Adventures of the Mad Monk Ji Gong

by Guo Xiaoting

  “I know nothing about that,” said the monk.

  “Afterward, when the magistrate comes to the hall, you will be persuaded to speak and then you will remember! That’s all!” exclaimed Head-man Liu.

  “I really do not know,” said the monk. “It cannot be helped.”

  After that exchange, all of the yamen headmen were angry and would not speak to the monk. Someone went in and notified the magistrate that the prisoners were at the yamen. He gave orders to prepare to hold court. He also ordered that the monk should be brought before him and wondered what he would say.

  CHAPTER 58

  The Longyou headmen have three cases; Ji Gong goes to the Inn of the Two Dragons

  SHORTLY after Ji Gong was brought into court, the magistrate entered and sat down at the bench. Looking down, he saw the ragged monk before him and said, “You, monk, when you saw the district magistrate, why did you not kneel?”

  “Honorable sir,” replied Ji Gong, “Officials have rank among themselves. Some are more honorable than others. Buddhists also have their places, and some are more respected than others. I do not fail to observe national laws, but those do not concern Buddhist rules, and it is to those I pay homage.”

  When the magistrate heard this, he said, “And you, monk, what are you called, and from what temple did you receive your certificate?”

  “Since Your Honor wishes to know,” answered the monk, “I am the monk Ji Dian from the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat.”

  The magistrate knew that the name of Ji Dian was famous and very highly regarded. He thought to himself, “Ji Gong is the monk that Prime Minister Qin asked to act as a substitute for himself. How could he be someone like that?” And the magistrate felt disbelief. Then he said, “If you are Ji Gong, you must know the details of the murder of the monk in the Yang family hotel outside the east gate.”

  In fact, I do not know,” said Ji Gong.

  The magistrate continued by asking, “If you are the monk Ji Dian from the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat, why have you come here?”

  “Since Your Honor asks,” responded the ragged monk, “I came at Prime Minister Qin’s order with two headmen from Linan City. We came in relation to a case and brought with us a warrant signed and sealed by the Grand Protector appointed by the emperor to arrest the outlaw Cloud Dragon Hua.”

  The magistrate then ordered the two headmen, Chai and She, to be brought forward in the court.

  As soon as the two were brought into the hall, Headman Chai said, “Your Honor above, here below Chai Yuanlo and She Jenying both pay their respects.”

  “Are you two the headmen from the city of Linan?”

  “Yes,” answered Chai. “We are sent from the yamen of the Grand Protector.”

  “If indeed you were sent on a case, you must have a warrant that you can let me see,” said the magistrate.

  “Since you ask about the warrant,” intervened Ji Gong, “it was stolen last night in the hotel.”

  As soon as the magistrate heard this, he became furiously angry. “There was no such document!” he exclaimed. “The truth will be forced out of you. No one escapes the law. Give the monk forty blows with the bamboo. When you have beaten him, we will ask for the same information again.”

  The local headmen standing at the side of the courtroom made a sound of agreement and stepped forward, intending to hold Ji Gong down so that he could be beaten. Just when matters had reached this point, there was a shout from outside the hall. “A thousand times, ten thousand times! Don’t beat the monk! I am coming!” Into the hall rushed Yin Shixiong, who had uttered these words. “Your Honor,” cried the man, “A thousand times, ten thousand times, we must not beat the monk! I know he is Ji Gong from the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat.”

  “Yin Shixiong,” queried the magistrate, “how do you know he is Ji Gong?”

  “I was at the prime minister’s estate,” the man answered, “when the five-thunder eight-trigram scroll was stolen. And I saw him there talking with the prime minister.”

  Now how was it that Yin Shixiong was there in the yamen? He had been promoted because of his abilities as a headman in Linan. Then, when the chief headman in Longyou had retired to become an innkeeper, Yin Shixiong was sent to Longyou to take his place. When he had heard that Ji Gong was at the court, Headman Yin wanted to see what he looked like again. When he heard the magistrate give the order to beat the monk, Yin was horrified and had rushed into the audience hall to prevent it.

