The chapter opens on the capital of the Tang Dynasty, under the reign of emperor Taizong. 
Now, this is no ordinary emperor, but one of the most renowned in Chinese history. One of the reasons he may have allowed Buddhism to flourish under his reign might have been because he had much to repent about, for the great Taizong had many of his brothers murdered in order to obtain power. While he proved to be the ruler that China needed, it’s not hard to imagine why he would become a religious man later in life.
The practice of celebrating the kingdom’s greatest scholar later spread across Asia. With the top-scorer being named zhuang yuan and made to wear a special hat (the very same one Guangrui wore and that Mantangjiao hits with her embroidered ball).
And so, tragedy befalls the great scholar, identities are switched, and some time later, lady Mantangjiao’s son, the chosen monk Xuanzhang, avenges his father’s death by unmasking the impostor. Think Liu Hong and Li Biao’s punishments are a bit severe? Well, this is the culture that invented water torture, among other harsher forms of capital punishment. For those who don’t mind a little gruesomeness, here’s an article on legalism, the system pre-modern China used to enforce law and order: https://www.chinasage.info/torture.htm
Once the world has been set right, Guangrui is given some gifts by the dragon king, including a wish-granting pearl, and comes back in the earthly plane.
Could this wish-granting pearl not also be the inspiration for the Dragon Balls?
Everything seems to end happily enough, except for the part where Guangrui’s wife is barely given a few words to describe the fact that, unable to live with the fact that she didn’t resist her husband’s murderer and impostor because she was pregnant, she committed suicide. It’s mentioned in conjunction with a number of other ‘happy afterwards’, so we think the author intended for this to be a happy end to Xuanzhang’s mom.
Except nobody reading this story today would feel as if a woman who was reunited with her husband after being held captive by an evil bandit for nearly two decades killing herself is a good ending, so what gives? In the podcast, we talked about how it’s easy to chalk things up to cultural differences, and there may definitely be some of that. After all, this was an era when concubines were socially accepted and relatively few women’s rights existed, when a noblewoman’s chastity was seen as sacred and its violation meant that she was ‘ruined’. But there might be two other readings for this. While we may wish for everyone we know to overcome their traumas and go on to live healthy and happy lives, the sad reality is that all too many do not. Sometimes, the best we can do is hope that the person who could no longer bear their life’s hardships finally find the peace that so eluded them in life. While Lady Mantangjiao will not be alive to see Xuanzhang’s most impressive exploits, she did ensure that both husband and son would be capable of taking care of themselves before she left. Actually, from a plot perspective, this may have been the only way pre-Modern Chinese audiences could accept Xuanzhang’s undertaking of the perilous journey to the west: to do so while one’s aging mother was still alive would have made him seem irresponsible. It would have made him prey to a common criticism of monks that they are lazy shirkers of duty who choose the monastery to escape their families.
Speaking of her son, we also learned a little about the monk destined to make the fated voyage for Buddha’s scriptures. But how much of this recounting of his origins is factual? By the looks of it–very little. Perhaps this ghost story legend was borrowed from Chinese folklore and attributed to Xuanzang as a means of showing his filial piety and courage. As with much of what we’ve seen of Journey to the West so far, things aren’t what they seem. No matter, next chapter we meet two competitive fishermen brothers, learn more about Dragon Kings and human emperors, and begin a mini Dante’s Inferno of the East.