The Da Vinci Code has been rubbed out, and as befits the plot of that movie, various conspiracy theories are circulating as to why it was pulled from theaters after three strong weeks. In fact, when it was quickly approved for distribution without the cuts that have plagued Mission Impossible III, various voices had already suggested that the government had ulterior motives - namely, to stick one to the Vatican by fast-tracking a controversial film. When the Code was pulled, theories multiplied - was it a sinister plot to undermine the image of the Chinese Catholic Church as a member in good standing of the Harmonious Society? A side effect of factional infighting within the goverment? A hasty retreat after the belated realization that SARFT certification over the protests of the official church threw too harsh a light on government religious policy?

The official story, such as it is, claims that the reasons were financial - to make way for China's own crop of movies in July. But is that truly the case? It could be that they're just clearing the way for this:

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An old door-guard died all of a sudden in a Shaanxi museum. He died beside a painted horse statue from the Tang Dynasty; a dart was stuck in his abdomen and he had died from loss of blood. Before he expired, he stripped and sat down, cross-legged. On the floor he had written a few words: "Grand-daughter, don't forget that Prof. Lan owes me 500 kuai from mahjong." The police had searched with no results, and they had no choice but to ask the ancient language expert Prof. Lan to come over.

The old man's daughter, Ms. Liuda, also hurried over. Seeing her grandfather's corpse she shed not one tear. Prof. Lan was amazed, and Ms. Liuda told him that her grandfather was a dissolute sensualist. One day when she returned from school early, she saw her grandfather in the room playing with several hookers....

Hearing this, Prof. Lan's eyes brightened. The old man had died next to a Tang Dynasty painted horse, and he was a lecher (淫棍, yíngǔn). Putting "Yin" together with "Tang" - that would make Tang Yin! The professor hurried to the only genuine Tang Yin painting in the museum - "Lady with a Bamboo Flute," and saw on the glass that someone had written, "Blow, blow, blow for me" in snot on the glass.

Prof. Lan thought for a moment - this secret, "blow a flute?" Could it be....he walked to the museum's display of sex toys. Beside a cast-iron male organ from the Qing Dynasty, he found a small key printed with a numerical code. Liuda identified it as the key to a storage locker at the Xi'an rail station.

Prof. Lan and Ms. Liuda arrived at the train station and opened the storage locker. Inside was a combination-locked safe. Examining it, they found that it contained a bomb that would go off if it were opened without the correct combination. As the two of them took the safe out of the train station, in a moment of carelessness it was stolen by someone from Xinjiang, who took the occasion to cop a feel off Ms. Liuda.

Suddenly they heard a voice speaking in a northeast accent. The man, who looked like he was with organized crime, said that he recognized the Xinjianger; they could get the safe back, but he needed to know the combination.

The three of them went to the tiger's den. At a mutton shop in the Muslim quarter, they discovered the man from Xinjiang. After a struggle, they got the safe back. Prof. Lan did not want to share the secret with the man with the northeast accent, so he said that he had no idea of the combination and suggested that they take the safe to the police. The northeastern man did not agree, but rather took out a pig-slaughtering knife and put it against Ms. Liuda's neck, saying that he would rape and kill her if he did not get the code within three minutes.

Prof. Lan thought quickly. What could the combination be? The code had six digits. He recalled that as the old man had died, he had written "Grand-daughter, don't forget that Prof. Lan owes me 500 kuai from mahjong," on the floor. Eureka! There are 144 tiles in mahjong. Add 500 to this, and the code must be 144500!

With his back to the other two, Prof. Lan stealthily turned the combination, pretending that nothing was going on as he entered the six digits 1-4-4-5-0-0 and opened the safe. He removed from the safe a slip of paper while the northeastern man remained clueless. At that moment, police whistles sounded. The police surrounded the mutton shop and trained their guns on the northeastern man.

After Prof. Lan and Ms. Liuda extricated themselves, they were able to carefully examine the paper, on which were written the words "Curried potatoes." Prof. Lan thought, was the old man crazy?

Prof. Lan let his imagination run free. Curry is a food from India. Why wasn't it "curried beef?" Vegetarianism. Right, it must be vegetarianism. What kind of person is a vegetarian? ---a monk or a Taoist priest! Does India have Taoist priests? No, so it could only be a monk - and monks are found in temples, so - next stop, a temple!

The two arrived at Xi'an's most famous tourist spot - the Ci'en Temple. After lighting incense, bowing, and paying the incense seller, they crept into one of the temple's cellars, where they unexpectedly found a family genealogy. The old man, it turned out, was not Ms. Liuda's true grandfather - Ms. Liuda was a descendant of Sister Guanyin and Sun Wukong! Guanyin was originally Buddha's lover, but Sun Wukong stole away her love. In a fit of anger, Buddha imprisoned the monkey in Five-finger Mountain and kept him pinned there for five-hundred years. Later on, because there were too many rumors in heaven about this affair, and because of the great mission to get the scriptures, he finally released the monkey to protect and guide the Tang Monk. Guanyin's love had not abated, however, and during the journey she offered assistance many times. Old passions caught flame once more, and she became pregnant. Buddha was furious, and he classified the matter as Western Heaven top-level secret. Anyone who dared reveal a word of it would be kicked down to the mortal realm! And he send out a battalion of troops similar to the Ming dynasty secret police to slaughter anyone who knew the secret. The old man was the descendent of a god who had been exiled to the mortal world. From his ancestors he learned of the secret, which had been passed down through the generations, and for this he was killed by the descendants of the secret police.

The notes the old man had left said that after Sun Wukong became a buddha, he no longer needed his iron cudgel, so he gave it to his bastard son. But where was the cudgel now?

Prof. Lan's thoughts had reached another dead-end. Suddenly there entered into his mind the poem "Song of the Peach Blossom Hut" by Tang Bohu:

In a peach blossom valley lies a peach blossom hut,
In the peach blossom hut sits a peach blossom sage.
The peach blossom sage plants peach trees
And collects peach blossoms to sell for drinking money.
Awaking from his stupor, he sits before the blossoms.
The blossoms fall and bloom year upon year.
But to die between wine and blossoms
Is better than bowing before a horse and cart.
Cart dust and horse-hooves are things for the prominent
Wine-cups and blossom-branches are fated for hermits.
To compare someone well-known with a hermit,
One is on earth and one is in the heavens.
To compare flowers and wine to carts and horses,
How busy one is, and how idle the other!
Others laugh and say I've gone mad,
I laugh at them for they can't understand.
The five tombs of the heroes have vanished;
No flowers or wine, they are tilled as farmland.

A thought flashed into his mind - this fellow Tang Yin was also one of the old man's ancestors! And the "peach blossom sage" would then be the Monkey King, the Great Sage Equalling Heaven!

Evidently the cudgel was at one of the "five tombs of the heroes." The "five tombs" got their name from tombs surrounding Chang'an constructed during the Western Han dynasty - Gaozu at Changling, Emperor Hui at Anling, Emperor Ying at Yangling, Emperor Wu at Maoling, and Emperor Zhao at Pingling.

Hmmm...Prof. Lan let out a long sigh. A national-level protected cultural artifact, a World Cultural Heritage site - though the tombs of the five emperors were no further away than a few miles, how could you just start digging on a whim? Damn!