Adventures of the Mad Monk Ji Gong

by Guo Xiaoting

  Suddenly he saw in front of him a large gateway with a lantern above it. It was evidently the entrance to a home of wealth. He thought to himself, “Perhaps I can stay there. It will be comfortable and I can get some refreshment. Yes, I will stay there tonight and ask for a meal.” As he approached the gateway and was about to knock, an old man came out with a scholar’s kerchief on his head. He was dressed in a blue robe with a silken girdle. His face was kindly and he seemed to be about sixty years old. He had the appearance of one who had once been an official.

  Cloud Dragon Hua approached the old man and raised his clasped hands politely in greeting. “Reverend Sir,” Cloud Dragon Hua said, “I am a traveler who has lost his way to the next inn. I beg you to grant me lodging for the night, and a meal. Tomorrow, early in the morning, I will leave.”

  The old man lifted his head and looked at him. “What is my guest’s honorable name and how many are traveling with him?”

  “My name is Hua,” answered Cloud Dragon, “and there is only myself.”

  “Please come in and sit down,” said the old man. Cloud Dragon followed him inside. Cloud Dragon noticed that the parlor was furnished with great refinement. “Please be seated,” the host said.

  “I have not yet heard your honorable name,” said Cloud Dragon Hua.

  “My name is Hu,” said the old man. As he spoke, another male member of the household entered the room.

  “Yuanwai, sir,” the man who had just entered said to the old man, “the junior yuanwai and many guests are waiting for you to join them at the feast.”

  “I’m afraid I cannot keep you company just now,” the yuanwai told his guest. “In a little while we will have time to chat.” Meanwhile, he ordered the servants to give the guest wine and food, saying, “Be careful to see to his wants.”

  Cloud Dragon Hua noticed that all the dishes they served were the ones he liked best to eat. Filled with happiness, he ate and drank to his heart’s content, thinking to himself, “The owner of this mansion must have liked my appearance to treat me like this.” His heart overflowed with gratitude. Just as he was thinking this, he heard the sound of footsteps outside.

  “Is Yuanwai in the room?” Hearing the gentle tone of the speaker’s voice, Cloud Dragon realized that it was the voice of a young woman, and refrained from answering. Then the bamboo curtain at the door was lifted. A beautiful girl stepped into the room. She was dressed in soft silken garments that seemed to float in the air about her. Looking at her, Cloud Dragon thought, “I have never seen such a beauty in my life before.”

  She drew in her breath in a gasp and looked at him as if to ask, “Who let this rough young man in here?” Then, without speaking, she turned and left the room.

  Cloud Dragon Hua was, after all, a robber who felt no shame at the thought of destroying the innocence of such a young lady. He stood up, aroused by desire, and followed her out into an inner courtyard and then into the building on the north side.

  She looked at him, her eyes filled with tears. “Cloud Dragon Hua,” she said, “you really are very bold! Think about what you are doing! Have you any power to reason at all? Come and look there!” She pointed to the wall.

  Cloud Dragon Hua looked and saw the verse he had written about himself long before on the wall of a room in the residence of Prime Minister Qin. “Strange!” he thought. “How did she know I was Cloud Dragon Hua?”

  He was about to ask her when the young woman pointed and said, “Look! There is Ji Gong!” Cloud Dragon Hua turned his head and saw the monk approaching. The outlaw was nearly out of his mind with fright.

  CHAPTER 68

  Cloud Dragon Hua meets a ghost; the iron-shop manager talks of escorts

  AS Cloud Dragon Hua looked at the monk, he began to shake with a chilling fear. Then he realized as he looked around that he was still sitting in the grove, leaning against the tree and shivering in the night air. Like the famous man who dreamed that he had been made governor of the great city of Nanko, but woke to find that the city existed only in his dream, Cloud Hua had had a dream almost more real than actual life.

  What had happened was that Ji Gong had projected his presence on to Cloud Dragon Hua. It was this presence that had caused the dream, to test whether Cloud Dragon would show any signs of reforming. Ji Gong might seem terrible because of his powers, but he was really a kindly being who wished to see whether Cloud Dragon could be saved from the evil side of his own nature. Although Cloud Dragon seemed to be an altogether heartless and cruel person, the fact that he feared Ji Gong so greatly showed that a battle between good and evil was still going on somewhere in Cloud Dragon Hua’s heart. This was why Ji Gong had not simply captured him long before. That would have been an easy matter. Keeping him from destroying himself and others, while trying to save his better nature, was much more difficult.

