Now that fiend hauled Bajie off into the cave and announced: “Elder brother, I've fetched one back!”
The old fiend said with delight: “Bring it here and let me look.”
“Is this not the one?” said the second fiend.
“Brother, you've caught the wrong one — this monk is of no use.”
At this Bajie, snatching up speech, spoke out: “Great King, a useless monk — best let him out the door. This is no way to treat a man!”
“Brother, don't let him go,” said the second fiend. “Useless though he is, he still belongs to Tripitaka's party — he's the one called Zhu Bajie. Let's steep him for now in the clear-water pool out back, soak the bristles off his hide, cure him with salt and dry him in the sun — and when the sky turns overcast, he'll do to go with the wine.”
Hearing this, Bajie cried: “What rotten luck — I've run smack into a fiend that trades in salt-pork and bacon!”
The little imps carried him in and flung him into the water; and of that, no more for now.
Tripitaka, meanwhile, sat at the foot of the slope and felt his ears burn and his eyes twitch, his whole body ill at ease. “Wukong,” he called, “how is it that Wuneng, gone this round to scout the mountain, has been away so long and not come back?”
“Master, you still don't know that one's heart.”
“What heart has he?”
“Master, if this mountain held a monster, he'd not go half a step further — he'd make a great show of alarm and come running back to report to me. I fancy there's no monster. The road being quiet, he's simply gone straight on.”
“If he has really gone straight on,” said Tripitaka, “then where are we to meet? This place is open wild hill-country, not to be compared with the space of a market-town or walled city.”
“Master, don't fret — pray mount up. That blockhead is a touch lazy and is surely dawdling along. Give the horse a bit of a start, and we're sure to catch up with him and go on together.”
So indeed Tripitaka mounted, Sha Monk shouldered the load, and Pilgrim led the way up the mountain in front.
Back in the cave the old fiend called the second demon again. “Brother, since you've taken Bajie, then Tripitaka must surely be near. Go patrol the mountain once more, and be sure not to let him slip past.”
“At once, at once,” said the second fiend; and watch as he hurriedly mustered fifty little imps and went up the mountain on patrol. Just as they went, he saw auspicious clouds drifting faint and coiling propitious vapors. “Tripitaka is coming,” he said.
“Where is Tripitaka?” said the imps.
“Over a good man's head auspicious clouds light the crown; over an evil man's head a black vapor shoots to heaven. That Tripitaka was originally the Elder Golden Cicada come down among mortals, a good man of ten lifetimes' cultivation — that is why he bears these gossamer auspicious clouds.”
Not one of the fiends could see it. The second fiend pointed with his hand. “Is that not he?”
At that, Tripitaka, up on his horse, gave a cold shudder; another point, another shudder; three points in a row, and three shudders in a row he gave. Uneasy in mind and spirit, he said: “Disciples — why is it I keep shuddering with cold?”
“The shivering is likely an attack of indigestion coming on,” said Sha Monk.
“Nonsense,” said Pilgrim. “Master, walking these deep hills and steep ridges, is bound to take fright at shadows out of caution. No fear, no fear — let old Monkey ply his cudgel the whole way along and beat the fright out of you.”
The good Pilgrim, leveling his cudgel, threw off a few flourishes before the horse — up three, down four, left five, right six — all in accord with the Six Secret Teachings and the Three Strategies, and put forth his divine power. The Elder, watching from his horse, saw that it was a thing rare within the cosmos, without equal in all the world. He cleaved open the road and pressed straight ahead, and very nearly frightened that monster clean off his feet.
Watching from the mountaintop, his souls scattered in terror, the fiend cried out despite himself: “For years I've heard tell of Sun the Pilgrim — only today do I know the report was no idle rumor but the very truth!”
The fiends pressed forward. “Great King, why swell another's mettle and quench your own martial glory? Whom are you praising?”
“Sun the Pilgrim's divine powers are vast and far-reaching. That Tripitaka is not to be eaten while he stands guard.”
“Great King, if you've no means for it, let us send a few to report to the Great Great King, that he may muster all the soldiers of the cave, high and low, deploy them in battle-array, and join every force with a single heart — then where could he escape to?”
