From now on, Wukong exhaustively resorts to a thousand schemes hoping to beguile others, only to be himself beguiled.¹

The story continues: Pilgrim leaped into midair [K. Gentle reader, keep this in mind: The Great Sage is, after all, already in the air.²], looking here and there to find somewhere to beg for food. [C. Without knowing it, he has already entered the demon of desire.] Unable to find a single household after looking for four hours,³ he became agitated and filled with ominous forebodings. He was about to lower the cloud he was riding on and return the way he had come [K. To pause and make a turn.⁴] when all of a sudden he espied a great walled and moated city several miles distant. [K. This way of writing is actually developed from the episode of Lesser Thunderclap Temple in the earlier novel.⁵] He made haste to go have a look, and there above the wall he saw a green brocade flag with golden characters on it written in the archaic seal style:

The Great Tang’s New Son of Heaven, the Thirty-Eighth Sovereign after Taizong,⁶ the Restoration Emperor. [C. Amazing.]

When Pilgrim suddenly saw the words “Great Tang,” he was frightened into a cold sweat. “We are heading to the West,” thought he. “How could we have instead ended up traveling to the East? This place can’t be real. I don’t know what demon is doing this. How despicable!” Then his mind took another turn. [C. His mind took one turn, then another. He is already bewitched by the demon.] “I’ve heard about the celestial sphere: Heaven revolves around an axis. [K. The author was born toward the end of the Ming, so he already knew that the earth was round.] Could we have reached the end of the West and come around to the East again? If so, there is nothing to fear: we need to make another turn and reach the Western Paradise. So maybe this place is real?” But then he had another thought: “It must be unreal, unreal! If we had made our way past the Western Paradise, could the Buddhist Patriarch with his compassion have failed to hail us? Moreover, I have met him several times. He is by no means someone who has no feelings or who lacks consideration. This place has to be fake!”

Then he was possessed by yet another idea. “I, Old Monkey, had almost forgotten that when I was still a demon in the Water-Curtain Cave, I had a sworn brother called the Emerald-Robed Messenger.⁷ [K. This casual reference to the parent book seems to be real, and yet it is not—as if it were a dream.] He once sent me a book, called A New Account of the Kunlun Mountains.⁸ There is this passage in it: ‘The Middle Kingdom there—it is not the real Middle Kingdom,⁹ but the people there call their state by that name because of their admiration for the Middle Kingdom. That is why they assume that name.’ [K. This is from The Classic of Waterways (Shuijing). According to Annotations on “The Yellow River” (Heshui zhu), “South of Tianzhu¹⁰ is the Middle Kingdom, whose inhabitants are prosperous, and whose customs in clothing and diet are the same as those in the Middle Kingdom, so it is called the Middle Kingdom.”¹¹] This place must be one of the kingdoms in the West that assumed the name. Then it is real after all.”

But soon, without his knowing it, he could not help but cry out, “Fake, fake, fake, fake! [K. Hundreds of ideas are assailing him; he is no longer in possession of his own mind. He twists and turns in the demonic world. What a pity! What a pity!] If they admire the Middle Kingdom, they should write ‘the Middle Kingdom.’ Why do they write instead ‘the Great Tang’? My master has also told me that the Empire of the Great Tang is a brand-new empire.¹² How could the ruler here come to know it and change its name and flag? This place is definitely unreal.” He hesitated a long time, unable to reach a conclusion.

Pilgrim fixed his gaze, steeled his will, and went on reading. Below, he caught sight of fourteen characters, which read, “New Son of Heaven, the Thirty-Eighth Sovereign after Taizong, the Restoration Emperor.” [C. Dividing the description into two sections makes it incremental.] [K. The description of the sixteen characters is divided into two sections, exhausting the possible twists and turns. According to Mountain Man of Wuling: The thirty-eighth reign after Emperor Taizong of the Tang would be Emperor Gaozong of the Song (1107–1187; r. 1127–1162), hence the term “restoration.”¹³ Among the emperors, Empress Wu (624–705; r. Empress of Zhou, 690–705), because she was a woman ruler, and Emperor Min of the Latter Tang (r. 933–934), as well as Emperor Gong (r. 959–960) of the Latter Zhou, both deposed after just over one year, are not included in this count. This anticipates the adjudication of the Qin Hui case later on.¹⁴] He then jumped up and down in the air, shouting, “Nonsense, nonsense! It can’t be more than twenty years since the Master left Tang territory—how could it be that several centuries have passed? The Master’s is a mortal body of flesh and blood. Even if he had been able to visit the grottos of the immortals, or to travel to their fairy isles, he would still be aging like an ordinary human. How could there be such a discrepancy in time? This must be unreal.”

