This eight-chapter volume is an original condensed retelling based on Wu Cheng'en's public-domain classic, not the complete original text or a line-by-line translation.

After crossing the Mother-and-Child River, Tripitaka and Bajie discovered that its water had made them pregnant. Wukong hurried to Mount Dissolution and wrested water from the Abortion Spring away from the Immortal of True Fulfillment. The absurd crisis passed, though Bajie's dramatic groaning kept the company laughing for days.

Ahead lay the Western Liang Kingdom of Women, where every citizen, from the sovereign to the farmers, was female. Hearing that a handsome royal brother had arrived from the Tang, the queen received Tripitaka in her palace. She offered him her throne and kingdom if he would remain and share her life.

Tripitaka had resisted monsters' temptations before, but this was no illusion. The queen had no fangs and intended no harm. She was wise and sincere, and she respected his silence. In the imperial garden she asked, “If every living being deserves compassion, am I not a living being?”

“Because Your Majesty deserves compassion,” Tripitaka replied softly, “I must not trade a moment of tenderness for a lifetime of waiting.” He admitted that his heart was not unmoved. Yet feeling was not a promise, and devotion to a mission did not require contempt for love.

At last the queen escorted him to the city gate. She did not seize the horse's bridle. Instead she placed a jeweled travel seal in his hand. Tripitaka pressed his palms together and stood for a long time before he could turn away.

Outside the city, the scorpion demon of Pipa Cave suddenly abducted him. Even Wukong struggled against the poisonous barb in her tail. Finally the Sun-Rooster Star Lord descended in the form of a giant rooster and subdued her with a single crow. After the rescue, Bajie prepared a joke. Seeing his master still gazing toward the Kingdom of Women, he fell uncharacteristically silent.

Sometimes the westward journey demanded not victory over something evil, but farewell to a possibility that was genuinely beautiful.