“You've not seen that iron rod of his,” said the second fiend. “It has a valor ten thousand men could not withstand. In my cave there are no more than four or five hundred soldiers — how could they bear up under a single blow of that cudgel?”
“By that reckoning,” said the imps, “if Tripitaka can't be eaten, then wasn't Zhu Bajie taken in error after all? Best send him back to them now.”
“As for the taking, it was no error to take him; as for the sending, it would not do to send him back so lightly. Tripitaka is to be eaten in the end — it is only that, for the present, we still cannot yet manage it.”
“Put that way, must we wait some years yet?”
“It won't take years, either. As I see it, that Tripitaka can only be got at by fair means, not seized by foul. Were we to rely on force to take him, we'd not get so much as a single whiff of him. We can only move him by kindness, win his heart into accord with our own, and then, from within that kindness, lay our plot — so may he be taken.”
“Great King,” said the imps, “when you've settled on a plan to take him, will you have need of us?”
“Return, all of you, each to his own stockade, but you're not to let word of it reach the Great King — for if he's alarmed, the scheme will surely leak out and my whole plan be ruined. I have powers of transformation all my own, by which I can take him.”
The imps dispersed.
Alone he leapt down the mountain, and there beside the road, with a shake of his body, transformed himself into an aged Daoist. And how, in truth, was he got up? Behold:
A star-crown gleaming bright, crane-white hair loose and tangled;
A feather robe girt with an embroidered sash, cloud-shoes trimmed in yellow palm-fiber;
Spirit clear and eyes bright as an immortal guest's, frame hale and body light as the Star of Longevity.
Say nothing of the Green-Ox Daoist — he outshone even the Master of the Plain Contract.
A false semblance dressed to seem the true, a feigned feeling shaped to pass for real.
There by the high road he got himself up as a Daoist with a broken leg, blood dripping down his foot, groaning and moaning, crying only: “Save me! Save me!”
Now Tripitaka, relying on the Great Sage Sun and Sha Monk, came happily along; and just as they went, they heard a cry: “Master, save me!”
Tripitaka heard it and said: “Merciful Heaven, merciful Heaven! In these wild hills, with never a hamlet on any side — who can be crying? Surely someone frightened witless by tigers, leopards, wolves, or serpents.” The Elder reined his fine horse around and called: “Who is it that's in distress? Come out.”
The fiend crawled out from the brush and, before the Elder's horse, knocked his head on the ground with a will, thump upon thump. Tripitaka, from his horse, saw that he was a Daoist, and moreover well on in years, and felt exceedingly ill at ease. Hastily he dismounted and, helping him up, said: “Rise, please, rise.”
“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts,” said the fiend.
Letting go his hand to look, he saw that blood ran down the man's foot. Startled, Tripitaka asked: “Sir, where have you come from? On account of what were your honored feet injured?”
The fiend, all honeyed words and false-faced feeling, said: “Master, west of this mountain there stands a serene abbey, and I am a Daoist of that abbey.”
“If you're not at your own abbey tending the incense-fires and rehearsing the scriptures, why are you idling about out here?”
“The day before, a patron's household away south of the mountain had invited us clergy to avert the baleful stars and share out blessings; we were late returning, and my disciple and I were traveling the road together. Coming to a deep byway, we suddenly met a great striped tiger, which seized my disciple in its jaws and bore him off. I, poor Daoist, trembling and with no way to flee, took a tumble on a slope of tumbled rocks, hurt my leg, and cannot find the way back. Today, by great Heaven-sent chance, I have had the fortune to meet you, Master. I beg you ten-thousandfold, show your great mercy and save my life. If I might but reach the abbey, though I pawn my very self and sell my life, I would surely repay your deep kindness richly.”
Tripitaka, hearing this, took it for the truth. “Sir, you and I are alike creatures of one life — I a monk, you a Daoist; our robes and caps may differ, but the principle of cultivation is one and the same. Were I not to save you, I'd be no true member of the religious life. Save you I will — but you cannot walk the road.”
“I can't even stand up,” said the fiend. “How am I to walk?”
