Journey Supplemental 001: When It Rains
We embark on a three-episode mini-arc to find out why the Tang emperor was convening a big gathering of monks.
Transcript
Welcome to the Chinese Lore Podcast, where I retell classic Chinese stories in English. This is a supplemental episode for Journey to the West.
In episode 9 of Journey to the West, we followed the Bodhisattva Guanyin to the capital of the Tang empire in search of a suitably devout Buddhist monk to go on a pilgrimage to the West. As luck would have it, the Tang emperor had just convened a huge assembly of venerable monks from across his empire. At that point, the novel went into a multi-chapter digression about why the emperor did this. That digression didn’t fit with anything else in the story and brought the whole thing to a grinding halt, so I cut it out of the narrative and put it into this supplemental episode. Actually, this is such a lengthy digression that I had to break it out over THREE supplemental episodes. I’m going to release one of those a week for the next three weeks.
This digression starts nowhere near the Tang imperial court. Instead, we find ourselves on the bank of the Jing (1) River outside the Tang capital of Chang’an, watching a fisherman and a woodcutter shoot the breeze. Both of them were scholars who had failed to place on the national civil service exam and now lived in the hills outside the city. One day, after they had sold their fish and firewood, they met up in a restaurant. After getting half drunk, they each took a bottle of wine to go, and strolled down to the river bank as they walked home.
As they were walking, the fisherman said to the woodcutter, “Brother, in my opinion, those who pursue fame lose their lives on account of fame. Those who chase after fortune die in search of riches. Those who hold titles of nobility are embracing a tiger as they sleep. Those who receive an official position are walking with a snake in their sleeve. When you think about it, we have it better than them, living carefree among the clear waters and green mountains. We cherish poverty and pass our days without having to fight fate.”
“There’s wisdom in your words, brother,” the woodcutter replied. “But your clear water is no match for my green mountains.”
“No, your mountains are no match for my waters,” the fisherman retorted. “There’s a poem testifying to that, set to the tune of the song ‘Butterflies Enamored of Flowers.’ It says:
In a small boat o’er 10,000 miles of misty waves
I lean to the silent, single sail,
Circled by sounds of the mermaid-fish.
My mind cleansed, my care purged, here lacks wealth or fame;
Leisurely I pick stems of bulrushes and reeds.
Counting the seagulls is pleasure to be told!
At willowed banks and reeded bays
My wife and son join my joyous laugh.
I sleep most soundly as wind and wave recede;
No shame, no glory, nor any misery.
But the woodcutter was like, uh yeah, I also have a poem set to the same tune, testifying that my mountains are definitely better than your waters. It says:
At a dense forest’s pine-seeded corner
I hear, wordless, the orioleIts deft tongue’s a tuneful pipe.
Pale reds and bright greens announce the warmth of spring;
Summer comes abruptly; so passes time.
Then autumn arrives (for it’s an easy change)
With fragrant golden flowers
Most worthy of our joy;
And cold winter descends, swift as a finger snaps.
Ruled by no one, I’m free in all four climes.
To this, the fisherman said, “Your mountains aren’t as good as my waters, which offer me fine things to enjoy. To wit, here’s another poem, set to the tune of ‘The Partridge Sky.’ ”
Well, this back-and-forth went on for a while, so I’m not going to recite every single poem these two underemployed scholars recited to each other. And then, the fisherman said, “Brother, we two are indeed lucky to have light songs to amuse us, and we don’t need castanets or flasks of gold. But the poems we’ve recited thus far are just random short poems, nothing unusual. Why don’t we attempt a long poem in the linking-verse manner, and see how fares the conversation between the fisherman and the woodcutter?”
“That’s a great idea, brother!” the woodcutter said. “Please start us off.”
And so off they went on an even longer back-and-forth, with each composing a lengthy poem, connected in theme, which I’m also not going to recite. Anyway, at the end of this impromptu seventh-century Chinese rap battle, they reached the fork in the road where they had to part ways. The fisherman said, “Brother, take care on your way home. Watch out for tigers in the mountains. If you run into any misfortunes, then tomorrow, I will be missing my good friend on the streets.”
The woodcutter, however, took offense to this seemingly innocuous and well-meaning remark. “You bum! Good friends would die for each other, so why are you hexxing me instead?! If I run into a tiger and lose my life, then you would surely run into a wave and drown in the river!”
“I will never drown in the river,” the fisherman retorted.