  The magistrate had no reason to doubt his chief headman’s word. He immediately stepped down from behind the bench and approached Ji Gong saying, “Holy monk, a thousand times, ten thousand times, please do not take offense. Your disciple simply did not understand. Please come and sit beside me.”

  “Of course you did not,” said the monk. “Why should you even speak of such a thing?”

  The magistrate was bowing and saying, “Of course, I have heard of the famous Ji Gong and of your goodness and kindness. Now we are having so much trouble here in Longyou with all these cases and no suspect in any of the three. I must beg the holy monk to look into the past and future in order to help us.”

  “There is no need for fortune-telling,” said the monk. “However, if Your Honor will briefly provide me with the treasures of literature, that is, a writing brush and some ink, I will write something for you. How will that be?”

  The moment the magistrate heard this, he quickly put paper, a writing brush, and ink before the monk. Ji Gong turned his back upon the magistrate, and after writing for some time, folded the paper and said, “Now, Your Honor, please keep this paper with you. Wait until you have visited the Yang Family Inn outside the east gate. Then afterward, when your sedan chair has been set down at the crossroads, unfold the paper and read what I have written. You will understand about all three cases. But please don’t unfold the paper too early. If you do, it may not be possible to solve the cases.”

  The magistrate nodded. He looked at the folded paper. On the outside was drawn a picture of a cracked earthenware jar mended with seven rivets. This was the monk’s special mark. The magistrate put the paper safely in his wallet.

  “Your Honor,” asked the monk, “would you send the two headmen, Yang Guodong and Yin Shixiong, with me to help me solve these two cases and let my headmen rest here at the yamen?” The magistrate assented and told Yang Guodong and Yin Shixiong to go with the monk. The two agreed and left the hall with Ji Gong.

  As they left the yamen, Yin Shixiong asked, “Is the holy monk well?”

  “Well?” replied the monk, “Not sick!”

  Then Yin Shixiong spoke to the other headman, asking, “Brother Yang, didn’t I hear that your sister-in-law is unwell?”

  “That’s right,” replied Yang Guodong.

  “Brother Yang,” said Yin, “if you kowtow to Ji Gong and ask him, he may give you a miraculous pill that you can take to her. There is no illness that he cannot cure.”

  Upon hearing this, Yang Guodong immediately began to bow and said, “Holy monk, show your kindness by giving me a little medicine for her.”

  “Don’t get in a hurry,” said the monk. “There probably is some medicine that will help her, but let us first take care of these cases.”

  “Where are we going, Teacher?” asked Yin Shixiong

  “To Five Tombstones,” answered the monk. Then, as the two men watched, he took three steps forward and two back.

  “Holy monk,” said Yin Shixiong, “if you walk that way, when will you ever get there? Could we go a little more quickly?”

  “If I go quickly, will you two be able to keep up?” asked the monk.

  “We can keep up,” said Yang Guodong.

  The monk then kicked up his heels, and like the flash of a shooting star was gone. The two headmen sped after him but still saw no trace of the monk. “Quickly onward as fast as we can, then,” the two thought, and so shortly arrived at Five Tombstones.

  The monk was hiding in an alley. Waiting until they w
ere almost there, he stepped out and began slowly walking ahead of them. Soon they saw a wine shop on the west side of the street. The owner’s name was Hai. He had a habit of adding up the bill for each patron. As soon as he saw how much it was, he would add a flourish at the bottom of the bill with his brush. His flourish looked like a total price higher than the actual one, and many people would simply pay it. If they protested, he would simply say that his flourish was just that, an ornamental ending and nothing more. If the guest did not look carefully, he would have paid a little more than he should have.

  The monk quickly slipped inside unseen by the two headmen and said, “Greetings. The owner’s name is Hai, isn’t it?”

  “My name is Hai,” said the owner. “What about it?”

  Aren’t you the sworn brother of the headman Yang Guodong?” asked the monk.

  “That’s right,” replied the wineshop owner.