“So be it, so be it. I can still walk the road myself. I'll let you have my horse to ride a stretch; when we reach your abbey, you can return it to me.”
“Master, I am moved by your kindness — only my hip and thigh are hurt from the fall, and I cannot ride.”
“Just so.” He called to Sha Monk: “Sling the luggage onto my horse, and you carry him a stretch.”
“I'll carry him,” said Sha Monk.
The fiend turned his head sharply, threw Sha Monk a glance, and said: “Master, I've been frightened out of my wits by that fierce tiger — and the sight of this ill-omened, dark-faced monk alarms me all the more. I dare not have him carry me.”
“Wukong,” called Tripitaka, “you carry him.”
Pilgrim answered at once, again and again: “I'll carry him, I'll carry him.” The monster thereupon settled on Pilgrim, meekly consenting to be carried by him, and said no more.
Sha Monk laughed: “This purblind old Daoist! Better I should carry him — instead he wants that one. Let him once lose sight of the Master, and on some three-pointed rock he'll have every sinew in your body smashed to bits.”
Pilgrim listened and said with a laugh: “You reckless fiend — how dare you come provoking me? Go ask around just how old a hand old Monkey is! Ghost-talk of this sort is fit only to fool Tripitaka — and yet you'd come fooling me? I know you for the monster of this mountain, bent, I'll wager, on eating my master. And my master is no ordinary mortal — is he for the likes of you to eat? If you mean to eat him, you'll have to split him — better than half to old Monkey!”
The demon, hearing Pilgrim muttering under his breath, said: “Master, I'm the descendant of a good family who became a Daoist. Today, by ill luck, I met with the calamity of tigers and wolves. I am no monster.”
“If you're so afraid of tigers and wolves,” said Pilgrim, “why don't you recite the Dipper Sutra?”
Tripitaka, just then mounting his horse, heard these words and scolded: “This wretched ape! To save a single life outweighs the raising of a seven-storied pagoda! Just carry him and have done — what's all this talk of Dipper Sutras, north or south?”
“This creature's in luck,” said Pilgrim. “That master of mine is a merciful, good-hearted man — though smooth without, he's a bit gnarled and prickly within. If I were minded not to carry you, he'd only blame me for it. Carry you I will — but let's have it clear between us: if you need to relieve yourself, tell me first; should it run down my spine, the stink would be past bearing, and it'd foul my clothes with no one to wash them.”
“A man of my years,” said the fiend, “do you think I don't know how to behave?”
Only then did Pilgrim haul him up, hoist him onto his back, and with the Elder and Sha Monk make west along the high road. On the mountain's rough and uneven stretches he walked slowly and watchfully, letting Tripitaka go on ahead.
They had gone not three or five lǐ when the Master and Sha Monk dropped down into a mountain hollow, and Pilgrim, losing sight of them, grumbled to himself: “A man of the Master's great age, and still with no sense of how things stand. On a long road like this, even empty-handed one would find one's arms a burden — I'd give anything to fling him off — and here he has me carrying this monster. Never mind that he's a monster; even were he an honest man, at such an age he'd be as good as dead anyway. I'll just dash him dead — why carry him at all?”
Just as the Great Sage was reckoning to dash him down, it turned out the fiend already knew — and could summon mountains besides. He worked a spell of moving mountains and overturning seas: there on Pilgrim's back he made the finger-signs and intoned the true words, sent a Mount Sumeru through the air, and brought it crashing down head-on to crush him.
The Great Sage, flustered, tilted his head to one side so it came down on his left shoulder, and laughed: “My boy — what heavy-body magic is this, to press down on old Monkey? This one, though, I don't fear — only a balanced load is easy to shoulder, while a lopsided load is hard to bear.”
“One mountain won't hold him down,” said the fiend. So again he chanted his spell and sent a Mount Emei through the air to crush him. Pilgrim again tilted his head to one side, and it came down on his right shoulder.