“The weather is unpredictable, and so are fortunes and misfortunes,” the woodcutter said. “So how can you be so sure you’ll never come to harm?”
“Brother, you say that because you don’t know what may befall you as you make your living,” the fisherman said. “But I know for sure that I will never encounter such calamity in my pursuit.”
“But you make your living on the river,” the woodcutter pressed. “It’s full of hidden dangers, so how can you be so sure?”
“On the street by the western gate of the capital, there’s a fortune teller,” the fisherman explained. “I give him a golden carp every day, and in return he casts a divination for me, and it’s always accurate. Today, I went to him again, and he told me to cast my nets on the east bank of the bend in the river and set my hooks on the west bank, and that I would be guaranteed to return with a huge haul. When I go back into the city tomorrow, I will sell my catch and meet you again over wine.”
And with that, the two of them took leave of each other and went home. And they basically leave our story at this point. However, someone had overheard their conversation. It was a yaksha, one of those nature spirits that serve as patrolmen for the dragon kings who oversee various bodies of water. This yaksha took particular note of the part about the fortune teller who was always on point in predicting the best fishing spots, and he rushed back to the crystal palace of the dragon king who reigned over this particular river.
“We’ve got trouble!” the yaksha reported in a panic. “I was patrolling the river bank, and I heard a fisherman and a woodcutter talking. When they parted ways, they mentioned something serious. That fisherman said that on the street by the western gate of the capital, there’s a fortune teller whose predictions are always accurate. The fisherman gives him a carp every day, and he casts a divination that ensures the fisherman always gets a bountiful haul. If they keep going like this, won’t they hunt our aquatic brethren to extinction?! Then how can we serve your highness?”
The dragon king was irate upon receiving this intel about unsustainable fishing practices. His solution was to reach for his sword, intent on stomping into the capital and cutting off the head of that fortune teller. But then his family and advisors all asked him to calm down.
“Your highness, please quell your anger,” they said. “As the old saying goes, ‘One must not put too much stock in hearsay.’ If you storm into the capital, you will bring clouds and rain with you, and that might startle the civilians and draw heaven’s wrath. You have great powers of transformation. You can take the form of a scholar and go investigate this matter. If this is really true, then you can still kill the fortune teller. But if it’s not true, then you shouldn’t kill an innocent.”
The dragon king liked that idea, so he cast his sword aside and left behind his cloud and rain. Instead, he went on shore and turned into a scholar clad in white. He then walked into the capital and made his way to the main thoroughfare by the west gate. There, he saw a gaggle of people crowded around someone who said, “Those born under the dragon will follow their fate; those born under the tiger will collide with their physiognomies.”
Hearing that, the dragon king realized the man speaking was none other than the fortune teller he was seeking. So he went up, parted the crowd and peered into the shop. In a room decorated with exquisite calligraphy and brocaded paintings sat a man of uncommon airs. Now this fortune teller was apparently the uncle of some guy in the civil bureaucracy, but that doesn’t really matter here. What mattered was his prowess in divination.
The dragon king, in his disguise, came forth and greeted the fortune teller, who asked him the reason for his visit.
“I would like to know the weather,” the dragon king said.
So the fortune teller cast a divination and said, “Clouds will hide the hilltop, and fog will shroud the trees. The rain you’d divine, tomorrow you’ll see.”
“What time will it rain tomorrow, and how much?” the dragon king pressed.
“The clouds will gather at the hour of the dragon, and thunder will roar at the hour of the serpent. Rain will come at the hour of the horse, and reach its limit at the hour of the sheep. In all, there will be 3 feet, 3 inches, and 48 drops of rain.”
The dragon king chuckled, “Don’t kid around now. If you’re right about the time and the amount, then I will give you 50 taels of gold. But if there isn’t rain, or if it doesn’t match your predicted time or amount, then I will smash up your shop, tear down your sign, and kick you out of the capital so that you won’t be allowed to stay here and deceive the masses!”
“Agreed!” the fortune teller said without hesitation. “Please come by after the rain tomorrow morning.”
The dragon king took his leave and returned to his palace at the bottom of the river. His officials greeted him and asked how it went. He told them about the wager he had made with the fortune teller, and his officials all had a good laugh.
“You’re in charge of the eight rivers and the rain. So you’re the only one who knows whether it’ll rain or not. How dare that guy spout such nonsense? He’ll lose the bet for sure!”
While they were all laughing, they suddenly heard a voice cry out from the sky, “Dragon king of the Jing (1) River, receive this decree!”
