Adventures of the Mad Monk Ji Gong

by Guo Xiaoting

  When they reached Five Tombstones without catching up to him, Yang said, “Let’s go back.” The two started back. When they came to the south gate, the local official saw them and asked, “Headmen Yin and Yang, did you see the dead body?”

  “Where is there a dead body?” asked Yin Shixiong.

  “It was my duty to cover the dead body of a poor monk,” replied the local official.

  “Was that at your place?” asked Yin Shixiong. “We haven’t been to the crossroads yet. How did you come to see him?”

  “No,” answered the local official. “The dead man ran off through the south gate.”

  “Who was this dead man?” queried Yin Shixiong.

  The local official then told them the story of how Zhang Fu and Li Lu had killed the monk, and of how the magistrate held an inquest and left a man to watch the dead man, and finally of how the dead monk had ran off.

  When Yang Guodong heard the tale, he exclaimed: “That’s terrible! Ji Gong killed!”

  “You don’t know the extent of Ji Gong’s powers,” said Yin Shixiong. “He could not have died. Let’s go back.”

  At this time the local official went back with them. They had just reached the crossroads when they saw the monk come running from the east. When the local official saw him, he said, “The dead man is coming.”

  Yin Shixiong And Yang Guodong went up to the monk and Yin asked, “What’s the matter, Teacher?”

  The monk replied, “This is terrible. We’re going to have to go to the yamen. Just don’t let that short fellow that’s chasing me get away!”

  Yang Goudong stopped the short man. “Don’t move,” said Yin Shixiong. “If you are having a quarrel with the monk, we will go to the yamen.”

  “Good!” said the short man. “We do have a quarrel.” Yin Shixiong then locked hand and leg cuffs, with chains attached, on the short man.

  “It was the monk who attacked me,” protested the short man. “Why don’t you put the chains on him? You can’t have me locked in chains.”

  “The magistrate has given us orders that when ordinary folks and monks fight, we should put cuffs and chains on the ordinary folks but not on the monks,” explained Yin Shixiong. “Let’s go!”

  But just as they were about to leave the intersection, the waiter came up and exclaimed, “Don’t go!”

  Yang Guodong recognized him and asked, “Waiter Liu! What’s this?”

  “This person ate ten stuffed biscuits and drank ten jugs of wine, and the monk did the same. Then they fought and broke twenty saucers and never paid. They just ran off!”

  “Just go back and write it on my account,” said Yang Guodong. “Whatever it is, I will pay it,”

  “Well, since you say so, I’ll go back.” The waiter turned on his heel and left.

  “Let’s go on to the yamen,” said the monk.

  The local official then asked, “Yang Guodong, would you tell the magistrate for me that the teacher is alive? Then I will not go to the yamen.”

  “That’s all right,” said Yang Guodong.

  He led the short man along and everybody went north, but before they had gone very far, Manager Hai came running out. “Yang, sir, you have been a great trouble to me,” he said.

  “How have I troubled you?” Headman Yang asked.

  “Wasn’t your sister-in-law supposed to be dead?” asked the manager.

  “Who told you that?” asked the headman.

  The manager pointed with his finger. “That teacher brought me a message from you.”

  “Teacher,” asked Headman Yang, “How did you come to take a message for me?”

  “I was playing a joke on him because he makes these deceptive flourishes on his checks.”

  When he heard that Ji Gong had played a joke on him, Manager Hai exclaimed, “A good monk you are! You tricked me for no reason at all! I bought all these cakes that I haven’t sent yet. You can pay me for all this!”

  “So you are out of pocket a little, my friend Hai,” said Yang Guodong. “This monk is no stranger to us all. Look to me for the money you are owed.”

  “Teacher,” asked Yin Shixiong, “why did you say that someone was dead? Originally we had been talking about someone being sick.”

  “A curse always brings good luck, you know,” said the monk. “She should be in fine shape for the next ten years. Who knows—she may never die.”

  “Teacher, manifest your mercy!” pleaded Yang Guodong. “Give me a piece of medicine for her!” The monk nodded, took out a piece of medicine, and handed it to him.

  “Which temple does this monk come from?” asked the short man.