See him now, shouldering two great mountains, hurtling like a shooting star to catch up with the Master. The fiend-chief, seeing it, broke out in a cold sweat from head to foot, his whole body running with moisture. “Why, he can carry mountains!” Steadying his nerve, he worked the true words once more and sent a Mount Tai through the air, bringing it down head-on to pin Pilgrim fast. The Great Sage, his strength gone soft and his sinews numb, meeting this magic of Mount Tai pressing down upon his crown, was crushed until his three corpse-spirits shrieked and blood spurted from his seven apertures.
A fine fiend! Having pressed Pilgrim down with his magic, he rode a long wind at speed to overtake Tang Tripitaka, reached a hand down out of the clouds, and snatched at the man on the horse. In a fluster, Sha Monk flung down the baggage, whipped out his demon-quelling staff, and barred the way head-on; and the fiend raised a Seven-Star sword and met him face to face. This was a fine fray:
A Seven-Star sword, a demon-quelling staff —
ten thousand glints of golden light, flashing bright.
This one, round-eyed, fierce as the Dark God of Slaughter;
that one, iron-faced, the very Curtain-Rolling General.
The fiend before the mountain shows his full power,
bent with a single heart on seizing Tang Tripitaka.
This one strains to shield the true monk,
of a single heart to die sooner than give way.
The two of them spew cloud and belch mist to light the Palace of Heaven,
fling up dust and scatter earth to veil the Dipper and the stars.
They fight till the single red disc of the sun fades to no light,
and the whole earth, all heaven-and-earth, hangs dim and reeling.
Back and forth they grapple, eight rounds or nine —
till, past all expectation, Sha Monk is beaten.
The fiend was fierce beyond measure: wielding his precious sword, its meteor-swift passes came rolling in, until Sha Monk, worn weak and hard put to parry, turned to flee. At once the fiend pinned the staff fast, swung his great hand around, seized Sha Monk and clamped him under his left arm; with his right hand he plucked Tripitaka from the horse, hooked the baggage on his toe-tips, and, opening his mouth, gripped the horse's mane in his teeth; then, working a spell of snatching, he bore them all off on a gust of wind into the Lotus-Flower Cave, and cried in a great voice: “Brother! I've caught all these monks and brought them here.”
The old fiend, hearing this, rejoiced greatly. “Bring them in for me to see.”
“And here they are — no?”
“Worthy brother — you've gone and caught the wrong ones again.”
“You said to catch Tripitaka.”
“Tripitaka he is, right enough — only you've still not caught that resourceful Sun Pilgrim. We must catch him first before it's safe to eat Tripitaka; until he's taken, don't lay a hand on any of his people. That Monkey King's powers are vast and his transformations many — if we eat his master, will he take it lying down? He'll come brawling at our gate, and we can forget any peace.”
The second fiend laughed: “Brother, you do overpraise the fellow. To hear you praise him, he'd be rare in heaven and unmatched on earth — but as I see it, he's nothing so much, no great skill to him.”
“Have you caught him, then?”
“I've already sent three great mountains to press him down beneath them — he can't stir so much as an inch. That's why I was able to fetch Tripitaka, Sha Monk, the horse, and the baggage, and carry them all here.”
The old fiend was filled with delight. “What luck, what luck! With this fellow caught, Tripitaka is at last the meat in our mouths.” He called to the little imps: “Quick, set out wine — let's offer your Second King a cup for his success.”
“Brother, hold off on the wine,” said the second fiend. “First have the lads fish Zhu Bajie up out of the water and string him up.”
So they hung Bajie in the eastern gallery, Sha Monk on the western side, and Tripitaka in the middle; the white horse was put to the trough, and the baggage stowed away within.
“Worthy brother, well done indeed,” laughed the old fiend, “in two strokes you've caught three monks. But though Sun Pilgrim is pinned under the mountains, we'll still need some device to fetch him here for the steaming — only then will all be well.”
“Elder brother, be seated. If we want to take Sun Pilgrim, there's no need for us to stir — just send two little imps with two treasures to bottle him up and bring him here.”
“What treasures shall they take?”
“My purple-gold red gourd, and your mutton-fat jade vase.”
The old fiend took the treasures out. “Which two shall we send?”
