The Monster's Secret: A Story in Simplified Chinese and Pinyin, 1200 Word Vocabulary Level

The Buddhist monk Tangseng and his ragtag band of disciples come upon a strange pagoda in a mountain forest. Inside they discover the fearsome Yellow Robed Monster, living a quiet life with his wife and their two children. Unfortunately the monster has a bad habit of ambushing and eating travelers. The ancient and powerful monkey king Sun Wukong, the monk Tangseng and his other disciples find themselves drawn into a story of timeless love and complex lies, as they battle for survival against the monster and his allies.

This is the 11th book in the best-selling The Journey to the West series of stories for students learning to read Chinese. It is based on the events in chapters 2 through 31 in the epic 16th century novel of the same name by Wu Chen'en. That novel was inspired by an actual journey by the Buddhist monk Tangseng, who traveled from Chang'an westward to India in 629 A.D. and returned seventeen years later with priceless knowledge and spiritual texts. Over the course of the book Tangseng and his companions face the 81 tribulations that Tangseng had to endure to attain Buddhahood.

The first 11 books in the Journey to the West series have used a total of about 1200 different Chinese words, but only 680 are used in this book. All new words are defined on the page where they are first used. The book uses Simplified Chinese characters and includes pinyin, an English translation, and a full glossary.

While you read the book, you can listen to an audio version which can be found on YouTube's Imagin8 Press channel.