One day in late spring the whole community gathered under the shade of some pine trees to expound the scriptures, meditate and discuss the inner mysteries. A bibulous, meat-eating monk who had been confounded in a disputation by Xuanzang lost his temper and started to abuse him: “You animal, you don't know your own surname or who your parents were. Don't try any of your clever tricks here.” Stung by this abuse, Xuanzang went into the temple and knelt before his teacher with tears streaming from his eyes.
“All men who are born between Heaven and Earth, and who are endowed with the Positive, the Negative, and the Five Elements-all are begotten by a father and reared by a mother,” he said. “How can there be any man alive who never had father and mother?” He begged over and over again to know his parents' names.
“If you really wish to find out about your father and mother, come with me into my cell,” said the abbot, and they went there together. The abbot lifted down a little box from on top of a massive beam, opened it, took out a letter written in blood and a shift, and gave them to Xuanzang, who unfolded the letter and read it. At last he learned about his parents and the wrongs they had suffered.
When he had read it he collapsed, weeping and crying out, “How can I be a man if I don't avenge my father and mother? For seventeen years I haven't known my own parents, but now I know that I have a mother. I would not be alive today, teacher, had you not rescued me and brought me up. Please allow me to go and see my mother, then I will put an incense-burner on my head and rebuild the temple to repay the great kindness you have shown me.”
“If you want to go and look for your mother you had better take the letter written in blood and the shift with you. If you go to the private residence of the prefect of Jiangzhou you will be able to see your mother.”
Xuanzang did as his teacher had said and went to Jiangzhou as a mendicant monk. It happened that Liu Hong was away on business, and as Heaven had arranged for mother and son to meet, Xuanzang went straight to the gateway of the residence to beg for alms. Miss Yin had dreamt the previous night of the moon being eclipsed and then coming back to its full roundness.
“I have never heard from my mother-in-law,” she thought, “and my husband was murdered by that evil man. My son was abandoned on the river, and if he was rescued and brought up, he would be seventeen now. Who knows, perhaps Heaven is going to make us meet today.” As she was deep in her reflections she heard someone chanting scriptures and calling for alms in front of her home, so she thought she would go out and ask him where he had come from, and he replied, “I am a disciple of Abbot Faming of the Jinshan Temple.”
“A disciple of Abbot Faming of the Jinshan Temple, are you?” she said. She asked him in and gave him a vegetarian meal while observing closely the way he moved and talked.
He seemed very much like her husband, so she sent the servants away and asked, “Tell me, young teacher, have you been a monk since childhood or did you become one later in life? What is your name? Do you have a mother and father?”
“I did not become a monk when I was a child nor when I was older,” he replied. “I must tell you that I bear a hatred as deep as the sea because of a terrible wrong. My father was murdered and my mother carried off by an evil man. The Abbot Faming, my teacher, told me to come and find my mother in the residence of the prefect of Jiangzhou.”
“What is your mother's name?” she asked.
“My mother's name is Yin Wenqiao,” he replied. “My father was called Chen Guangrui. My milk-name was Jiangliu, and my Buddhist name is Xuanzang.”
“I am Yin Wenqiao,” she said, then added, “Have you any proof?” When he learned that she was his mother, Xuanzang fell to his knees and wept aloud.
“Mother,” he said, “if you don't believe me, then look at this evidence-the blood letter and the shift.” As soon as she saw that they were the real ones, she and her son embraced each other and wept.
Then she said, “Go away at once.”
“I can't possibly leave you, mother, on the very day I've seen you after seventeen years of not even knowing who my parents were,” he said.
“My child, you must go away as fast as you can,” she replied. “The evil Liu will certainly kill you if he comes back. Tomorrow I'll pretend to be ill and say that I once made a vow to donate a hundred pairs of monks' shoes. I'll come to your temple to fulfil the vow, and I'll talk to you then.” Xuanzang obediently bowed to her and left.
Now that she had seen her son Miss Yin was both anxious and happy. One day she said that she was ill, and she lay in her bed refusing food and tea. When Liu Hong came back and asked what was the matter she said, “When I was young I once vowed that I would donate a hundred pairs of monks' shoes. Five days ago I dreamt that a monk came with a sharp sword in his hand to demand the shoes, and since then I haven't been feeling well.”
“That's easily done,” said Liu Hong. “Why didn't you mention it before?” He took his place in the official hall and gave instructions to yamen assistants Wang and Li that every household living in the city of Jiangzhou was to make a pair of monk's shoes and hand them in within five days.
When the common people had handed all the shoes in, Miss Yin said to Liu Hong, “Now that the shoes have been made, what temples are there here to which I can take them to fulfil my vow?”
“In Jiangzhou we have the Jinshan Temple and the Jiaoshan Temple; you can go to whichever of them you prefer,” replied Liu Hong.
“I've long heard that the Jinshan Temple is a good one, so I'll go there,” she said. Liu Hong told the yamen assistants Wang and Li to arrange a boat. Miss Yin went aboard with a trusted servant, the boatman pushed off, and they headed for the Jinshan Temple.
On his return to the temple Xuanzang gave Abbot Faming a full account of what had happened. The abbot was delighted. The next day a maid arrived at the temple to say that her mistress was coining to repay a vow, and all the monks came out to welcome her. When Miss Yin came into the temple she prayed to the Bodhisattva, offered a rich meal to the monks with a donation of money to each of them, and told her maid to put the shoes and the summer socks into the offertory tray. She then went into the Buddha-hall and worshipped with great devotion. When she told him to, Abbot Faming went away to distribute the gifts to the monks. Xuanzang saw that all the other monks had gone and that there was nobody else in the Buddha-hall, so he went up to his mother and knelt down. She told him to take off his shoes and socks and saw that one toe was indeed missing from his left foot. The pair of them hugged each other and cried again, then they bowed to the abbot to thank him for his kindness in bringing the boy up.
“I'm worried that the villain may get to know of your reunion,” said the abbot, “so you had better go back as quickly as you can to avoid trouble.”
“My son,” said Miss Yin, “I shall give you a sandalwood bracelet. You must go to a place called the Ten Thousand Flowers Inn to the Northwest of Hongzhou, which is about five hundred miles from here, where we left Madame Zhang, your paternal grandmother. I shall also write you a letter that you must take to the house of the minister Yin Kaishan which lies to the left of the palace inside the capital city of the Tang Emperor. He is my father. Give him this letter and ask him to submit a memorial to the Tang Emperor asking him to send horse and foot to capture or kill that bandit. Then your father will be avenged and your mother will be rescued. I must stay no longer as I am afraid that evil man may be suspicious if I am late back.” She left the temple and went back in her boat.