“Send the two, Fine-and-Keen and Clever-Bug.” And he charged them: “You two take these treasures, go straight to the mountain's highest peak, turn the bottom skyward and the mouth to the ground, and call out once: ‘Sun Pilgrim!’ If he answers, he's sucked inside at once; then paste on the label reading ‘By command of Lord Lao, quick as the statutes decree,’ and in a trice he'll melt to pus.”
The two little imps kowtowed, took the treasures, and set off to catch Pilgrim; and of that, no more for now.
Now the Great Sage, pinned by the fiend's magic beneath the roots of the mountains, met his suffering thinking of Tripitaka, met his calamity longing for the holy monk. He cried aloud: “Master! Think back — when you came to the Mountain of Two Frontiers, tore off the sealing-slip, and freed old Monkey from his great ordeal, I took up the gate of the faith. Grateful for the Bodhisattva's charge, you and I have dwelt as one and cultivated as one — one karma, one form, one seeing, one knowing. And now, come all at once to this place, we meet with a demon-obstacle, and I am pinned under his sent mountains. Pitiful, pitiful! That I should die is fitting enough — it's only hard on Sha Monk, Bajie, and that little dragon who became my horse. This is just the case: ‘The tall tree draws the wind, and the wind shakes the tree; a man seeks lofty fame, and fame destroys the man.’”
His sighing done, his pearl-like tears fell like rain.
By now the mountain-god, the local earth-god, and the host of Guardians of the Five Quarters were all startled, and the Gold-Headed Guardian asked: “Whose mountain is this?”
“It's ours,” said the earth-god.
“And who is it pinned beneath your mountain?”
“We don't know who.”
“So you truly don't know. The one pinned here is the Great Sage Equal to Heaven — Sun Wukong the Pilgrim, who five hundred years ago threw Heaven into uproar. Now he has turned to the true fruit and become Tripitaka's disciple. How could you lend your mountain to a demon to crush him? You're as good as dead — if one day he works himself free, do you think he'll spare you? Even judged leniently, the earth-god would draw post-station duty, the mountain-god banishment to the frontier, and we'd be charged with grave dereliction.”
Only then did the mountain-god and earth-god take fright. “Truly we didn't know, didn't know. We only heard the fiend-chief chant his mountain-sending spell, and we moved the mountain over — who could have guessed it was the Great Sage Sun?”
“Fear not for the moment,” said the Guardian. “The statutes say: ‘One who acts in ignorance bears no guilt.’ Let me work it out with you: we'll let him out — only mind we don't give him cause to raise a hand against us.”
“That'd make no sense,” said the earth-god. “Free him, and then be beaten for it?”
“You don't know him. He has an As-You-Will gold-banded cudgel, fearsomely deadly: whatever it strikes dies, whatever it grazes is maimed; a mere knock snaps the sinews, a mere scrape peels the skin away.”
So the earth-god and mountain-god, fearful at heart, took counsel with the Guardians of the Five Quarters and came to the gate of the three mountains, calling out: “Great Sage! The mountain-god, the earth-god, and the Guardians of the Five Quarters have come to see you.”
Fine Pilgrim! Gaunt as a starved tiger, his hero's spirit yet unbroken, his bearing naturally lofty and his voice ringing clear, he said: “What do you want with me?”
“We report for the Great Sage's knowledge: we would move the mountains apart and beg the Great Sage to come forth, and pardon our humble spirits' offense of disrespect.”
“Move the mountains apart, and I won't beat you.” Then he shouted: “Up and away!” Just as an official dismisses a case, the assembled gods intoned their spells, sent the mountains back to their proper places, and set Pilgrim free.
Pilgrim sprang up, shook off the dirt, tightened his kilt, drew the cudgel from behind his ear, and called to the mountain-god and earth-god: “All of you, stick out your ankle-bones — two strokes apiece, to help old Monkey work off his gloom.”
The gods, aghast, said: “Just now the Great Sage promised to pardon our offense — how is it that the moment he's out, his words change and he means to beat us?”
“Fine earth-god, fine mountain-god! You mean to say you don't fear old Monkey, but you fear the demon?”
“That fiend's powers are vast and his arts formidable; he chants his spells and summons us into his cave, where one of us must stand duty by turns, a day at a time.”