They looked up and saw a golden-robed guardian carrying an edict from the Jade Emperor. As the guardian approached the palace, the dragon king hurriedly tidied up his outfit, lit incense, and received the edict. The guardian handed over the decree and left. The dragon king opened the edict and read it, and his jaw hit the floor.
The edict said: The overseer of the eight rivers is hereby commanded to unleash thunder, lightning, and rain over the capital tomorrow morning. And the edict spelled out the exact time and amount of rain, and they matched the fortune teller’s prediction exactly.
The dragon king was scared out of his mind. After a long while, he finally snapped out of it and said, “The mortal realm possesses such a divine man! He truly knows the secrets of heaven and earth. How can I not lose the wager!”
But his strategist said, “My lord, no worries. It’s not hard to beat him. I have a plan that will shut him up. All you have to do is make the rain come a little bit off from his predicted time and be a little less than his predicted amount. Then you’ll beat him for sure. And then you can smash up his shop and send him packing.”
That put the dragon king’s mind at ease. The next day, he assembled the gods in charge of wind, thunder, cloud, and lightning and flew to the sky above the capital. But there, he waited until after the designated hour before unleashing the rain. And he cut it off after 3 feet and 40 drops. So he was two hours late and 3 inches and 8 drops short of the amount prescribed by heaven. But hey, it rained in the morning, just like the decree said. What’s a couple hours and a few inches?
The dragon king now dismissed the other gods, descended from the sky, and turned back into the form of the scholar that he had assumed the day before. He went to the fortune teller’s shop, barged in, and started smashing all the stuff inside. The fortune teller, meanwhile, just sat in his chair and watched.
The dragon king now pulled off a piece of the door and started smashing more stuff, all the while cursing, “You lying fraud! You deceitful scoundrel! Your divination was wrong! Today’s rain didn’t match the time or amount you had predicted. How dare you just sit there? Leave now, and I’ll spare your life!”
But the fortune teller simply looked up and chuckled, “I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid at all. I haven’t committed any capital crimes. But you, on the other hand, did. You may be able to fool others, but you can’t fool me. I know you. You’re no scholar. You’re the dragon king of the Jing River. You disobeyed the Jade Emperor’s decree by changing the time and amount of the rain. You have broken heaven’s law. You’re probably going to meet the blade on the Dragon Execution Terrace. And yet you’re still cursing me?”
The dragon king was taken aback. He cast the door aside, tidied up his clothes, and kneeled, saying, “Sir, please pardon me. I was just playing with you, but it got out of hand and I really did disobey heaven’s command. Please save me! Otherwise, even in death I will not stop hounding you.”
“I can’t save you. All I can do is point you toward a possible way out.”
“Please tell me!”
“Tomorrow at noon, you will be executed by the human judge Wei (4) Zheng (1). If you want to live, then you must go at once to the Tang emperor. That Wei Zheng is his prime minister. If you can ask the emperor to do you a favor and intervene, then you will be ok.”
So this Wei Zheng that the fortune teller mentioned was a key member of the corps of officials who helped establish the Tang Dynasty, and by this time, he had risen to the high rank of prime minister. But in this novel, he apparently also moonlights as an executioner for the Jade Emperor of heaven. Don’t ask me how that works.
Anyway, the dragon king bowed to thank the fortune-teller and left with tears in his eyes. By now, the sun was plunging toward the western horizon. The dragon king didn’t bother going back home. Instead, he waited until night fell.
That night, the emperor dozed off, and in his dreams, he started walking outside the palace. Suddenly, he saw a man approach and kneel, crying, “Your highness, please save me!”
“Who are you?” the emperor asked. “I will save you.”
“Your highness is a real dragon, whereas I am a cursed one. I broke heaven’s law and will be executed by your prime minister Wei Zheng. So I have come to beg you to save me!”
“Since Wei Zheng is the executioner, I can save you,” the emperor said. “You may go.”
The dragon king was ecstatic, so he thanked the emperor and left. The emperor, meanwhile, woke up from his dream and couldn’t stop thinking about the dragon king’s request. When it was time for the morning court session, he assembled all his officials. When they lined up and paid their respects, he scoured their ranks, but he didn’t see any sign of his prime minister, Wei Zheng.
The emperor said to another high official, “I had a strange dream last night. I saw a man who greeted me and introduced himself as the dragon king of the Jing River. He said he had violated heaven’s law and was going to be executed by Wei Zheng, and he begged me to save him. I agreed. But I don’t see Wei Zheng at court today. How come?”
