When Pig heard all this he gnashed his teeth, unable to restrain himself from knocking the tomb mound over with one blow of his rake, digging out the head and smashing it to pulp “Why are you hitting it?” the Tang Priest asked.
“Master,” said Pig, “goodness only knows what kind of wretch he was, but we all mourned for him.”
“It was thanks to him that I'm still alive,” Sanzang replied. “When you disciples attacked their gates and demanded me they took him out to fob you off with. Otherwise they would have killed me. I think we should bury him properly as a mark of our monastic respect.” When the idiot heard his master saying this he buried that bag of flesh and bone that had been beaten to a pulp and piled up a tomb mound over it.
“Master,” said Brother Monkey with a smile, “won't you sit here for a while while I go to wipe them out?” With that he leapt down the cliff, crossed the ravine, went into the cave and took the ropes with which the Tang Priest and the woodcutter had been hound into the hall, where he used them to truss together the arms and legs of the demon king, who was still asleep. He then lifted the demon up with his cudgel onto his shoulder and took him out by the back door.
“You like making things difficult for yourself, brother,” said Pig when he saw him coming from a distance. “Why don't you find another to balance him?”
Monkey then set the demon king down in front of Pig, who raised his rake and was just about to hit him when Monkey said, “Wait a moment. We haven't captured the junior devils in the cave yet.”
“If there are any left,” Pig said, “take me in with you to smash them.”
“Smashing them would be too much trouble,” Monkey replied. “The best thing would be to find some firewood and wipe them out that way.”
When the woodcutter heard this he led Pig to a hollow to the East to find some broken ends of bamboo, pines that had lost their needles, hollow stumps of willows, creepers broken off from their roots, withered artemisia, old reeds, rushes and dead mulberry. They carried a lot of this into the back entrance, where Monkey set it alight and Pig fanned the flames with both ears. Then the Great Sage sprang up, shook himself and put the sleep-insect hairs back on his body. When the junior devils woke up they were all already on fire. Poor things! None of them had the faintest chance of surviving. When the whole cave was burnt right out the disciples went back to see the master.
When Sanzang saw that the senior demon had woken up and was shouting he called, “Disciples, the evil spirit has come round.” Pig went up and killed him with one blow of his rake, whereupon the ogre turned back into his real form as a leopard spirit with a coat patterned like mugwort flowers.
“Leopards with flower-patterned coats can eat tigers,” Monkey observed, “and this one could turn into a human too. Killing him has prevented a lot of serious trouble in future.” The venerable elder could not express his gratitude strongly enough, and he then mounted the saddle. “My home isn't far from here to the Southwest, sirs,” said the woodcutter. “I invite you to come there to meet my mother and accept my kowtows of thanks for saving my life. Then I'll see you gentlemen along your way.”
Sanzang was happy to accept, and instead of riding he walked there with his three disciples and the woodcutter. After they had followed a winding path to the Southwest for a short distance this is what they saw.
Lichen growing across a stone-flagged path,
Wisteria joining across the wicker gate,
Chains of mountains on every side, And a wood full of singing birds.
A dense thicket of pine and bamboo,
Rare and wonderful flowers in profusion.
The place is remote and deep amid the clouds,
A thatched cottage with a bamboo fence.
While they were still some distance away they could make out an old woman leaning on the wicker gate with tears streaming from her eyes, weeping and calling to heaven and earth for her son.
As soon as the woodcutter saw his mother he left the Tang Priest behind as he rushed straight to the gate, knelt down and said, “Mother, I'm back.”
Throwing her arms around him the woman said, “My boy, when you didn't come home for days on end I thought the mountain lord must have caught you and killed you. I've suffered terrible heartache. If you weren't killed why didn't you come back before? Where are your carrying-pole, ropes and axe?”
The woodcutter kowtowed as he replied, “Mother, the mountain lord did capture me and tie me to a tree. I was lucky to escape with my life, thanks to these gentlemen. They are arhats sent by the Tang court in the East to fetch the scriptures from the Western Heaven. This gentleman was captured by the mountain lord and tied to a tree as well. His three disciples have enormous magic powers. They killed the mountain lord with a single blow: he was a leopard with mugwort flower spots who had become a spirit. They burnt all the junior devils to death, untied the senior gentleman and then untied me too. I owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude: but for them your son would certainly be dead. Now that the mountain is completely safe I'll be able to walk around at night without any danger.”
After hearing this the old woman came forward to greet Sanzang and his disciples, kowtowing at every step. Then she led them in through the wicker gate to sit down in the thatched cottage. Mother and son next performed endless kowtows as expressions of their gratitude before hastily and in a fluster preparing them some vegetarian food as a mark of their thanks.
“Brother,” said Pig to the woodcutter, “I know you're hard up here. Just put something simple together for us. Don't go to a lot of trouble and effort.”
“Quite frankly, sir,” the woodcutter replied, “we're very poor here. We don't have any gill fungus, button mushrooms, peppers or aniseed. All we can offer you gentlemen are some wild vegetables.”
“We're putting you to a lot of trouble,” said Pig. “Be as quick as you can. We're starving.”
“It'll soon be ready,” the woodcutter replied, and before long a table and stools were set out and wiped clean, and several dishes of wild vegetables served:
Tender-scalded day lilies,
White lumps of pickled scallion,
Knotweed and purslane,
Shepherds purse and “goosegut blossom.”
The “swallows stay away” was delicious and tender;
The tiny fists of beansprouts were crisp and green.
Indigo heads boiled soft,
White-stewed “dog footprints,”
“Cat's ears,”
Wild turnips,
All with tender and tasty gray noodles.
“Scissor shafts,”
“Oxpool aid,”
Tipped in the pot with broom purslane.
Broken grain purslane,
And lettuce purslane,
All green, delicious and smooth.
“Birdflower” fried in oil,
Superb water-chestnuts,
Roots of reeds and wild-rice stems,
Four kinds of excellent water plants.
“Wheat-mother,”
Delicate and finely flavored;
“Raggedy patches”
You could never wear.
Under the bitter sesame bed runs a fence.
Sparrows wander around,
Macaques leave their footprints,
Eager to eat it all when fried and piping hot.
Sloping wormwood and green artemisia surround crown daisy chrysanthemums;
The moths fly around the buckwheat.
Bald “goat's ear,”
Wolfberry fruits,
That don't need oil when combined with dark indigo.
A meal of every kind of wild vegetable
As a mark of the woodcutter's reverent thanks.
When master and disciples had eaten their fill they packed up ready to start out again. Not daring to press them to stay, the woodcutter asked his mother to come out and bow to them in thanks again. He then kowtowed, fetched a club of jujube wood, fastened his clothes tight, and came out to see them on their way.