Hearing the words “stand duty,” Pilgrim too was startled at heart. Lifting his face to the sky, he cried aloud: “Blue Heaven! Blue Heaven! Ever since the primal chaos first parted, when heaven opened and earth was cleaved and the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit gave me birth, I too sought out enlightened masters and had the secret of long life imparted to me. Think of my wind-borne transformations, my taming of tigers and subduing of dragons, my great uproar in Heaven, my very title of Great Sage — and yet never once did I bully or wrongfully order about a mountain-god or earth-god. Yet today this outrageous fiend dares to summon mountain-gods and earth-gods as his slaves, to serve him duty by turns! O Heaven! Having given life to old Monkey, why must you also give life to such creatures as these?”
Just as the Great Sage was sighing, he saw a rosy radiance come flaming out of the mountain hollow. “Mountain-god, earth-god — since you stand duty in that cave, what is that glowing thing?”
“That's the glow of the fiends' treasures,” said the earth-god. “Likely an imp is bringing a treasure to subdue you.”
“Now that's good sport! Let me ask you — what sort of people frequent that cave of his?”
“What he loves is refining cinnabar and compounding elixirs; what he delights in are Complete-Perfection Daoists.”
“No wonder he turned himself into an old Daoist to trick my master away! In that case, I'll hold your beating on account — go on back, the lot of you. Old Monkey will catch him himself.”
The assembled gods all rose into the air and scattered. The Great Sage gave his body a shake and turned into an old Perfected Man. And how was he got up? Just see:
On his head, twin topknots coiled;
on his body, a hundred-patch robe.
In his hand he beat a fisher's drum and clapper;
at his waist he tied a Lü Dongbin sash.
Leaning aslant by the great road,
he waited on purpose for the little imps.
In a moment the imps arrived;
the Monkey King, unseen, laid his sly snare.
Before long the two little imps arrived. Pilgrim stretched out his gold-banded cudgel; the imps, off their guard, caught their feet on it and went sprawling with a thud. Scrambling up, they finally saw him and shouted: “Slovenly wretch! Slovenly wretch! If our king didn't hold you travelers in esteem, we'd have it out with you here and now.”
Pilgrim said with an ingratiating smile: “Have out what? When one Daoist meets another, we're all one family.”
“Why were you lying here to trip us up like that?”
“When young acolytes meet an old adept like me, they take a little tumble as a meeting-gift.”
“Our king's meeting-gift is just a few taels of silver — how can a tumble count as a meeting-gift? You must be from some other district; you're certainly no Daoist from these parts.”
“Truly I'm not — I've come from Mount Penglai.”
“Mount Penglai is the realm of the sea-isle immortals!”
“If I'm no immortal, who is?”
At this the imps turned from anger to delight, stepped forward, and said: “Old immortal, old immortal! We are but fleshly-eyed mortals who failed to know you; forgive our rude words, forgive us!”
“I don't blame you. As the saying goes, ‘An immortal's body treads no common ground’ — so how were you to know? Today I've come to your mountain to deliver some worthy soul to immortality and the completion of the Way. Which of you will come with me?”
“Master, I'll come with you,” said Fine-and-Keen.
“Master, I'll come with you,” said Clever-Bug.
Pilgrim, knowing full well, asked as if he didn't: “Where do you two come from?”
“We come from the Lotus-Flower Cave.”
“And where are you bound?”
“On our king's orders, we're off to catch Sun Pilgrim.”
“Catch whom?”
“Catch Sun Pilgrim.”
“You mean that Sun Pilgrim who's fetching scriptures with Tripitaka?”
“The very one, the very one. Do you know him too?”
“That monkey's a rude sort. I know him, and I've a bit of a grudge against him myself. I'll go catch him with you — count it as my lending a hand.”
“Master, there's no need for your help,” said the imps. “Our Second King has some magic arts: he's sent three great mountains to pin him beneath them, so he can't budge an inch, and he's had us two bring treasures to bottle him.”
“What treasures are these?”
“Mine is the red gourd,” said Fine-and-Keen, “and his the jade vase.”