  As yet, however, even in his dreams, the evil in Cloud Dragon’s heart seemed to remain unchanged. As he awoke from his dream, frightened and covered with sweat, he looked up and saw that the sky was filled with stars. It was now about the second watch. He stood up and walked onward. In front of him he saw a form that proved to be human. The outlaw drew his sword, and as they came nearer together, the other spoke, “Brother Hua!” Looking more closely, Cloud Dragon saw that it was no stranger, but the Black Wind Ghost, Jiang Ying.

  “Dear Brother Jiang, where are you going?” asked Cloud Dragon.

  Jiang Ying, the Black Wind Ghost, came closer and raised his clasped hands in greeting. “It has been a long time, Second Brother,” he said.

  Now, since the time when Jiang Ying had left Yang Ming’s home, where he had been a guest for some time, he had wandered about with no fixed place to stay. Then he had gone to the ancient Veiled Mountain Abbey to see the sorcerer Hua Qingfeng, the uncle of Hua Yun Long. Sorcerer Hua knew that Jiang Ying and his nephew were sworn brothers and therefore let him stay at the shrine and treated him as a friend.

  On the day that Golden Eye, also called Jiang Tianrui, had fled back to the Veiled Mountain Shrine from the Iron Buddha Temple, the sorcerer Hua had stared at Golden Eye in surprise. “You look terrible,” he said, “and what has happened to your beard?” he asked. In reply Golden Eye told the whole story, from start to finish, of how Ji Gong had come to exorcise the Iron Buddha Temple, and finally how Golden Eye’s beard had become tangled and matted with blood when he was slapping his own face.

  Sorcerer Hua’s anger fairly blazed up as he listened. “That mad Ji Gong!” he exclaimed. “I will keep this in my mind until we are revenged. He has no consideration! I will have him!”

  Golden Eye knelt and offered up his mystic treasure sword to the sorcerer, who stared at it for some time. After thinking it over, he decided to enlist the aid of all five of the outlaws nicknamed “the Ghosts of Four Rivers,” reasoning that the mystic number of five had greater powers than any of those possessed by the ragged monk. “Together,” the sorcerer said, “these five could certainly put an end to Ji Gong.” And so he sent Jiang Ying, the Black Wind Ghost, down from the mountain to assemble Cloud Dragon and the other three sworn brothers. Tonight Jiang Ying had just met Cloud Dragon Hua, who was one of the five.

  “Where have you been these days, dear brother Jiang?” queried Cloud Dragon.

  “For a while I stayed near Dragon Ridge and Phoenix Ridge,” Jiang replied, “but I was surprised that Yang Ming was not as friendly as before. After his fifteen-year-old daughter mysteriously disappeared, his manner was different and he said several things that were not very polite. You know my temperament, brother, and so I left his home and went up to the Veiled Mountain Shrine. Now your uncle has asked me to do an errand for him. Where are you going now, Second Brother?”

  “Just now I have no particular place to go. The monk from the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat has been pursuing me,” Cloud Dragon answered.

  “Second Brother,” said Jiang, “come up with me to the Veiled Mountain Shrine. Your uncle is called the Sorcerer of the Ninth Palace. He will wel
come you and perhaps can intercede with Ji Gong, monk to monk, mystery to mystery, Dao to Dao. The three faiths of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism are really all one family. Your uncle and Ji Gong are both people who have left the world. They are not officials and not bound by the same rules as officials. Even though you have broken the emperor’s national laws, what is that to them? They are hermits. Come up with me and see your uncle and you will have a safe place to relax.”

  “Yes, I suppose I could go with you,” said Cloud Dragon Hua, “but first I have to buy some darts. I have used up the last of mine. I depend upon poison darts for self-defense.”