  “You ask about the monk!” said Yin Shixiong. “I will tell you. If you ever go to law with him, you will lose your case and that will be an honor! This is Ji Dian from the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat.”

  The short man made a gasping sound. “If he is Ji Dian, I will drop my complaint.” And without saying anything further, he held out his wrists for them to take off the handcuffs.

  “Don’t let him go,” ordered the monk. “He is involved in both of the two unsolved murder cases at Longyou.”

  In fact, the short man was named Xu Za, and he was nicknamed “the Little Sprite.” He had been a river pirate on the Yangtze. He had once lived at Four Rivers Road in Linan and had already been charged with two previous murders. But how were these two latest murders linked to him?

  Now, the Daoist priest who had been called to do an exorcism in the flower garden was murdered there. He was named She Qiushuang. The Daoist had been a member of the Greenwood before he became a Daoist and left the world to enter the Three Purities Shrine outside the south gate. While there, he had come into possession of a sorcerer’s book titled The Precious Record of the Dark Spirits. It contained information on such subjects as the art of refining elixirs, ways of calling up wind or rain, making soldiers from beans, moving mountains to the sea, keeping the five demons under control, changing stones to gods, capturing goblins, and causing spirits to do one’s bidding.

  One day, a man dressed in monk’s clothing came to see him. In fact, he was not a monk at all, but one of the outlaws known as “the Five Demons of Four Rivers Road.” He was named Li Daoming and nicknamed “the Devil from Kaifeng.” He had been friends with the Daoist a long time ago. Then they had been in the habit of visiting back and forth. As soon as they saw each other, they began warmly talking of the good times they had had and what they had done since they last had met.

  “Dear Brother Li,” asked She Qiushuang, “where have you been?”

  “I came from Four Rivers,” replied Li Daoming. “The Greenwood is all closed out there. The others have all been driven away. I have no place to go.” The Daoist let Li Daoming live at the Three Purities Shrine. Li noticed that the Daoist seemed to be studying from morning to night, and so he asked, “What is it that you are doing all this time?”

  “I have obtained a sorcerer’s book that describes all sorts of magic arts,” answered the Daoist.

  “Daoist brother,” said Li Daoming, “Teach me how to practice some of them.”

  “You could never practice these arts,” said the Daoist. “If you tried, you would be disappointed a thousand times.”

  “He simply does not want to teach me,” thought Li Daoming. Secretly he began to hate the Daoist priest.

  One day the Gao family asked the Daoist to exorcise a goblin in their flower garden. Li Daoming knew about the request. While the Daoist priest, using the sorcerer’s book, was performing the exorcism at a table in the garden, Li Daoming came up behind him under cover of darkness and killed him with one thrust of his knife.

  Once Li Daoming had the sorcerer’s book in his hand, the supposed monk never went back to the shrine. Instead he went to the Yang family’s hotel, named the Thriving Fortune Inn, where everyone thought he was a Buddhist monk. There, whenever he had nothing else to do, he studied the book early and late. One day he was standing at the entrance to the Thriving Fortune Inn when he saw coming
from the east the man named Xu Za, the Little Sprite. Although Li Daoming was dressed in monk’s clothing, Xu Za immediately recognized him. He approached him and bowed.

  “Brother Xu Za,” asked Li Daoming, “where did you come from?”

  “I am going to Linan to look around,” answered Xu Za. “My friends at the Greenwood in Four Rivers are all scattered, and I have nowhere to go.”

  Li Daoming invited him into his hotel room to talk.

  Xu Za asked, “What are you doing while you are staying here?”

  “I have got my hands on a divine book from which I am learning,” replied Li Daoming.

  “Can you use it to teach me?” queried Xu Za.

  “If you want to learn from it, you can try,” replied Li Dao Ming, “but first we must have the cloth cover from a young dead girl’s spirit tablet. Then we will be able to see and hear from great distances.”

  Xu Za was a simple person and believed what Li Daoming had said. For some time he went about, asking where he might find the cloth cover from a young dead girl’s spirit tablet. He asked several people, but they could tell him nothing. One day, however, while he was walking in the woods near town, he met a man who limped, pretending that he was lame. He recognized the short man at once. “Brother Xu,” the man exclaimed, “what are you doing here?!”