“And how do you bottle him?”
“You turn the treasure's bottom skyward and its mouth to the ground, call his name once, and if he answers he's sealed inside; then paste on a label reading ‘By command of Lord Lao, quick as the statutes decree,’ and in a trice he'll melt into pus.”
Hearing this, Pilgrim was secretly alarmed. “Formidable, formidable! When the Day-Duty Merit-Officer brought word, he said there were five treasures — these are two of them. I wonder what the other three might be?” Then he said with a smile: “You two — lend me the treasures for a look.”
The little imps, knowing nothing of any trick, drew the two treasures from their sleeves and handed them to him with both hands. Seeing them, Pilgrim rejoiced in secret: “Fine things, fine things! If I gave my tail a flick and went bounding off with a whoosh, I'd count it as their gift to old Monkey.” But then he thought again: “No good, no good. Snatch them and off I'd be — but it would ruin old Monkey's good name. That's what you'd call daylight robbery.”
So he handed them back and said: “You haven't yet seen my treasure.”
“What treasure has the master? Lend it to us mortals too, to look at and ward off calamity.”
Fine Pilgrim! He reached down, plucked a hair from the tip of his tail, gave it a rub, and cried: “Change!” At once it turned into a great purple-gold red gourd, one chǐ seven cùn long, which he drew from his waist, saying: “Do you see my gourd?”
Clever-Bug took it in hand, looked it over, and said: “Master, this gourd of yours is big and well-shaped, handsome to look at — but it's simply of no use.”
“How is it of no use?”
“These two treasures of ours can each bottle a thousand men.”
“What's so remarkable about yours, that only bottle people? This gourd of mine can bottle up the very sky inside it.”
“It can really bottle the sky?”
“Truly it bottles the sky.”
“We fear it's a lie — bottle it for us to see, and then we'll believe you; otherwise we certainly won't.”
“When Heaven vexes me, I'll bottle it seven or eight times in a month; when it doesn't, I won't bottle it once in half a year.”
“Brother — a treasure that bottles the sky!” said Clever-Bug. “Let's trade for it.”
“His bottles the sky,” said Fine-and-Keen. “Why would he trade it for ours that only bottle men?”
“If he won't, we'll throw in this jade vase to sweeten it.”
Pilgrim rejoiced in secret: “Gourd for gourd, and the jade vase thrown in besides — one for two! Truly a most fitting bargain.” He stepped forward at once, took hold of Clever-Bug, and said: “Bottle the sky, and we'll trade?”
“Just bottle the sky and we'll trade — if we don't, I'm your son.”
“Very well, very well — I'll bottle it for you to see.”
Fine Great Sage! He bowed his head, made the finger-signs, chanted a spell, and summoned the Day-Roaming Spirit, the Night-Roaming Spirit, and the Guardians of the Five Quarters: “Go at once and report to the Jade Emperor for me — say old Monkey has turned to the true fruit and guards Tripitaka on his way west to fetch scriptures, that his road is barred by high mountains and his master beset by ordeal. The fiends have those treasures, and I mean to lure them into a trade. A thousand times I beg it: lend old Monkey the sky to bottle up for half a shí chén, to help me succeed. If the answer's so much as half a word of refusal, I'll come up to the Hall of Divine Mists and set weapons flying.”
The Day-Roaming Spirit went straight through the Southern Gate of Heaven to the foot of the Hall of Divine Mists, memorialized the Jade Emperor, and laid out the whole matter.
“This wretched ape, speaking so insolently!” said the Jade Emperor. “Before, Guanyin came to say he'd been released to protect Tripitaka, and I dispatched the Guardians of the Five Quarters and the Merit-Officers of the Four Watches to guard him by turns. Now he wants to borrow the sky to bottle — but can the sky be bottled?”
Just as he was saying the sky could not be bottled, the Third Prince Nezha stepped forth from the ranks and reported: “Your Majesty, the sky can be bottled.”
“How can the sky be bottled?”
