Li Shimin returned to Huoyi in a daze, and the first thing that met his eyes was a residence burning with roaring flames. A single question revealed something that instantly stunned him: Fa Ya had been imprisoned inside!
“Who set this fire!” Li Shimin was seething with rage. With Cui Jue dead, if Fa Ya were also to die, how would he ever prove whether the Underworld had been real or manufactured?
The guard officer smiled bitterly: “Your Majesty — Fa Ya started the fire himself.”
Li Shimin was beside himself with fury. He screamed into the inferno: “Fa Ya — you coward! You don’t dare face me!”
From within the flames, distant and faint, came the sound of a Buddhist verse: “The Dharma of the Buddha exists within the world and cannot be realized apart from the world. To seek bodhi outside the world is like looking for a rabbit’s horn. Amitabha!”
Then the entire structure collapsed with a thunderous crash, and the sound of it swallowed everything. Li Shimin stood there in bewilderment. He knew that he would never have the chance to prove whether the Underworld had been real or manufactured. Every trace these extraordinary minds had left in the mortal world had been mercilessly erased — along with their very lives.
He had no desire to continue his inspection of Hedong Circuit, and returned to Chang’an in haste. With swift, decisive action he stripped Pei Ji of his position. Half of his household allotment was taken away, and he was sent back to his home district of Puzhou. After so many years of labor and toil, Pei Ji at last returned to his hometown with some measure of dignity. However, his betrayal of Fa Ya in this affair had deeply offended Fa Ya’s followers. A monk named Xinxing often enticed Pei Ji’s house servants with suggestions such as: “Official Pei has the bearing of a true king.”
The household steward, a man called Gong Ming, told Pei Ji what Xinxing had said. Pei Ji was terrified, and privately ordered Gong Ming to silence the servant. Gong Ming, unwilling to commit murder, only hid the servant away. Later, Gong Ming fell out of Pei Ji’s favor, and went to report the matter to Li Shimin.
Li Shimin was furious, and settled new and old accounts together. He issued an edict stating: “Pei Ji has four capital offenses: though he holds the rank of a duke of the Three Excellencies, he was intimate with the sorcerer-monk Fa Ya — this is the first. When the matter was exposed, he was angry and proud, proclaiming that it was he who had planned and delivered this realm for the nation — this is the second. When the sorcerer declared him to have the bearing of a king, he concealed this and did not report it — this is the third. He secretly ordered a killing to silence the witness — this is the fourth. It would not be without justification were I to execute him. But many have urged a sentence of exile, and I shall follow this counsel.”
These words were later recorded in The Old Tang History — Biography of Pei Ji, becoming the definitive verdict on Pei Ji. Yet in the four charges Li Shimin enumerated, the killing of Liu Wenjing was ultimately not included — he did, after all, give some credit for the act of pledging all of his wealth at the Adjudicator’s Temple, and left him his life. Pei Ji was exiled to Jingzhou in Guangxi. Some years later, Li Shimin, mindful of their old friendship, summoned him back to Chang’an. Not long afterward, Pei Ji died of illness, having lived sixty-two years.
At the same time, the experience of this journey to the Underworld and back deeply affected Li Shimin. Though he stubbornly maintained all his life that it had been a human scheme, he could not stop the fear that lodged in his heart. Throughout his life he had temples built extensively, to pray for the souls of those who had died at his hands. He even issued an edict of personal repentance: I reflect that the holy teachings of Rulai deeply honor compassion and forbearance, and that the prohibitions and precepts hold the taking of life as the most weighty. Dwelling long upon this principle, I feel increasing regret and dread. Let it now be ordained that for all those who perished under my own hand during campaigns and battles, before and after, the number approaching one thousand, all shall have religious services and rituals performed, and sincere prayers of repentance made on their behalf… May the suffering of the three difficult paths be, through this, released. May the torment of ten thousand kalpas be, through this great merit, relieved. May the hearts of resentment and obstruction be wiped away, and the path toward bodhi be taken.
In the twenty-second year of Zhenguan, the Emperor Taizong, troubled in his heart by his early killing of brothers and the purging of kin, asked the monk he had most admired throughout his life — Xuanzang — a question: “I wish to build meritorious works. What would be most beneficial?”
In the twenty-third year of Zhenguan, on the verge of death, Li Shimin still anxiously asked Xuanzang about the principle of cause and effect and the cycle of karmic retribution. He refused to believe until the very end that he would die in that year — even with his body in extreme decline, he insisted on taking elixir pills compounded by a Tianzhu physician named Posamo. Facing objections from all his officials, he told them: “I received a revelation from Heaven that I still have ten years of life remaining — could a foreign monk’s medicine bring me down?”
Shortly after taking the medicine, his body could no longer sustain itself. He passed away quietly.
In the third year of the Zhenguan era, in the summer, Xuanzang returned to Chang’an, settled at Hongfu Temple, and then once again presented a memorial to Li Shimin requesting permission to journey west to Tianzhu. The first time, in the first year of Zhenguan, he had been ignored entirely. This time was different — Li Shimin personally summoned Xuanzang and questioned him about the purpose of the journey, and Xuanzang explained one by one.
Li Shimin was moved with admiration and said with feeling: “Compared to Fa Ya’s approach, Dharma Master, your path to seek the Buddha is truly the righteous way of Rulai! The Master is willing to cross the vast desert and traverse hundreds of kingdoms to seek the true Dharma of Rulai for my Great Tang — how could I be unwilling? Only, as the Dharma Master knows, the Western Regions are unsettled, and the Eastern Tujue holds the steppe with iron cavalry that raids and invades constantly. From the Wude reign onward, to strictly prevent spies and those who use the guise of merchants to supply the enemy, the court decreed the sealing of all frontier passes — no persons whatsoever, and no goods such as salt, iron, or cloth, are permitted to pass through.”
Xuanzang smiled wryly: “Your Majesty knows my background well enough — I am certainly no spy, and would not be carrying salt, iron, or cloth.”
“I know, of course.” Li Shimin also smiled, but his expression became serious: “But Dharma Master, you have traveled throughout the realm, and possess an unparalleled familiarity with the strategic dispositions of all parts of the Great Tang. I fear that if the Dharma Master were captured by a foreign people, you would be a living map of the realm. And besides, you are a renowned monk of my nation — if you were to fall into the hands of the barbarians, how would I answer to the people of the realm? I understand the Dharma Master’s great vow. Wait a few more years — once I have recovered the Hexi Corridor and defeated the Eastern Tujue, I will surely give you leave to go west.”
Xuanzang was at a loss for words. Wait until he had recovered Hexi and defeated the Eastern Tujue? When would that be — by then his beard might have gone white and he might not be able to get out of bed. He made repeated entreaties, but Li Shimin remained firm in his refusal. Xuanzang had no choice but to return in frustration to Hongfu Temple.
At the temple gate, a voice from behind suddenly called out softly: “Xuanzang-ge…”
Xuanzang’s whole body trembled. He turned around hastily, and there among the incense-burning pilgrims stood a beautiful young woman — Lu Luo!
“Miss Lu Luo,” Xuanzang said, both surprised and delighted, “how do you come to be here? When we parted that day underground at Xingtang Temple, and then the temple collapsed, I thought you must have met with an accident.”
“You’d be glad if I met with an accident, wouldn’t you?” Lu Luo said with a cold face. “Then I’d never pester you again — that would suit you well, I suppose?”
Xuanzang could only smile bitterly.
A grief-stricken expression came over Lu Luo’s face, and she murmured: “After you and His Majesty jumped into the Pool of Return to Life that day, I met with Father, and then he had someone take me away to Jinzhou that very night. It wasn’t until three days later that I learned what had happened in Huoyi — Xingtang Temple had collapsed, Father was dead, Mother was dead, and even my stepfather was dead. I am alone in this world now, without a single living relative. Fortunately, with Magistrate Ma’s help, I was able to bury both my parents and my stepfather behind the Adjudicator’s Temple on Huoshan. Later I heard that you had come to Chang’an, and made the long journey here to find you. It took great effort before I managed to learn you were staying here at Hongfu Temple.”
Xuanzang’s heart was full of compassion. This girl’s life story was truly so pitiable. He sighed: “What does Miss Lu Luo plan to do from now on?”
Lu Luo shook her head with a blank expression: “Now that I’ve found you, I’ll just stay with you.”
Xuanzang was dumbstruck. Yet Lu Luo was as good as her word, and from that day on she attached herself to Xuanzang. She could not live inside Hongfu Temple, so she rented a room directly across the way. Cui Jue had arranged her future affairs most thoughtfully and considerately — her daily living expenses were no concern whatsoever. This little girl spent every day running to Hongfu Temple to light incense, ostensibly, though really just to keep her eyes fixed on Xuanzang.
Then in the autumn of the eighth month, Chang’an and the surrounding regions, as well as the various frontier prefectures along the eastern and the Longyou border, were struck by frost and hailstorms — the crops completely failed, and starving refugees poured out in all directions. The court, unable to provide relief, issued a general order permitting monks and laypeople alike to travel to wherever food was available.
That day Xuanzang heard that great numbers of disaster refugees were heading west toward the Longyou region. A thought stirred in his heart — if he could mingle among the refugees, might he not slip through the frontier passes and travel west to Tianzhu?
He decided on the spot, packed his belongings, completed the formalities to leave the temple, and departed from Hongfu Temple. Unexpectedly, before he had even reached the temple gate, Lu Luo was coming toward him with a food basket. Seeing him with a travel pack in hand, dressed clearly for a long journey, Lu Luo was shocked: “Xuanzang-ge — where are you going?”
Xuanzang, left with no choice, recounted his plan to slip out of the frontier pass and travel west to Tianzhu. Lu Luo immediately dissolved into tears, slumping down helplessly onto the ground. She sobbed: “Xuanzang-ge — tell me, why is it so difficult to find someone in this mortal world to lean upon?”
Xuanzang let out a long sigh: “You are holding on too tightly. The splendors of the mortal world you have barely glimpsed, and yet you have placed your vague and fumbling hopes on a monk. This is no different from climbing a tree to look for fish, or searching the grass for a rabbit’s horn. Miss Lu Luo — look behind you. The world is vivid and full of color, and you have not seen any of it!”
“I will not look!” Lu Luo flew into a fury, jumped to her feet and stamped her foot: “I will just wait for the day you change your heart!” She stared up at Xuanzang, then suddenly pulled from her chest a curved blade that gleamed with an icy-blue light, and said coldly: “This is Boluoye’s curved blade — I have always carried it with me. If I cannot have you, I will use this blade to end my own life. I killed Boluoye — I will use his blade to repay that debt with my own life!”
Xuanzang broke into a cold sweat, yet did not know how to resolve the situation. He said urgently: “But I, on this journey — in nine cases out of ten, the vast desert will swallow me, and I will never come back!”
“I don’t care!” Lu Luo said with absolute determination: “You are set on going, and I cannot stop you — but tell me when you will come back, and I will wait until that time. If you do not come back by then, I will use this blade to cut my own throat!”
Xuanzang had absolutely no recourse. Then his eyes fell upon a great pine tree before him, its boughs pointing to the west. He pointed at it and said with finality: “Once I have gone, whether two or three years, or five to seven years — simply watch for the day the boughs of the pine at the temple gate turn east. When they do, I shall return. If they do not, I will never return.”
Lu Luo looked at the pine tree, and nodded calmly: “Xuanzang-ge, I understand. I will wait here, and wait for the day the boughs turn east…”
Xuanzang was lost for words. He turned and shouldered his pack and walked away into the unknown. Even until his figure disappeared from sight, Lu Luo still stood in a daze beneath the pine, her head raised, looking after him…
Xuanzang shouldered his pack and set out alone toward the west. He could not have said how many days he had walked. One day he passed through a rural village in Qinzhou, when he suddenly noticed a large willow tree by a well at the edge of the village, beneath which a man was telling tales to a crowd of village folk. These bianwen tales had only recently come into fashion in recent years — narrative in style and rich in story, a mixture of telling and singing, the content drawn largely from Buddhist stories, deeply popular with the common folk of the lower classes. The village folk had gathered around the man three rows deep, and though the crowd was large, everyone breathed quietly and listened with complete attention.
The tale this man was telling was one Xuanzang had never heard before. He heard a hoarse voice saying: “The Emperor, startled, said: ‘I recall from the third to the fifth years of the Wude reign, I suppressed the sixty-four outbreaks of unrest. I led these campaigns myself — there was not a battle I did not pass through, not a battle I did not experience. Many were killed. In past days my sins were deep, and yet even now the punishment has not come to an end. How am I to find my way back to life?’ Sorrow and confusion weighed upon his heart…”
Xuanzang was suddenly taken aback. The third year of Wude, suppressing sixty-four outbreaks — was this not referring to the current Son of Heaven himself? He stood still and listened carefully. The man went on with his singing and telling: “The Emperor stood at a stop before the Xiao Gate, and a court official called out in a loud voice: ‘I hereby summon the living soul of His Majesty Li, Son of Heaven of the Great Tang.’ Ghost soldiers led the Emperor to the entrance of the hall, where he was made to bow. The Emperor refused to bow, and a high-ranking official in the hall shouted: ‘Great Tang Son of Heaven Li — why do you not bow?’ The Emperor raised his voice and said: ‘Who is this person demanding my bow? In my days in Chang’an, I was only given bows — I was never accustomed to bowing to others. I am the Son of Heaven of the Great Tang, and the King of Hell is the head of ghost brigades — why should he demand I bow to him?’ The King of Hell, scolded by the Emperor, took on an angry expression. The Emperor asked: ‘What is the name of that adjudicator? Come forward and tell me quietly.’ The adjudicator said: ‘My surname is Cui, my given name Jue…'”
When Xuanzang heard this, he was instantly thunderstruck. What this man was telling was the account of Li Shimin’s tour of the Underworld — and even Cui Jue was in it. He quickly grabbed the arm of a village man who was listening with obvious enjoyment, and asked: “May I ask, what are you all listening to?”
The village man did not even turn his head, and said hurriedly: “The Record of the Tang King’s Descent into the Underworld — the latest tale! It’s about our current Emperor!”
Xuanzang was dumbfounded. Just at that moment, a young woman of dignified bearing came walking from the distant village, leading a chubby and lively child of two or three years old. She reached the edge of the crowd and called out with a smile: “Chen Lang — time to come home for dinner!”
“Ah, here comes Chen family’s wife!” The village folk around them all laughed and made way. The man who had been telling tales came out of the crowd, took his wife and child by the hand, and said with a hearty laugh: “That is all for today — let’s go home for dinner!”
Husband and wife walked hand in hand with the child, laughing and talking, making their way back to the village.
Xuanzang watched the retreating figure of that man, and it was as if he had been struck by a thunderbolt — his whole person went numb. No matter ten years or a hundred, no matter how the world had changed, he would never forget that face — for it was the most beautiful memory he had after the age of ten, the face that had accompanied him through the most difficult time of his entire life, walking with him until he set foot on the Buddhist path, the face that shared with him the same blood.
This was the brother he had been searching for all this time — Chang Jie!
“That young woman must be the third daughter of the Pei family. That child — that would be my nephew…” In that instant, Xuanzang’s tears poured down freely, and the joy and gratitude welling within him were beyond his power to contain.
In that moment, Cui Jue’s words from before his death came to mind: “If you see Chang Jie again, tell him — I thank him. From this day I no longer hate him.” And in a flash of clarity, like rich cream pouring into the heart, he suddenly understood the deeper meaning in those words — it was Chang Jie’s elopement with the Pei daughter that had drawn the attention of the court, putting Cui Jue in extremely precarious circumstances. To prevent the court from catching a glimpse of his face and leaking his secret, Cui Jue had actually peeled away his own facial skin entirely, and then crafted it into a human-skin mask to wear over his face!
It was this forced self-disfigurement that had been the source of Cui Jue’s deep hatred for Chang Jie. Yet precisely because he had disfigured himself years earlier, even when Li Shimin finally captured him in the end, he could not confirm Cui Jue’s true identity. The experience of the Underworld journey remained forever an inescapable nightmare in the Emperor’s heart! Fa Ya and Cui Jue had succeeded by the narrowest of margins!
And it was precisely because of all this that Cui Jue had ultimately forgiven Chang Jie, and in the moments before his death had let go of his resentment.
Li Shimin’s words, full of implicit menace, rang again in Xuanzang’s ears: “As for your elder brother — he withdrew at the right moment, and knew when to retreat, which counts for something, and besides, I cannot find him in any case. You may simply hope that he never lets me find him.”
“Elder Brother—” With tear-blurred eyes, Xuanzang gazed at Chang Jie’s retreating figure and murmured: “May you never let the Emperor find you.”
He gave a long, hearty laugh, and wiped away his tears. Amid the all-encompassing wind and dust, his solitary figure stepped onto the boundless road heading west.
Time passed — no one could say how many years. The Great Tang had long since risen to its height of glory, and Chang’an had become the greatest city in the world. The girl with bright and beautiful eyes of those days now bore a face full of weariness and white-streaked hair, yet she still stood watch at Hongfu Temple, standing guard over the ancient pine tree within the temple. Day after day she came to stand beneath the pine, gazing at the boughs of the pine tree pointing to the west, murmuring ceaselessly: “Xuanzang-ge, you promised me — whether two or three years, or five to seven years, that when the pine boughs at the temple gate pointed east, you would return. Now two sets of five to seven years have already passed — why have you still not come back…”
The passersby and the incense-burning pilgrims beneath the tree stared in dismay at this half-crazed woman, and one after another went around her, a constant murmur of whispers trailing behind them: “That mad woman is here again!”
“Why does she circle this pine tree every day?”
“You don’t know? They say this woman has been circling this tree for sixteen years. According to the monks at the temple, she has been coming every day since the third year of Zhenguan — and now it is already the nineteenth year of Zhenguan. That would indeed be sixteen years, would it not?”
“Is she mad, or just simple? What in the world happened to her?”
“No one knows. She never speaks to anyone — only circles the tree by herself each day, muttering. No one can understand what she is saying.”
Suddenly the crowd broke into an uproar, and everyone craned their heads upward: “Look — that woman has climbed the tree!”
Everyone stared in astonishment, watching as the woman gripped a curved blade gleaming with a cold light, climbed up onto the trunk of the tree, and began to chop furiously at a branch angling toward the west. The blade bore an unusual pattern, and appeared extremely sharp — with one blow, a branch as thick as an arm fell cleanly. The woman seemed to have gone into a frenzy, crying out as she hacked: “You lied to me! You lied to me! Why have you still not come back—”
She wept and hacked at the same time, and in the blink of an eye the branch was reduced to scattered pieces. Then she leaped down from the tree, and gazed at the ancient pine with vacant eyes: “Xuanzang-ge — you said, just watch for the day the pine boughs at the temple gate turn east, and you would return. Look — the pine bough has turned east now…”
Everyone looked toward it in astonishment, and indeed — where the great branch had been severed, only a single bough pointing east remained…
The woman wrapped her arms around the trunk of the tree and slowly sank to the ground. She looked up at the pine bough and smiled a dazed, entranced smile: “Xuanzang-ge — you have finally come back…”