  “If you want to buy darts,” said Jiang, “there is a place at Rising Ground Village just ahead.” The two walked on slowly. When they arrived at the village and the sun was a little higher, Jiang Ying said, “I will wait here for you at the entrance to the village.”

  “Good,” said Cloud Dragon Hua. He entered the village, and when he came to the crossroad, turned east. He saw on the south side of the road a large iron shop with the name “No Mother-in-Law Iron Shop” above the door. The shop was freestanding, with no neighbors sharing a wall, and had a wide front. To the west, in an open lot, a hawker had set up shop beside the road. To the east, a fortune-teller had built a little hearth.

  Cloud Dragon Hua looked up at the shop gate and saw a tall old man standing there. He was wearing a short blue outer garment and a square blue kerchief tied over the hair knot on his head. His face was a long oval, like a large date with two large eyes and snow-white hair and beard. “This must be the manager,” thought Hua and so he stepped up and asked, “Manager, do you sell darts?”

  The old man looked Cloud Dragon up and down, eyeing his white crane’s-feather jacket of the kind fashionable with brave fellows. “We do,” he replied. “What kind of darts are you looking for, sir?”

  “I want the kind that will ride on the wind,” answered Cloud Dragon Hua. “Do you have them?”

  “We have some, but not the kind that will ride on the wind. Will you come inside and sit down? You may look at them and see whether they satisfy you or not. I can ask a craftsman to forge some for you.”

  Cloud Dragon nodded his head, went inside the office, and sat down. “How many would you like to buy?” the old man asked.

  “Oh, eight of one and six of the other. No, twelve altogether,” replied Cloud Dragon Hua. “I’ll take twelve altogether, and they should weigh about three ounces each.”

  “Yes,” said the old man. “I have some ready-made, but perhaps they are a little heavy. If you could use them, that would come to six ounces of silver. If you want them to ride on the wind, the workman could make them, especially if you would add a couple of ounces of silver for his trouble—to buy him a drink, you know.”

  “A few ounces of silver are nothing,” Cloud Dragon Hua thought to himself, and he said, “The price is up to you. I can wait.”

  “Very well,” said the old man, but he brought a dart to show Hua.

  Hua looked at it and remarked, “It is heavy.”

  “Wait a bit, sir, and they will have some ready,” said the old man. He called one of the servants to make a pot of tea and said to him, “We don’t have any water here in the shop. Go and draw some.” Meanwhile, he whispered some words into the little servant’s ear. The servant nodded and went out.

  The old man went on talking with Cloud Dragon Hua. “Ordinarily what do you do, sir?”

  “Travelers’ escort,” replied Cloud Dragon Hua.

  “Since you are an escort,” the old man said, “let me mention a few names of people whom you may know.”

  “I know a good many—there are not many I don’t know,” said Cloud Dragon Hua.

  “Well, there is Huang Yun, nicknamed ‘the Swallow from South Road.’ Do you know him?”

  “I know the name,” said Cloud Dragon Hua.

  “And the escort leader Chen Xiao with the beautiful whiskers from the North Road, and his somewhat sickly, pale friend, Yang Meng? Do you know them?”

  “Oh, they are like my brothers,” said Cloud Dragon.

  “Then there is iron-faced Chen Shengyuan, who hasn’t an enemy in the world, and Zhou Shen, the escort head in West Road. You must know them.”

  “I do,” said Cloud Dragon.

  “Now there is another talented and worthy escort, Yang Ming. You probably know him, too,” said the old man.

  “He is no stranger to me,” said Cloud Dragon.

  “Well, that’s about it,” said the old man. “Here is the servant with the tea.” The little servant gave Hua a cup of tea, and a bit later came to say that the darts had been forged. The old man brought them in and gave them to Cloud Dragon to look at.

  “The points are still a little heavy,” said Cloud Dragon Hua. “I’m afraid that when they are thrown, they will go wide of the mark.”

  “Why don’t you try them out, sir?” asked the old man. “We have a place in the back courtyard. If they are not right, we can ask the workman to adjust the weight.”

  “Good!” exclaimed Cloud Dragon.

