriptures in the precious library-wordless scriptures at first because when the two arhats had demanded presents they had refused them-had gone back to pay their respects to the Tathagata again to be given the number of rolls in a single store, had been plunged into the water by the White Soft-shelled Turtle, and nearly had the scriptures stolen in the darkness by evil spirits. After telling all this Sanzang took his leave.
But the whole family of the two old men was not at all willing to let them go. “We have been under a great debt to you for saving our children that we have not yet been able to repay,” they said. “We have built a Temple of Deliverance where incense has been burned to you ever since without ceasing.” Then they called out the children in whose place Monkey and Pig had gone to be sacrificed, Chen Guan-given and Pan of Gold, to kowtow in thanks and ask them into the shrine to take a look. Sanzang then put the bundles of scriptures in front of the hall of their house and read them one roll of the Precious Eternity sutra. Then they went to the temple, where the Chens had set out delicacies. Before the pilgrims could sit down another group of people came to invite them to another meal, and before they could pick up their chopsticks yet another group came with a third invitation. This went on and on without end, so that they had no chance to eat properly. Sanzang, who dared not decline the invitations, had to make gestures of eating. The shrine was indeed most handsomely built:
The gateway was thickly painted in red
Thanks to the generous donors.
A tower rose there
Where houses with a pair of cloisters had now been built.
Red were the doors
And the Seven Treasures were finely carved.
Incense floated up to the clouds;
Pure light filled the vault of space.
Some tender cypress saplings were still being watered;
A number of pine trees did not yet form a grove.
Living waters met one in front
Where the waves of the River of Heaven were rolling;
High cliffs rose behind
Where range upon range of mountains joined the earth dragon.
When Sanzang has seen everything he climbed the high tower, where statues of the four pilgrims had been placed. “Looks just like you, brother,” said pig, tugging at Monkey, when he saw them.
“Second brother,” said Friar Sand, “Your statue's just like you too. The only thing is that the master's is too good-looking.”
“It is very good,” said Sanzang, “it is very good.” They then came downstairs, where people were still waiting, and urged them to eat the vegetarian food that was set out in the hall and in the cloisters behind it.
“What happened to the Great King's Temple that used to be here?” Brother Monkey asked.
“It was demolished that year,” the old men replied. “My lords, we have had good harvests every year since this monastery was established, thanks to your lordships' blessed protection.”
“That was heaven's gift,” said Monkey with a smile, “nothing to do with us. But after we have gone this time I guarantee that the families in your village will have many sons and grandsons, flourishing livestock, wind and rain at the right time year in and year out, and rain and wind year out and year in at the right time.” The people all kowtowed in thanks.
What could then be seen were a countless number of people lined up behind each other to offer fruit and other vegetarian food. “I'll be blowed,” said Pig with a laugh. “In the old days, when I could eat, nobody ever asked me to do so ten times over. But now, when I can't, one family won't wait for another to finish before offering me food.”
Although he was feeling full he did get going a little and ate eight or nine meatless dishes; and despite having an injured stomach he also downed twenty or thirty steamed breadrolls. When they were all full, more people came with further invitations. “Grateful though I am for your great affection,” Sanzang said, “I do not deserve it. I hope that we may be allowed to rest tonight. Tomorrow morning we will accept some more.”