  “Yang Guodong’s sister-in-law is dead,” said the monk. “Did you know that?”

  The owner was shocked and disturbed when he heard this. He dropped his writing brush, which made a big zero on the paper. He looked at it and tore up the check. Then he asked, “Monk, how do you know this?”

  “Early this morning, Headman Yang came to my temple to talk about services for the third day after death. He wanted five monks to perform the service and seven monks to conduct the soul over the bridge, past the demons. I said that there should be seven people to perform the service and eleven to take the soul over the bridge, and we should end up by singing operatic songs.”

  “You must be very busy in the temple,” said the wine shop proprietor.

  “Extremely busy,” said the monk, “but Headman Yang asked me to tell you about the death as soon as I could, and that’s why I’m here.”

  “I’m obliged to you, Teacher,” the owner said. “Please come in and sit down and have a cup of tea or wine.”

  “Good,” said the monk. “I was just thinking of a cup of wine.”

  The owner called a waiter, who brought two small jugs of wine. The owner was saying, “Of course, I must go to the funeral, but first I must go to the bakery and order a tableful of fragrant cakes at my own expense.”

  “Since we all are on such good terms with Yang Guodong, we must all send our respects on a banner eight feet long in four gold characters,” the waiter urged.

  “Yes, indeed!” the others chimed in.

  After the monk had drunk the wine, he only said, “I am leaving.”

  As he departed, everyone called out, “You have put yourself to too much trouble for us.” In fact, he had given this momentous and totally false news for no other reason than to make them give him two small pots of wine.

  While Ji Gong was drinking in the wine shop, the two headmen, Yang and Yin, had gone back toward the yamen, thinking that they were unlikely to find the monk again. The monk, meanwhile, went slowly onward until he came to an intersection where he stopped and looked about. On the south side was an inn called the Mansion House. The air rang with the sound of the chopping block. Dishes of all sorts were being rushed to and fro. There seemed to be no place left to sit down. It was packed with guests.

  Across the road on the north side was another inn called the Inn of the Two Dragons. Inside there was not a single customer. The manager sat dozing and the waiters sat with melancholy looks on their faces. The stove was empty and cold. The rolling pins were still. The monk strode inside and asked, “Waiter, why is it so peaceful in here?”

  “Don’t mention it, teacher,” said the waiter. “When our previous manager was alive, the business in this place was considered number one in the whole Longyou district. Who didn’t know the Two Dragons! But now that our old manager has left this earth, the assistant manager is just not up to it. Really, it is as if business is something that depends upon people. As soon as he put his hand to it, business became bad. Some of our people left and opened the Mansion House across the way. Even though it is true that people say ‘Many boats do not block the river,’ over there each day is better than the one before, and here each day is worse than the one before. Last night we sold a little over eight hundred cash worth, enough so that we could eat. Today, nothing! I was an apprentice in this room. I thought, well, if they sell a hundred and twenty dishes, we could still sell a hundred. I want to do it, but there is nothing I can do.”

  The monk laughed loudly and asked, “Do you want to make more or not?”

  “How could I not want to!” exclaimed the waiter.

  “If you want to, I have a way,” the ragged monk told him.

  And now the lohan would use his Buddhist arts there in the Inn of the Two Dragons to catch the guilty parties in the three unsolved crimes.

  CHAPTER 59

  A waiter’s story moves the monk to pity; Ji Gong sees two unwholesome men

  NOW, when Ji Gong had come into the Inn of the Two Dragons and heard the sad story told by the waiter, he had asked, “Do you want to make more money or not?”

  The waiter had replied, “I do want to make more money, but look, we have nothing with which to work. There are a few pounds of meat and about ten pounds of flour, a pair of little chickens and not much wine, either. We’re just sitting here with nothing. How can we make much money?”

  “Never mind,” said the ragged monk. “Do you have water?”

  “There is a small well in the back,” said the waiter.