The other official didn’t bat an eye at this seemingly incredible tale. He just said, “You should summon Wei Zheng to court and then refuse to let him leave for the rest of the day. That will save the dragon from your dream.”
The emperor was delighted and immediately dispatched an envoy to summon Wei Zheng to court. Now, the previous night, Wei Zheng had been observing the night sky while burning incense. He heard the call of cranes from the sky and realized that it was an envoy from the Jade Emperor, delivering a celestial decree that ordered him to execute the dragon king at the third quarter past noon the next day in his dreams. Once the envoy left, Wei Zheng started sharpening his sword and exercising his spirit. That’s why he had not gone to court that day.
But then, an envoy from the Tang emperor showed up, summoning him to court. Wei Zheng did not dare to disobey his lord, so he quickly got dressed and accompanied the envoy to the palace. He kneeled and apologized for his absence, but the emperor said, “You have not committed any offense.” He then dismissed the other court officials but summoned Wei Zheng to accompany him to his private quarters to … umm … discuss affairs of state.
Once they were in his private quarters, however, the emperor ordered his attendants to set up a game of chess and asked Wei Zheng to play with him. They started just before noon, and by the time the third quarter past noon had rolled around, they were still not done with their match. Suddenly, Wei Zheng just dozed off in his seat, falling asleep and snoring while leaning on the table.
The emperor chuckled, “He really is dedicated to the state and works so hard. No wonder he just dozed off.” And so, the emperor just let him sleep.
Moments later, Wei Zheng woke up and immediately kneeled and said, “I deserve to die! I deserve to die! I don’t know why, but I was just incredibly tired just now. Please pardon my insult.”
“You have not insulted me,” the emperor said. “Please get up. We’ll reset the board and play another game.”
Wei Zheng thanked him. But just then, they heard a ruckus outside. Two of the emperor’s top generals came in and tossed an object on the floor in front of the emperor. They kneeled and said, “Your highness, we have never seen such an oddity!”
The emperor looked down and saw that it was a bloody dragon head. “Where did this come from?” he asked.
“It fell from the sky at an intersection 1,000 paces to the south of here,” the generals reported. “We did not dare to hide it from you.”
“How did this come about?” the emperor asked Wei Zheng in surprise.
“I executed this dragon in my sleep,” Wei Zheng replied.
“But, but I didn’t even see you move in your sleep. And you had no weapons. So how did you execute this dragon?”
“My lord, although my body was here, my spirit departed in my sleep. In my dream I rode a cloud to the Dragon Slaughter Terrace, where the dragon had been bound by the soldiers of heaven. I told the dragon, ‘You violated heaven’s laws and deserve to die. So I have come on heaven’s command to execute you.’ That dragon listened in grief and retracted his claws and scales to await his death. With one swing of my blade, I sent his head falling from the sky.”
When the emperor heard this, he was both sad and happy. Happy because he was thoroughly impressed by the powers of this official who served his country. But sad because he had promised the dragon king that he would save him. Nonetheless, he had to put on appearances. So he rewarded Wei Zheng for a job well done and ordered his generals to hang the dragon head in the marketplace for public display.
But when the emperor returned to his quarters that night, he was very troubled as he thought of how the dragon king had pleaded with him. As he dwelled on those thoughts, his mind became tired and began to wander. Around 9 p.m. that night, he was startled by the sound of weeping outside. Still groggy, he suddenly saw the dragon king stomp in, carrying his own bloody head in his hand and shouting, “Tang emperor, give me back my life! You promised me last night that you would save me. How could you have gone back on your word and summoned the executioner to kill me?! Go outside! I want to sort this out with you in front of the king of hell!”
As he shouted, the dragon king grabbed hold of the emperor and refused to let go. To see how this feud will be resolved, tune in to the next supplemental episode of the Chinese Lore Podcast. Thanks for listening!
Music in This Episode
- “Luỹ Tre Xanh Ngát Đầu Làng (Guzheng) – Vietnam BGM” by VPRODMUSIC_Asia_BGM
- “Ravines” by Elphnt (from YouTube audio library)
- “Dark Toys” by SYBS (from YouTube audio library)
“Journey to the West” according to ChatGPT
As part of my experimentation with ChatGPT, I feed it the script for each episode and ask it to create an image of a scene from the episode. using realistic figures.
For this episode, it created the scene where the beheaded dragon king comes calling for the emperor.