  The limping man was named Ping Yuanzhi and nicknamed “the Painted Lame Man.” He was one of the most famous robbers from the Four Rivers. He had gotten his nickname because he only pretended to be lame during the day to make people think that he would be unable to go over the rooftops at night. Xu Za told him about his search for the cloth cover from a young dead girl’s spirit tablet and about the book of magic.

  “Brother Xu, you are a simpleton!” exclaimed Ping Yuanzhi. “Li Daoming is playing a joke on you. Tonight I will go with you to the hotel. Why don’t you kill Li Daoming and take the book?’

  “Good!” said Xu Za. Ping had a grudge against Li, and was using Xu as a “borrowed knife” to kill Li. The two talked the proposed deed over.

  After they’d had a meal at a wine shop, they waited until the second watch. After they reached the hotel by going over the roofs, Ping stayed on the roof to watch while Xu went down and entered the north chamber. Li Daoming was sleeping in a chair, with his head resting on a table. Xu let his heavy knife fall and grasped the book.

  Just then he heard someone shout, “Murder!” Xu Za was startled, but he remained in the north chamber. It was Ji Gong who had shouted, “Murder!” when he awoke from sleep. Ping remained hidden, still on the roof.

  Next Ji Gong was heard to say, “I am going out into the courtyard.” That was when Ji Gong went outside, climbed over the wall, and went off to the Daoist abbey.

  After a while the two listening robbers heard Headman Chai ask She, “Is the warrant safe?” Ping did not know what the warrant was, but he could see Chai and She go back inside and heard them getting something out of their pack. Xu Za came out of the north chamber and left with the sorcerer’s book.

  Ping waited until Chai and She again came out to look for Ji Gong. Then Ping came down and went into the east room, where he found the warrant lying on the brick sleeping platform. He thrust it inside his jacket. Although Chai and She saw him come out of the door, they were unable to stop him before he was up and away over the roofs.

  When they were well away, Ping asked Xu Za. “How did it go?”

  “Well, I have the sorcerer’s book,” answered Xu Za, “but where shall we go now?”

  “Let’s go to the Kaihua district,” said Ping Yuanzhi. “At the Iron Buddha Temple there is a master outlaw who is a heaven-sent elder brother to us. He has sent invitations to men of the Greenwood, especially those among us who have been exposed. There are dozens of our Greenwood friends from Four Rivers Road there in his temple. He wants to make it a place of refuge, where we can all hide our faces behind our rice bowls. If we go there, it is like a hole in the ground. So let us go to the Kaihua district.”

  Xu Za replied, “We might as well!”

  The two went off, following the highway, until they came to a man they recognized as a friend.

  CHAPTER 62

  Xu Za describes the Iron Buddha Temple; the Daoist gives Ji Gong medicine

  THERE on the highway passing through the forest, the short man, Xu Za, with the sorcerer’s book that had caused the murder of both the Daoist and the imposter monk, walked with the false lame man, Ping Yuanzhi, who now had the warrant for Cloud Dragon Hua’s arrest. Approaching them from the opposite direction was none other than the Water Rat, Cloud Dragon Hua. Xu Za and Ping Yuanzhi quickened their pace and bowed to the other.

  Then Ping said, “Brother Hua, let me tell you something that will make you feel easier. I have brought the warrant for your arrest.”

  “Is this true?” asked Cloud Dragon Hua. Ping Yuanzhi then told him the story of how Li Daoming had been killed when Xu Za took the sorcerer’s book and about how the two headmen had kept the warrant in the hotel.

  When Cloud Dragon Hua understood everything, he asked, “Where are you two going now?”

  “To the Kaihua district,” responded Ping Yuanzhi. “Why not come with us? There is a master outlaw named Jiang Tianrui at the Iron Buddha Temple who has invited all of the men of the Greenwood to come there. A great many of our friends have gone there to hide out in safety. Let the three of us go together.”

  “Indeed, yes!” said Cloud Dragon.

  The three went on their way and that very day came to the Iron Buddha Temple in Kaihua. Looking around outside, they saw a great crowd of people packed together. Someone said, “The spirit of the Iron Buddha spits the words of men out of its mouth.”