  If there is water, we will have wine,” said the monk. “You just draw the water and use it for wine. I guarantee that no one will dislike it. Then you can sell it for hundreds of strings of cash. You just get the manager to keep his abacus going and start the fire in the stove. I will ask for two pots of wine. You sing the order out and have them repeat it with a shout after you. Then there will be guests. Keep the kitchen busy. It will be best if everything seems to be in a turmoil.”

  The waiter had become so bitterly poor that he eagerly fell in with the monk’s plan. He told the manager to keep the abacus busy, he had the fire started up and the rolling pin ready.

  Then the ragged monk said, “Let’s have two pots of wine.”

  The waiter sang out, “White wine, two pots!” The manager and all the rest echoed the cry. Just as the waiter brought the two pots of wine to the monk, some guests walked in from outside. When the waiter looked, he recognized Manager Chen from across the road.

  Now, Manager Chen was known to have a strong dislike for people who drank wine, and if any of the waiters had a drink and he knew about it, he would no longer want them to work in his restaurant. But today he had just finished eating and was standing in the doorway of the Mansion House when suddenly he crossed the street, went in, and asked for two pots of wine.

  The waiter knew that Manager Chen did not drink, and therefore asked him, “Manager Chen, how is it that today you are asking for wine?”

  Manager Chen looked at him and said, “I want a drink. What’s it to you?” The waiter, a little embarrassed, brought him the wine. Manager Chen dimly realized what was happening. He thought to himself, “I don’t drink. What has made me want to have some wine?” But then he thought, “Well, as long as I do want it, I might as well find out what their wine tastes like.”

  Other people who did not normally like to drink were drinking that day. One man came in carrying a bowl of turnip blossoms in sesame oil that he had bought for three cash. He had gone out to buy something, and when he reached the gate of the Two Dragons, he came in and sat down. He asked for two jugs of wine, and when the waiter brought them, he suddenly remembered, “We were just about to eat at home. What made me come in here?”

  Another man came in carrying a piece of bean curd in a bowl that his wife needed to fix dinner. He was unwilling to come in, and sat down near the door. When the waiter brought his wine, he remembered that his wife was waiting for the tofu and said, “What am I doing drinking wine?”

  The other said, “I did not come of my own will, either. I have a bowl of turnip blossoms. Put down your bowl of
bean curd and let’s sit together to drink our wine.”

  Groups of three to five people were coming in together. One old man, however, came in alone and sat down with five packages of food. He started putting a package at each place as he spoke out loud to himself: “Old Two, one package for you; Old Three, one for you; Old Four, one for you; Old Five, one for you.” And then he said to the waiter, “Bring ten pots of wine and six platters of food. Now, you four, ask for whatever you want.”

  The waiter looked and saw one person and wondered what was happening, but, as it turned out, the old man was one of five sworn brothers. He had invited the rest to the Mansion House, but when he was drawn to the Inn of the Two Dragons, he expected to find his brothers there. As soon as it was understood, the others were called from across the street.

  In a little while there was hardly a vacant place and the waiters were as busy as could be. But as the number of customers increased, the amount of wine in the wine cistern became low. “When there is no wine, draw some water,” the waiter remembered the monk had said, so the waiter went back to the well and came back with a pail of water, which he poured into the wine cistern. It diluted the wine, but the waiter served it to the guests anyway. Almost at once he was called back. “Oh, now I’m in for it. They know it’s water,” thought the waiter.

  But the guest only said, “This wine is changed.”

  “Perhaps I made a mistake,” the waiter said.

  “But this wine is much better than the wine you served before,” the man said. “If you served this all the time, I would be here every day.”

  “Strange!” the waiter thought. “I gave him water and he praised it.” Some guests were leaving, but other customers filled their places. It was like old times.

  Then two men entered. The first had a head shaped like a rabbit’s, always a bad sign, and eyes shaped like triangles. His face was pale and, though not unhealthy, was somehow unwholesome in appearance. The other had the same rabbity head. His complexion was darker and his appearance was more threatening than the other’s. Neither man wore a cap or hat, but they were dressed in well-made clothing.