Then yet another thought overtook him: “There’s no way to know—if there had been a new emperor each month, it would take less than four years for the thirty-eight emperors to take their turns.¹⁵ Could it be that this is real?”

At this moment, Pilgrim truly was, as the saying goes, “unable to break the knots of doubt, laboring in vain to think the matter through.” He lowered the cloud he rode on and recited a spell to summon the local deity in order to find out more about all this. But even after reciting the spell ten times, no local deity made his appearance. [C. This is what happens in dreams.] Pilgrim thought to himself: “Usually, as soon as I start the recitation, they come scuttling in like rats, protecting their heads with their hands. Why are things like this today? This is an emergency. For the moment I won’t blame them—instead I’ll just summon the Temporal Guardian¹⁶ on duty. He will naturally provide an explanation.” Thus he shouted, “Guardian, my brother, where are you?” He yelled into the air hundreds of times, but with absolutely no effect.

Pilgrim flew into a rage and resumed the shape he had taken when he wrought the great havoc in the Heavenly Palace.¹⁷ [K. In these sixteen chapters, mention is often made of “wreaking the great havoc in the Heavenly Palace,” which implies that the abandoned mind might make its way anywhere. It also reveals how the demon of desire entangles; even the powers he displayed when wreaking havoc in Heaven are of no avail.] He shook his staff, which grew as thick as the mouth of a vat, and let himself go, jumping up into the air, wildly flourishing his staff and leaping about. He went on this way for quite a while, but not even half of a deity appeared. His fury even more intense, Pilgrim leaped straight up to Heaven to ask the Jade Emperor for an explanation.

But once he got up to Heaven, he found the Heavenly gates tightly shut. Pilgrim yelled, “Open the gate, open the gate!”

Someone inside Heaven responded [C. Fantastic!], “Such an impudent slave with no sense of timing! Our Palace of Divine Mists has been stolen. [C. Curious writing! Anticipating the chiseling of the sky later.] There is no Heaven to ascend to anymore.”

Pilgrim then heard someone say, with a chuckle, “Brother, don’t you know how the Palace of Divine Mists was stolen away? It turns out that five hundred years ago, there was a Custodian of the Celestial Stable named Sun.¹⁸ Even when he wrought great havoc in the Heavenly Palace, he failed to get the Palace of Divine Mists for his own use. He resented this, got together a gang, and in the name of fetching scriptures, formed ties with all the monsters on the road to the West. Suddenly, one day, he got all those monsters to employ artful tricks and succeeded in stealing away the Palace of Divine Mists. [C. More fantastic.] This is what the texts on military strategy say: ‘Pitting a third party against another third party, your victory is guaranteed.’ That little monkey is a veritable bag of wisdom.¹⁹ Hooray for him!”

Hearing this, Pilgrim found himself both amused and irritated. He was a strong-willed, hot-tempered person; how could he tolerate this unprovoked ridicule? He went on to add punches with his fists and kicks with his feet, and kept shouting, “Open the gate!”

The person inside said, “If you really want us to open the gate of Heaven, just wait here for 5,046 years and three months, until our Palace of Divine Mists has been rebuilt. Then we will open the gate to receive you as a distinguished guest. How about that?”

The story continues: It happens that Pilgrim had wanted to request from the Jade Emperor a numinous writing in purple script²⁰ in order to tell whether the Great Tang here was real or not, but all he received was a major humiliation instead. He could only lower his cloud and return to the realm of the Great Tang. Pilgrim said, “I will simply take it as real²¹ and see what it is like.” [C. This sentence is the outline of what is to follow.]

Thereupon he put aside his doubts and walked up to the gate in the city wall. The officers and soldiers guarding the gate said, “By order of the New Son of Heaven, ‘All those who are clad in outlandish clothing and who speak alien tongues shall be arrested and beheaded.’ Young monk, although you do not have a family [K. “You do not have a family”: This forms a contrast to the Dream of Gaotang in chapter 13 and King Pāramitā in chapter 14.], you still have your own life to protect.”

Pilgrim saluted them, saying, “Thank you, officers, for your kind concern.” He walked away from the gate and immediately transformed himself into a pale-colored butterfly. First, he danced the “Dance of the Beauty,” and then “Carrying the Pipa²² on the Back” [K. Enhancing the spring scene.]; in a few moments he had flown past the battlement painted with five colors. Then he flew through the palace gate and alighted atop the palace.

Wisps of incense circled the jade-like pillars, and the green pavilions were covered by auspicious clouds: this was indeed a place even gods and immortals have yet to see, a place their grottos could not rival.

The Heavens turn, the metallic ether²³ congeals;

The Jade Pole²⁴ in its position, stars revolve around it.