  Carrying the darts with one hand, the old man led the way for Cloud Dragon and opened the door to the back courtyard. Cloud Dragon was surprised to see that it was so extensive. On the west and south sides were high walls, each fifty or sixty feet long. At one end of the south wall was a closed gate. There were no adjoining neighbors. The courtyard was floored with earth. It was an ideal place to try out weapons.

  Cloud Dragon Hua looked around and heard a noise at the gate. It opened and two men carrying iron staves entered. The man in the lead was tall and dark with a hawklike face, and looked like a powerful opponent with an air of authority. He was named Lo Biao, and was known as “the Hawk-faced Man.” The other man was somewhat similar in appearance. He was named Zhou Rui and called Evening Mound, the name given to him by a soothsayer. “Evening” was the character for his zodiac sign, and it was also associated with the word “mistake.” Someone said to him jokingly, “If you find the mound, don’t make a mistake.” Zhou Rui never understood why the soothsayer had included the word “mound” in his name.

  Both Lo Biao and Zhou Rui were beardless. Behind them came a crowd of less imposing men. The two headmen called out with one voice, “Where do you think you are going, Cloud Dragon Hua? You dare to commit murder and arson here! Don’t think you can escape us!”

  Now Cloud Dragon Hua had never committed any offenses in this area. However, there was a new district magistrate in Chengshan, and there had been a case of robbery and arson at a pawnshop, as well as the murder of a carter. The magistrate called his two extremely able headmen to his chambers. He gave them ten days to solve the cases, with a promise of reward if they succeeded and demotion if they failed.

  CHAPTER 69

  The Tangled Hair Ghost is rescued; Headman Zhou seeks his father’s advice

  EACH of the headmen assembled a dozen top deputies to help. They happened to be making inquiries in the neighborhood of Wild Tiger Hill just as some travelers were returning from Linan. One of them came running up to the headmen to report that they had been stopped by a robber who demanded their money, saying that he was master of that road and that all who passed must pay him.

  One of the travelers who was stopped by the highwayman was Jeng Xiong, who lived at Phoenix Hill In Linan. He was known as Iron-Faced Jeng Xiong because of the strength of his character, which matched his unusual body strength. As he looked at the outlaw who demanded payment from the travelers, Jeng Xiong thought to himself, “This is a fine-looking fellow, well built and strong, who has been driven to a life of crime by poverty. Perhaps I can help him out so that he can return to the right path.”

  Therefore, he said: “My friend, I can see that you are an impressive hero, straightforward and courageous. I feel that you must have taken the wrong road because of your difficulties. I would like to lend you twenty ounces of silver to set yourself up in some kind of business. I don’t like to see you simply become a robber. If you ha
ve some pressing trouble, you can tell me about it and I can help you further.”

  The outlaw laughed loudly and said, “You can stop wagging your tongue about helping me out with twenty ounces of silver. You will have to give me whatever you have—your valuables, your donkey, everything.”

  When Jeng Xiong heard this, he became furious. “You think that I’m afraid of you, you ignorant beast! Today I will teach you a lesson!” As he spoke, Iron-Faced Jeng Xiong began to beat the robber’s back with his bamboo staff. The outlaw leaped aside and attacked with his sword. Jeng Xiong came back at him, his blows raining down on the robber’s shoulders faster than the eye could see. It was like beating a snake in the grass. After a while Jeng Xiong ceased, since he thought the outlaw had been taught a lesson. He intended to let him go rather than sending him to a yamen.

  But the robber began to curse, and then said, “You may be great lords, but would you dare to tell me your name?”

  The other traveler spoke up and said, “I’ll tell you my name. It is Ma, you villain, Ma Ran. What about it? Are you going to send someone after me?”

  “Good,” said the outlaw. “Ma Ran, you had better watch out.” Little did Ma Ran think that, as a result of giving the robber his name, the Ma household would be attacked and members of his family injured. The two travelers had just tied up the outlaw when the two headmen, Lo and Zhou, arrived on the scene.

  “Ah! It is the official Ma,” said Headman Lo. “You have taken an outlaw. Very good indeed! Just recently, at a pawnshop outside the south gate, there has been a case of arson and theft in which a good deal of clothing was lost, and outside the east gate there has been a murder. The magistrate is extremely anxious about these two cases and has asked us to solve them. You can hand over this outlaw to us.”