Zhenyuanzi

Zhenyuanzi lived at the Wuzhuang Temple on Mount Wanshou. The temple held a copy of the Earth Book, which records the quarters of the world and the run of its mountains and rivers, and a ginseng-fruit tree said to flower once in three thousand years, fruit once in three thousand more, and ripen after three thousand again — ten thousand years in all, for only thirty fruit.

The same tradition says Zhenyuanzi and Hongyun were close friends who often sat talking in the Wuzhuang Temple, one on the reasoning of the earth-veins and the other on the mystery of the purple qi. They took each other for true friends, and the boys came and went with tea while the hours slipped by.

After Hongyun left Zixiao Palace with the Primordial Purple Qi Hongjun had granted him, he was set upon on the road by Kunpeng and others. The news reached the Wuzhuang Temple only afterwards. Zhenyuanzi set out at once; the country changed colour and dust hid the sky as he went, and when he found the old battleground there was nothing left but wreckage and no sign of Hongyun.

Zhenyuanzi searched the ruins carefully and found a few of Hongyun’s belongings scattered there. He carried them back to the Wuzhuang Temple, set aside a room for them, and on quiet nights afterwards still sat there alone, saying nothing to them.

Long ages followed. Zhenyuanzi kept to the Wuzhuang Temple, took no part in the quarrels of the world, and guarded only his garden of ginseng fruit and that copy of the Earth Book, with the boys Qingfeng and Mingyue in attendance, sweeping the courtyard, everything as it had always been.

As Tang Sanzang’s westward road neared Mount Wanshou, Zhenyuanzi was invited by Yuanshi Tianzun to the Miluo Palace to hear the doctrine of the primal attainment. Before leaving he called Qingfeng and Mingyue and charged them with the gate and the tree.

Zhenyuanzi added that Tang Sanzang in a former life, as the Golden Cicada, had once offered him tea at an Ullambana assembly and was therefore an old acquaintance; he told the two boys to pick two ginseng fruits for the pilgrim when he came, and rode his cloud away to the assembly.

When the pilgrims reached Mount Wanshou, Qingfeng and Mingyue opened the garden as their master had said and offered Tang Sanzang two ginseng fruits. Seeing that they had the shape of infants, he was frightened and would not touch them, and told the boys to take them away.

Bajie, hearing the name of the fruit from the kitchen, was seized by greed and pushed Sun Wukong into stealing some. Wukong slipped into the garden and knocked down three with the golden staff, which he shared with Bajie and Sha Seng. The boys found the tree short of fruit, counted again and again, and worked out the number.

The two boys taunted the three for the theft. Sun Wukong, angry, used his power that night to push the ginseng-fruit tree over. It went down with a crash, its branches scattered and its roots exposed, and Qingfeng and Mingyue burst into tears.

Coming back from the Miluo Palace and finding the tree on the ground, Zhenyuanzi heard the boys out and rode his cloud after the pilgrims at once. He spread his sleeve, worked the art of the world within a sleeve, and swept the four of them and the horse together back to the temple.

Zhenyuanzi drew all four into his sleeve, brought them out, had them bound before the temple, and had them beaten with a whip in the open. Tang Sanzang was first; Sun Wukong pleaded several times, and Zhenyuanzi paid no attention and went on in order.

Once Sun Wukong had got free, he went first to the isles of Penglai to ask the three stars of Fortune, Rank and Longevity, then to Fangzhang for the Lord of the East, then to Yingzhou for the Nine Elders. None of them had a way to revive the tree; they only promised to buy him time.

Wukong went on to Mount Putuo in the southern sea and laid the whole matter before Guanyin. She took her vase of sweet dew, had Wukong lead her back to the Wuzhuang Temple, and with a willow sprig sprinkled the dew where the roots had been torn, walking round the tree and chanting, watering it again and again.

The dew soaked into the soil and the ginseng-fruit tree came slowly back to life: the broken roots joined, the trunk stood again, and the fruit scattered on the ground returned to their places. The garden was as it had been, and Zhenyuanzi stood by throughout without lifting a hand.

With the tree alive, Zhenyuanzi set out a ginseng-fruit feast and invited Guanyin to it, and had Qingfeng and Mingyue bring down ten fruit. The pilgrims, Guanyin and Zhenyuanzi ate together, and the beating was passed over and never raised again.

When the feast broke up, Zhenyuanzi and Sun Wukong bowed to each other and became sworn brothers — an episode found only in Journey to the West itself. The pilgrims went on west, and Zhenyuanzi stayed at his temple and did not see them off.

The Wuzhuang Temple returned to its old quiet. The ginseng-fruit tree grew again by the old rule of three thousand years to flower and three thousand to fruit, and Zhenyuanzi stayed there guarding the Earth Book and the tree, the garden gate opening and closing, the boys sweeping as before.