  The three outlaws walked straight ahead and on into the back of the temple. There, they saw Jiang Tianrui, who was using his title, “the Golden Eye of Buddha.”

  The three bowed to him and Ping Yuanzhi asked, “Brother Jiang, where are all your friends?”

  “All of our friends have gone off on business along four different roads, except for a few whom I will call out and introduce to you.” There was much bowing and scraping and exchanging of greetings. Then Jiang asked, “Where did you three come from?”

  Cloud Dragon Hua and Xu Za each told his story. Then Jiang said, “Brother Xu, let me see that book you obtained, whatever it was.” Xu Za took out the book and handed it to Jiang. He looked at it and then said, “Brother Xu, this book is not something you could use. I will keep it here.”

  Xu Za was not very pleased and thought to himself, “That is my property, and I have not yet begun to tire of it. I didn’t offer to give it to him and he just kept it.” This turn of events was infuriating and he did not like it at all, but he could not object. He could not anger Jiang Tianrui, and so kept silent.

  At that time Cloud Dragon Hua spoke up. “I want to leave,” he stated.

  “Why?” asked Jiang Tianrui.

  “I am uneasy,” replied Cloud Dragon Hua. “I am afraid that Ji Gong will come looking for me and he will gather everyone else up at once. No one will escape.”

  “Friends,” said Jiang when he heard Cloud Dragon’s statement, “who will go to Longyou, find the monk Ji Dian, kill him, and bring back his head? Who can do it and relieve Brother Hua?”

  “I will go!” volunteered Xu Za. However, he was thinking to himself: “If I do not waste any time when I get to Longyou, find Ji Gong and behead him, very well. If I do waste my time, fail in that attempt, and get caught myself, I will draw everyone here out and not one person will get away.” He had offered to go out of hatred and resentment over his lost book.

  “Good!” said Jiang Tianrui. “Xu Za, I wish you luck in your attempt!”

  Xu Za then left Kaihua. That same day he arrived at the southeast corner of the wall at Longyou, where he happened to run into Ji Gong. As soon as Xu Za heard the monk saying, as if to himself, “Longyou is not like other places. You have to know what to do in a restaurant, or no matter how much you spend, they w
ill laugh at you.”

  Xu Za, especially since he was rather stupid, followed Ji Gong into a restaurant. There, the monk intentionally picked a fight with Xu Za and ran off down the street into town. Then the monk told the headmen to lock Xu Za in chains. When he tried to escape, the monk pointed at him and prevented him from getting away.

  When they reached the yamen, headman Yang Guodong went in and reported, “Ji Gong is not dead. He has just captured an outlaw.”

  The magistrate was in the midst of interrogating Jiang Fu and Li Lu and preparing their confessions. When he heard that Ji Gong was not dead, he immediately prepared to receive him. Ji Gong had the two head-men, Yin Shixiong and Yang Guodong, bring the outlaw into the audience hall. When the magistrate saw them, he said, “Holy monk, please be seated. What is the name of the robber there?”

  Xu Za was not at all unwilling to speak: “In reply to Your Honor, my name is Xu Za and I am called the Little Sprite. The monk who was beheaded in the Yang family’s hotel outside East Gate was really an outlaw named Li Daoming, known as the Kaifeng Demon. I killed him. Since he had taken the life of She Qiushuang, that lets me off the matter. It’s no business of mine.”

  “Nonsense!” stated the magistrate. “You killed the monk at the hotel. We have your confession and you stole the warrant.”

  “I did not steal the warrant,” countered Xu Za. “That was stolen by the painted lame man, Ping Yuanzhi. He and Cloud Dragon Hua are both living at the Iron Buddha Temple in Kaihua. That temple has many more men of the Greenwood living there.”

  When the magistrate heard this, he did not ask anything further, but ordered that Xu Za be put in prison and kept in chains. Then the magistrate said, “Saintly monk, I ask once more for your help. Will you take my headmen and capture these outlaws?”

  “I can do it,” replied the monk. “If Your Honor will prepare a warrant, I will take Yang Guodong, Yin Shixiong, Chai Yuanlo, and She Chenying and go.” The magistrate prepared the warrant and handed it to Yang Guodong. The monk took the four men, and leaving the yamen went straight to the highway. As the monk walked, he sang: