The Kingdom of Women

T he road brought them to a river, and an old ferrywoman at the crossing, and a country on the far bank like nowhere they had walked yet. Everyone in the streets was a woman. Every shopkeeper, every soldier, every gawking child who came running to point at the four travelers — women, all of them, and not one man among them. This is the Womanland of Western Liang, the ferrywoman told them, pleased half to fainting at the sight of male faces. Sanzang and the disciples, hot and thirsty from the walk, had already done the natural thing at a river. They had drunk. The old woman said, this place of ours is the Western Liang Woman Kingdom. In our whole country there are none but women, and no men at all, which is why we are so delighted to see you. But that water your master drank is not good. That river is called the Child-and-Mother River.

Not good was an understatement. The water was the country's whole secret. There are no men, the ferrywoman explained, so the women do not conceive the usual way; when a girl turns twenty she comes down to the Child-and-Mother River and drinks, and that is how children are made here. Sanzang went white. Bajie, who had drunk twice as deep, was already clutching his belly. Within the hour both their stomachs were cramping, swelling, going tight and round and hard — and then something inside each of them shifted and kicked. The two monks were pregnant. When a woman of this country reaches twenty years, she goes to drink of that river water, and so feels the chill move in her and conceives. After three days she goes to the Reflection-Fetus Spring to look at herself, and if a double shadow appears, the child is born. Your master and your brother drank of the river, so they too have conceived, and will soon give birth. How could men possibly bear children?

Bajie took it worst, naturally. He sat in the road with his legs splayed, rocking and groaning, the picture of a fat man in labor. Mother, he wailed, we are going to have to give birth — and we are men, where is the door supposed to open, how does the thing even get out? Wukong, who had not drunk and had no intention of letting anyone forget it, stood over him grinning and offered a monkey's medical opinion. Old Hog, he said, the books all say a ripe melon drops on its own. When your time comes maybe it just splits you out the side. That set Bajie howling worse, gripping his belly with both trotters and shaking in genuine terror. Bajie, twisting his waist and clutching his hips, groaned, papa, papa — if we have to bear children, but we are male bodies, where is the birth-gate for it to open? How is it ever to get out? Wukong laughed and said, the ancients say a ripe melon falls of itself. When the time comes, perhaps it will burst out at your ribs. Hearing this, Bajie trembled all over, and his fear grew worse than his pain.

“There were no men in the country, so the river did the work a man would. Sanzang drank a bowl of it. So, gluttonously, did Pigsy.”

There was one cure. The ferrywoman pointed them south, to a mountain called Untangled-Yang and a cave on it — the Broken-Child Cave — where a spring ran whose water dissolved an unwanted child like snow off a roof. One bowl and the pregnancy would simply melt away. But, she added, the spring did not run free anymore. A hermit had taken it over, a self-styled immortal, and now he charged for the water — gifts, ceremony, a heavy price — and turned away anyone who came empty-handed. Wukong heard cure and price in the same breath and was already reaching for the iron rod. He would go and negotiate. If you wish to dissolve it, you must go to the Untangled-Yang Mountain, to the Broken-Child Cave, where there is a Spring That Dissolves the Fetus. Drink a mouthful of that water and the pregnancy is undone. But it is not easy to get now. There is a Daoist there, the True Immortal As-You-Wish, who has seized the Dissolving-Fetus Spring and will not give the water unless you bring rich gifts of flowers, fruit, and silk, with all reverence. Wukong said, never mind that — I will go and fetch it.

Wukong somersaulted to the cave, knocked, and asked politely enough for a bowl of spring water for two who had drunk the river by mistake. The hermit's first question was not about gifts. It was a name. Have you ever, he said, his teeth grinding, run into a certain Holy Infant King? Wukong's stomach went cold. The Holy Infant King was Red Boy — the demon child Guanyin had finally hauled off and bound to her service, after the boy's Samadhi Fire had nearly cooked the whole company alive. That, said the hermit, was my nephew. I am the Bull Demon King's own brother, and word came to me of how Sun Wukong ruined the boy. So you are the very ape. Out came his weapon. The Daoist ground his teeth and said, have you ever met with one called the Holy Infant King? Wukong said, that is the title of the Red Boy of Fiery-Cloud Cave. Why do you ask? The Daoist said, he is my nephew. I am the brother of the Bull Demon King. A letter came to me lately from my elder brother, telling how Tang Sanzang's chief disciple, that good-for-nothing Sun Wukong, brought him to ruin. I have had no way to avenge him — and now you come here, and you ask me for water.

They fought, and the hermit was no Red Boy — Wukong handled him without much sweat. But that was never the point. While the rod and the hook clashed back and forth across the slope, Sandy was creeping round the other way with a bucket. He slipped to the well at the spring's mouth, drew it brimming, and was off before anyone marked him. Wukong, the moment he heard Sandy was clear, simply laughed in the hermit's face and quit the fight. I never wanted to beat you, he said. That was lure-the-tiger-from-the-mountain. I kept you swinging out here while my brother walked off with your water. And he somersaulted away. The Great Sage then used his iron rod to fend off the hook, and called out, I tell you the truth — just now this was my plan of luring the tiger down from the mountain. I tricked you out here to fight me, while I sent my fellow-disciple in to fetch the water. Now that he has it, what use is there in my contending further with you? With that, he turned his cloud and went, leaving the Daoist gnashing his teeth with rage and unable to do a thing.

Back at the village the two patients drank. The relief was immediate and undignified — gripes, a great churning, and then it was over, the swelling gone down, the bellies flat, the awful kicking stilled. Bajie, being Bajie, kept gulping past the point of cure, terrified some sliver of pregnancy might be left in him, until his insides cramped on the cold water and the women had to dose him with something warming to settle his guts. Then the four of them, lightened in every sense, shouldered their loads and walked on toward the capital, where the second half of the trouble was waiting and did not look like trouble at all. Sanzang and Bajie each drank a mouthful or two of the water. In a little while their bellies churned and rumbled, and after they had gone twice to relieve themselves the swelling went down and the lumps dissolved, until their flesh and bones were eased again. Bajie, still afraid, drank more than he should, and his belly turned cold and griped, so that they gave him warm broth to ease him. Then, much relieved, they took up the baggage and the horse and set out once more along the road to the west.

The capital was a city of women going about a city's business, and the four men walking in caused the kind of stir you would expect — crowds packing the streets, faces at every window, a happy roar of curiosity following them to the government post-house. There the four asked, as they always did at a border, to have their travel-rescript stamped so they could pass on. Word of the visitors ran straight up to the palace, and to the one woman in the country who had never in her life laid eyes on a man and now heard that a handsome monk of the Tang court, royal brother to an emperor, had walked in off the road. When they entered the city, they saw the streets thronged, the markets prosperous, and the people all women — merchants and traders, every one of them female — who, seeing the four come in, clapped their hands and laughed with joy, crying, a man has come, a man has come. The pilgrims reached the office for receiving envoys and asked that their travel-rescript be examined and stamped, so that they might continue on their way. And the news was carried to the court, that an imperial brother of the Great Tang had come into the kingdom.

The queen did not want a husband. She wanted this husband — and more than that, she wanted to give him a country. Since the world was made, she said, no king of ours has ever set eyes on a man, and now one comes, royal-born and beautiful, on the very day my reading of the omens turned lucky. This is heaven's own gift. Let the Tang monk stay and be king over all my realm, and I will be his queen; let his three disciples take the rescript, stamped and sealed, and go west to fetch the scriptures without him. It was, by her lights, a generous and complete arrangement. She was offering him a throne, a wife, and a kingdom, and asking only that he stop walking. The queen said, since the opening of chaos when our kingdom was first founded, through all the generations of our rulers, never has a single man come here. By good fortune the imperial brother of the Tang has now descended upon us — surely heaven has sent him. With all the wealth of my one country I am willing to take the imperial brother as king, and I will be his queen. We shall be wed, and the dragon and phoenix joined, and so carry on the line. Let his disciples have the rescript stamped, and send them on west to fetch the scriptures.