“Since the primal chaos first divided, the light and pure became Heaven, the heavy and turbid became Earth. Heaven is a mass of pure vapor upholding the jade palaces and towers; by reason, it truly can't be bottled. But since Sun Pilgrim guards Tripitaka on his westward journey for the scriptures — a blessing weighty as Mount Tai, a fortune deep as the sea — today we ought to help him succeed.”
“What help do you propose?”
“Issue a decree, if you please, to go to the Northern Gate and borrow from Zhenwu his black-eagle banner; unfurl it once above the Southern Gate, and it will shut away the sun, moon, and stars. Face to face, none will see the other; grasping at white, they'll not make out black — and so we'll fool the fiends into thinking the sky is bottled, and help Pilgrim succeed.”
The Jade Emperor, hearing this, said: “Let it be as you propose.” The Prince, taking the decree, came to the Northern Gate, met Zhenwu, and laid out the whole matter; and the Patriarch thereupon handed the banner to the Prince.
At once a roaming spirit descended swiftly to the Great Sage's ear and said: “Prince Nezha has come to lend his aid.” Pilgrim looked up and saw auspicious clouds coiling about — sure enough, the god was there. He turned back to the imps: “Let's bottle the sky, then.”
“If you're going to, do it — why keep dithering about?”
“I was just now mustering my spirit and reciting the spell.”
The imps kept their eyes wide open, watching how he would bottle the sky. Pilgrim tossed the false gourd up into the air. Now think — being only a single hair transformed, how much could it weigh? The wind atop the peak carried it off, drifting and swaying, and a full half shí chén passed before it came down.
Then, above the Southern Gate of Heaven, Prince Nezha snapped open the black-eagle banner with a flap and shut sun, moon, and stars all away. Truly, heaven and earth seemed dyed in ink, the whole cosmos steeped in indigo.
The two imps cried out in alarm: “A moment ago when we spoke it was barely noon — how has it turned to dusk already?”
“With the sky bottled, you can't tell the hour — how could it not be dusk?”
“And why so utterly black?”
“Sun, moon, and stars are all bottled inside, so there's no light without — how could it not be black?”
“Master, whereabouts are you speaking from?”
“Am I not right here before you?”
The imps reached out, groping. “We hear you speak but can't see your face at all. Master, what sort of place is this?”
Pilgrim fooled them further: “Don't move your feet — this is the shore of the Bohai Sea, and if you slip and fall, you'd not touch bottom in seven or eight days.”
The imps cried in terror: “Enough, enough, enough — let the sky go! Now we know this is how it's bottled. Fool about any longer and we'll fall into the sea and never get home.”
Fine Pilgrim! Seeing that they took it for true, he chanted the spell again to alert the Prince, who rolled up the banner — and at once the sunlight of high noon returned.
The imps laughed: “Marvelous! Marvelous! With a treasure this fine, not to trade for it would make one no proper son of the house.” Fine-and-Keen handed over the gourd, Clever-Bug produced the jade vase, and together they passed them to Pilgrim, who in turn handed them the false gourd; and the trade was done.
Having made the exchange, he pushed the business to its limit: he plucked a hair from below his navel, blew on it a breath of immortal air, and turned it into a copper coin. “Young one,” he called, “take this coin and go buy a sheet of paper.”
“What for?”
“I'll draw up a contract with you. You've traded your two people-bottling treasures for my one sky-bottling treasure; lest hearts prove uneasy and, as the years wear on, there be any reneging or dispute, we'll write this out, each to keep a copy for proof.”
“There's no brush or ink here — what document can we write? Let's swear an oath instead.”
“How shall we swear it?”
“Our two people-bottling treasures, makeweight and all, for your one sky-bottling treasure — if either reneges, may he be plagued through all four seasons of the year.”
Pilgrim said with a laugh: “I'll certainly never renege; and if I do, may I too be plagued through the four seasons, just as you say.”
The oath sworn, he gave his body a spring and his tail a flick, leapt before the Southern Gate of Heaven, and thanked Prince Nezha for the aid of his waving banner. The Prince returned to his palace to report the mission done, and sent the banner back to Zhenwu; of which no more.
Pilgrim stood poised amid the empyrean, watching the little imps below. In the end there is no telling how the matter will be dealt with — so listen to the next installment for the telling.