Auspicious clouds rise from the Jadeite Palace,

The sun shines splendidly on the City of the Phoenix.²⁵

—An old poem²⁶

Pilgrim was taking all of this in without stop when he suddenly saw the large characters “Emerald Hall”²⁷ on the lintel above the door. [K. Immediately after the mention of the theft of the Palace of Divine Mists is the description of the Emerald Hall: the writing is sequenced and organically connected.] At the side was a line of characters of smaller size:

Erected on this First Day of the Second Month²⁸ in the Inaugural Year of the Romantic Emperor, New Son of Heaven of the Tang.

Silence reigned in the hall. On the walls on both sides were two lines in ink that read:

Fifty years before the Tang received the Mandate of Heaven, our great State was no bigger than a dou.²⁹ Fifty years after the Tang received the Mandate of Heaven, mountains and rivers flew away and the moon and stars dispersed. [K. Strange writing.] The New Emperor has received the Mandate, which will last for tens of thousands of years. The poem about King Xuan of the Zhou is being sung everywhere.³⁰ I, petty vassal Zhang Qiu, respectfully offer my congratulations. [C. Curious writing.]

Having read this, Pilgrim laughed quietly, “With vassals like this in court, how could the Emperor avoid being romantic?”

No sooner had he said this to himself than a palace maid, with a broom of green bamboo in her hands,³¹ made her way out. While sweeping the floor, she talked to herself: “Yes, yes, the Emperor is sleeping, and the Grand Councilor is sleeping. The Emerald Hall has become the Pavilion of Sleeping Immortals! Yesterday evening, our Romantic Emperor ‘warmed the apartment’ with his presence for Lady State-Wrecker.³² He had wine provided in the Flying Kingfisher Hall in the rear garden, and the party lasted all night long. [C. Every sentence is the palace maid’s description. This marvelous skill is the same as that of the painter who can capture the very soul (of his subjects).]

“At the beginning the Emperor had the Mirror of Gaotang³³ brought out. [K. The first appearance of the mirror, which anticipates the numerous mirrors later in the narrative. The Mirror of Gaotang is a playful reference to the Dream of Gaotang.] He had Lady State-Wrecker stand to his left, and Lady Xu to his right, and the trio looked into the mirror, shoulder against shoulder. The Son of Heaven then commented on how attractive the two ladies are, and Lady State-Wrecker praised His Imperial Highness for being handsome. [C. Exhaustive in nuance.] The Son of Heaven turned to ask us, the palace maids. At that time, all of his 304 personal palace maids replied in one voice: ‘Your Majesty is the handsomest man in the world!’ [K. Every effort is made to describe the romantic Son of Heaven, to expand on the issue of desire. Well done! Everything the palace maid says in reality is illusion.]

“The Son of Heaven was extremely pleased and drank a big goblet with his eyes half shut. Half drunk, they got up to view the moon. The Son of Heaven laughed out loud; pointing to Chang’e, the goddess of the moon, he said, ‘This is Our Lady Xu.’ Lady Xu pointed to the Weaving Maid and the Oxherd, saying, ‘They are Your Majesty and Lady State-Wrecker.’ Although this night falls on the fifth day of the third month [K. The first day of the second month to the fifth day of the third month all refer to the season of green springtime mentioned previously. They are clues left by the writer.], she wanted to borrow the Double Seventh³⁴ to celebrate it early. The Son of Heaven was tremendously pleased and drank another big goblet.

“A drunken Son of Heaven, with a blood-red face, a wobbly head, unsteady feet, and a quivering tongue, with no concern that three sevens are twenty-one or two sevens are fourteen, threw himself on Lady Xu. Lady State-Wrecker seated herself hastily by his heels, becoming a snow-white cushion of flesh to pillow the feet of the Son of Heaven. Then, a sewing maid attached to Lady Xu got the idea of picking a rose;³⁵ walking around behind Lady Xu and giggling, she tucked it carefully under the Son of Heaven’s head, to turn him into the figure of ‘an emperor drunk on flowers.’³⁶ So much fun—the palace is indeed an immortals’ grotto in the human realm!

