Chapter 2: Linguists and Contenders Summary

Wittman writes long into the night, writing about a music boat sailing the Long River across the Earth guided by a River of Stars. Boats crowded with gamblers, diners, sleepers and lovers drift by. A singer, Joang Fu, leaps from boat to boat, entertaining and educating with requests and dedications, weaving magical stories from the lives of his listeners. When he stops typing, Wittman can hear someone in a room nearby typing, although it might be his imagination.

After traveling a thousand days, Monkey and his friends arrive in the West. They load the scrolls that the Indians give them onto a white horse. Partway home, the Monkey becomes suspicious and unrolls the scrolls, finding they are blank. They return to India and are given words, including the Heart Sutra, but find the blank scrolls are the...