沙和尚

English (for the teacher)

Master and his two disciples walked on for a long time and came to a great river. A stone tablet stood on the bank, carved with three big characters: Flowing Sand River. Beneath were a few lines of small writing, saying the river was eight hundred li wide, and its water so soft that even a goose feather laid on it would sink to the bottom. The Tang Monk looked out at the endless water and grew anxious.

Just then a great wave rose up in the river, and out leapt a monster. He had a head of red hair, two eyes as bright as lamps and nine skulls hanging around his neck, and with a long staff in his hand he rushed at the Tang Monk. Wukong quickly picked up his master and ran to higher ground, while Bajie went to meet the monster with his rake.

The two of them fought on the bank for more than twenty rounds, and still neither could win. Wukong couldn't hold back any longer. He leapt in and swung his rod. Seeing things go badly, the monster turned and dived into the river, and was gone. Bajie said crossly: "Brother, what's the hurry? A few more rounds and I'd have caught him!"

Wukong laughed: "I'm not much good in the water. You used to command the River of Heaven and you can swim, so go down and lure him up, and I'll hit him from the bank." Bajie jumped into the water and started fighting the monster again. After they had fought a while, Bajie pretended to be beaten and ran for the bank, and the monster chased after him. As soon as Wukong saw him, he rushed over and raised his rod to strike. The monster ducked back into the water again. After that, no matter how Bajie called, he simply wouldn't come up.

Wukong had no choice but to go to the South Sea to see Guanyin. Guanyin said: "I told that monster to wait there for the pilgrim. Why didn't you tell him that you're the pilgrims?" She called her disciple Huian, gave him a red gourd and told him to go to the Flowing Sand River with Wukong.

Huian stood on the bank and called out loudly: "Wujing! Wujing! The pilgrim is here. Why haven't you come out?" As soon as the monster heard this, he came out of the water, knelt before the Tang Monk and took him as his master.

He had once been the Curtain-Lifting General in heaven. At the Peach Banquet he accidentally broke a glass cup, and the Jade Emperor banished him here. Starving in the river, he ate the people who passed by. Long ago, nine monks on their way to fetch the scriptures had come this way, and he had eaten them all. Everyone else's heads sank to the riverbed, but these nine monks' skulls floated on the water and would not sink however he tried. He thought it strange, so he strung them together and hung them around his neck. Some say those nine monks were really the Tang Monk himself, in his nine earlier lives.

He said: "Guanyin has already given me a name: Sha Wujing." The Tang Monk said: "You're a monk now, so I'll call you Sha Heshang, Sandy the monk." Then he bowed to Wukong and Bajie and called them his elder brothers in the faith. Huian said: "Guanyin says that if you put your nine skulls together with this gourd, they'll make a boat to carry the Tang Monk across." They tied the nine skulls together with a rope, put the red gourd in the middle and set it in the river, and at once it became a little boat. The Tang Monk sat in the boat, Bajie and Sandy steadied it on either side, Wukong guarded them from the air, the White Dragon Horse followed behind, and very soon they were safely across the river. The moment they stepped ashore, the little boat turned into nine gusts of wind and vanished.

A master, three disciples and a white dragon horse: the pilgrims were all together at last. But on the road to the West, eighty-one trials lay waiting for them.