Sanzang sat frozen, as he always did when the world wanted something of his body — too pious to say yes, too gentle to bluntly refuse. So Wukong leaned in and murmured the plan. Do not fight her, he whispered. Fighting means magic, and magic against a court of women who have done nothing wrong is no work for us — and if she takes it badly she has only to give the order and a hundred hands will carve the meat off you, and then where are we. So agree. Smile, say yes, let her stamp the rescript and throw the wedding. We play along right up to the send-off — and then we slip the net. He had a name for it. False marriage, he called it, to slip free of the net. Wukong drew near and whispered, master, you need only consent. If you refuse her with a holy spell, you must use the divine power that subdues demons and routs monsters — but these are no demons, only mortal women, and you would harm them for nothing. And should her heart turn cruel, she has but to give the word, and many hands will cut the flesh from your body. What good would that do us? Best to agree. Let her stamp and return the rescript and send us off with proper ceremony, and when we are outside the city we will use the trick of the false marriage to slip the net. Is this not a plan that serves both ends at once?

So Sanzang, swallowing hard, agreed, and the kingdom rejoiced. There was a banquet, there was a wedding, there was a queen radiant in her good fortune, leading her new king toward the gate to see his disciples off on the road. The rescript was brought out, stamped with the royal seal, signed, and handed over, and the three disciples took their leave with every show of grateful obedience. The queen rode her own carriage out to the city gate to part from them, the whole court trailing behind, the bride beside her monk. Everything was perfectly in order. Everything was exactly where Wukong wanted it. Sanzang had no choice but to give a hesitant assent, and the queen was overjoyed. She ordered the banquet of betrothal prepared, and there was feasting and rejoicing. Then she had the rescript brought forth, stamped it with the treasure-seal of the kingdom, signed it, and returned it to the three disciples. She mounted the royal carriage to escort the imperial brother and his disciples out beyond the city, the dragon and phoenix side by side, attended by all her court and her women officers.

At the gate, with the rescript safe and the city behind them, Wukong gave the word. The three disciples turned on the procession, planted themselves, and called out together that the queen need ride no further — they would take their leave right here. Bajie, to seal it, threw off all restraint — twisting that long snout about, flapping his great ears, working up a wind and bellowing — and the whole bridal company shrieked and scattered. In the uproar Wukong got his master up onto the horse, and the four of them turned west and ran — out the gate, down the road, and gone, leaving a queen standing in the dust with a stamped passport and an empty marriage. When they had come outside the city, the Great Sage, Bajie, and Sandy, of one mind and ready, faced the royal carriage and cried out in loud voices, the queen need send us no further — here we take our leave. Bajie then twisted his snout about and waggled his great ears, working up a wind and roaring, so that the queen and all her women were terrified out of their wits, and the women officers fled in confusion. The Great Sage held the master on the horse, and the disciples, taking up the baggage, opened the road and went straight off to the west.

They thought the worst of the country was behind them — the river, the pregnancy, the surly uncle, the lovestruck throne. The road ran clear ahead and the four of them were on it again, lightened and laughing, the way west open. They were wrong about clear. Out of the wind beside the road, before they had gone far, something reached for the monk — but that is the next ordeal, and the next stretch of road, and a story for another telling. But scarcely had they gone on their way when a woman sprang out beside the road, shouting after the imperial brother, and conjured a whirlwind that, in a swirl of dust, carried the master off, leaving the three disciples with the horse and the baggage and no master at all — and they knew not into what hands he had fallen, nor where he had been taken. As to what came of it, listen to the explaining in the next chapter.

女兒 The original Chinese · honored as an artifact

德行要修八百，陰功須積三千。均平物我與親冤。始合西天本願。魔兕刀兵不怯，空勞水火無愆。老君降伏卻朝天。笑把青牛牽轉。

Opening lines, classical Chinese · Journey to the West 西遊記 · Wu Cheng'en (attrib.)