“This reminds me of the numerous emperors in the past, among them many a romantic Son of Heaven. [K. Unobtrusively anticipating the episode of the chanted narrative below.] But by now, the palaces are completely gone, the beautiful ladies are completely gone, and the emperors are completely gone. [C. These three uses of the word “gone” tend to make one think pensively even more than chanting elegies about the Terrace of Cypress Beams.³⁷] [K. The three uses of the word “completely” are like cold water poured down one’s back.] Not to mention the Qin, Han, and Six Dynasties, just think of our late Son of Heaven. In his midlife he built the Terrace of the Pearl Rain for his own amusement. That building was meticulously and impeccably constructed, elegant and neat. Above it had panels like white jade, on all sides there were hanging windows of elaborate workmanship; on the north side was a round ‘frost’ window, from which one could see the sun rising from, or setting into, the sea, and the floor was made of purple sandalwood with gold inlay. For a time, faces like jadeite or hibiscus flowers, powdered skin like snowflakes, gauze blouses as thin as cicadas’ wings, belts and sashes with patterns of unicorns, music from the woodwinds of Shu and the strings of Wu—no one who saw this could avoid being dazzled; of those who only heard about it, none were left unmoved.

“Yesterday Our Lady from the Central Palace sent me to sweep the ground in the Eastern Flower Garden. From over the short wall I could see where the Terrace of the Pearl Rain had stood: at first glance it was just wild grass, and on second look, it was cloud and haze. [C. This is like a poem by Du Fu.³⁸] The three thousand paired mandarin duck tiles are now just innumerable broken pieces. The pillars and beams with patterns of striding dragons and flying insects—they had become bare framework. And another amusing thing: it was still midday, but in the courtyard and among the pine trees, there were patches of ghostly will-o’-the-wisp moving. When I looked carefully, I couldn’t see even one singing boy or a single dancing girl. All I could see were two or three cuckoos there, singing endlessly, some high, some low, in the spring rain. [K. The section about the pavilion of sleeping immortals is extremely sensual and dazzling; this section is forlorn to the extreme.³⁹ Made up from thin air, it enlightens, overwhelming the reader’s soul with sadness.] Seen in this way, both the Son of Heaven and ordinary people alike return to nothingness; both the empress and the village girl turn into dark dust!⁴⁰ [C. The episode concerning the palace maid is concluded here.]

“Years ago, on the full moon day of the first month, there was a Daoist priest who secluded himself among pines and vines;⁴¹ what he had to say reflected some insight. He said that the passion of our Romantic Son of Heaven was really for persons in paintings and scenes in pictures. [K. Persons in paintings, scenes in pictures, truly like talking about dreams while dreaming.] For this reason, he presented a painting called Mount Li. [C. The attempt to borrow the Mountain-Ridding Bell is like a model for the entire book, so it is set up here.]

“The Son of Heaven asked, ‘Is there still a Mount Li?’

“The Daoist answered, ‘Mount Li has a short life, comprising only 2,000 years.’

“The Son of Heaven laughed, ‘A life of 2,000 years would be long enough.’

“ ‘But I don’t like the fact that the number is rather patched together,’ the Daoist said. ‘Mount Li in nature and architecture has existed for two hundred years; in legends, passed on from mouth to mouth, four hundred years; in paintings, five hundred years; in history, nine hundred years. Putting them all together, they add up to two thousand years!’ [K. Extraordinary writing!]

“I was on duty that day, stood facing the Daoist directly, and I heard every sentence distinctly. Now it’s been over a year. A few days ago a palace maid who had some education mentioned this again. It turned out that the picture of Mount Li is of the mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin,⁴² who used the Mountain-Ridding Bell.” [K. The Mountain-Ridding Bell is mentioned quite unexpectedly. Idle Talk in the Jade Hall (Yutang xianhua)⁴³ says, “Yichun of Yuzhang adjoins Mount Zhong (Zhongshan), or Bell Mountain. There is a valley whose water looks pristine and flows in circles, and whose depth is unfathomable. There a fisherman hooked a metal lock. He pulled it up for hundreds of feet, and then pulled out a bell, in the shape of a duo, or warning bell. When he held it up, it sounded like crashing thunder. The day turned dark, and the mountains and rivers shook. One side of Mount Zhong more than five thousand feet wide collapsed. Boats capsized, and the fishermen all fell into the water. Someone knowledgeable said, ‘This is the First Emperor’s Mountain-Ridding Bell.’ ”]

She talked for a while, swept for a while, and then spoke again.

When Pilgrim heard the words “Mountain-Ridding Bell,” he thought to himself, “How could one get rid of mountains? If I had this alarm bell, whenever I come across high mountains infested with demons, I could simply use it to get rid of them: this would save me some effort.” He was about to transform himself into an officer on duty so as to go forward to ask for more details about the Mountain-Ridding Bell when he heard the blaring sound of horns and a thunder of drums from within the palace.

[C. This chapter consists of three sections. The first section concludes the case of the Romantic Emperor. The middle section, about the Terrace of the Pearl Rain, introduces the theme of the entire book. Finally, the section about Mount Li anticipates the Great Sage’s entrance into the mirrors.]