When Pig saw the great yellow hurricane blow up and cast Heaven and Earth into darkness, he held on to the horse and kept a grip on the carrying pole while he crouched in the hollow on the mountain side, not daring to open his eyes or raise his head as he invoked the Buddha and made all sorts of vows to him. He did not know whether Monkey had won or lost, or whether their master was still alive. As he worried about all this the wind died down and the sky became clear again. He raised his head to look towards the entrance of the cave, but he could neither see any weapons nor hear any gongs or drums. The idiot did not want to get any nearer to those gates, and there was nobody else to look after the horse and the baggage, so he was stuck there, not knowing what to do, and feeling miserable. His gloomy thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Monkey shouting to the West of him. Pig half rose to his feet to welcome him and said, “That was quite a wind, elder brother. Where've you been?”
“That was terrible,” said Monkey, “Never in my life have I known such a hurricane. That old fiend came out to fight me with a steel trident, and after we'd been at it for thirty rounds I used my extra body trick to surround him. This made him so worried that he deliberately summoned up the wind. It was really vicious-it blew so hard I couldn't stand my ground, so I had to put my tricks away and clear out. What a wind, what a wind! I can call up wind or rain, but I've never produced anything as vicious as his.”
“Can that evil monster fight well?” Pig asked.
“He's not bad at all,” Monkey replied, “and he has a very neat way with this trident. We were evenly matched, apart from that foul wind, which makes him unbeatable.”
“Then how are we going to rescue our master?” Pig asked.
“His rescue will have to wait,” Monkey replied. “I wonder if there's an oculist near here to treat my eyes.”
“What's happened to them?” Pig asked.
“When that monster blew his wind at me,” said Monkey, “it made my eyes very sore, and they keep on watering.”
“We're halfway up a mountain, and night's falling,” said Pig. “Never mind about an oculist, there's nowhere for us to shelter for the night.”
“There's no problem about shelter,” Monkey replied. “I don't think that evil spirit will dare to do our master any harm, so let's find the main path and look for a house to stay in tonight. We can come back here at first light to subdue that fiend.”
“Very well, very well,” Pig replied.
Leading the horse and carrying the baggage, they came out of the hollow and went along the path. The dusk was gradually deepening when they heard dogs barking under a hill to the South of the path. They stopped to look and saw a farmhouse with a lamp shining brightly in its window. The pair of them stopped bothering to look for the path and cut straight through the grass to the gate. They saw
Dark magic fungus,
Greeny white rocks.
The magic fungus was dark among the many herbs,
The white rocks were green with moss.
Some tiny fireflies made dots of light
Against the dense ranks of the forest trees.
Heavy was the fragrance of the orchid,
And the tender bamboo had been newly cut.
A pure spring flowed along a winding bed,
An ancient cypress hung over a cliff.
No travelers came to this remote spot,
And only wild flowers bloomed before the gate.
As they did not want to march straight in, the two of them shouted, “Open up, open up.”
An old man came out at the head of several farm hands carrying forks, rakes and brooms. “Who are you,” he asked, “who are you?”
“We are the disciples of the holy priest of the Great Tang in the East,” replied Monkey with a bow. “We were crossing these mountains on our way to the West to visit the Buddha and ask for the scriptures when the Great King of the Yellow Wind snatched our master away. We haven't been able to rescue him yet, but as it is getting dark we have come to beg for a night's lodging in your mansion, and we hope very much that you will help us.”
The old man returned his bow and said, “I'm sorry I didn't welcome you properly. This is a place where we see a lot of clouds but very few people, and when I heard you shouting at the gate I feared it might be fox-spirits, tigers, bandits from the mountains, or something of the sort. I am afraid that I have stupidly offended you: I did not realize it would be two reverend gentlemen. Please come in.” Taking the horse and the luggage with them they went inside, tethered the animal, put down the carrying pole, bowed to the old man, and sat down. A servant came in with tea, and when they had drunk it some bowls of sesame meal were produced. After they had eaten, the old man had beds prepared for them and suggested that they went to bed. “We don't need to sleep yet,” Monkey replied, adding, “may I ask you, kind sir, if eye ointment is sold anywhere around here?”
“Do you have a chronic eye complaint, reverend sir?” the old man asked.
“I can tell you truthfully, sir,” Monkey replied, “that we religious men have never been ill before, and I've never had trouble with my eyes before.”
“Then why are you asking for ointment?” the old man asked.
“We were trying to rescue our master on the Yellow Wind Ridge today,” Monkey explained, “when that monster started blowing his wind at me, which made my eyes ache. They're streaming with tears now, which is why I want to find some eye ointment.”
“A fine story,” the old man commented. “How could you tell such lies, a reverend gentleman, and so young a one at that? The Great King of the Yellow Wind's hurricane is really terrible. It can't be compared with spring winds, autumn winds, pine and bamboo winds, or North, South, East and West winds.”
“It must be a brain-snatching wind,” interrupted Pig, “or a goat's ear wind, or a hemp wind, or a head-twisting wind.”
“No, no,” the old man said, “it's called a Divine Samadhi Wind.”
“What's it like?” Monkey asked.
“It can darken Heaven and Earth,
Make gods and devils gloomy,
Split rocks open and bring cliffs down,
And it doesn't stop till you're dead,”
the old man replied. “If you'd encountered that wind, you couldn't possibly have survived. Only a god or an Immortal would be able to survive such a wind.”
“Quite right,” Monkey replied, “quite right. Although we're not gods or Immortals ourselves, I regard them as my juniors, and this life of mine is extremely hard to snuff out-all the wind could do was to make my eyes very sore.”
“If what you say is true,” the old man said, “you must really be somebody. Although there is nowhere that sells eye ointment here, I sometimes suffer from watering eyes myself when I'm in the wind, and I once met an unusual person who gave me a prescription for 'Three Flower Nine Seed Ointment'. This cures all inflammations of the eye.”
Monkey bowed his head, chanted a respectful “na-a-aw,” and said, “Please put a little on my eyes for me to try.” The old man consented, went inside, and brought out a tiny agate bottle. Removing the stopper, he dipped a jade hairpin inside and put a tiny amount in Monkey's eyes, then told him not to open them. He could go to sleep without worrying, and in the morning he would be cured. When he had finished applying it he put the stopper back the bottle and gave it to a servant to put away inside. Pig opened their bundles, spread out their bedding, and told Monkey to go to bed.