“The King of Great Strength,” said the Local Spirit, “is none other than the Bull Demon King.”
“Then the fire on this mountain was set by the Bull Demon King,” said Pilgrim, “and the name Mountain of Flames is a false one?”
“No, no,” said the Local Spirit. “If the Great Sage will pardon this humble deity's offence, only then would I dare speak plainly.”
“What offence have you? Speak out; there is no harm in it.”
“This fire,” said the Local Spirit, “was, at its origin, set by the Great Sage himself.”
“Where was I?” said Pilgrim in anger. “You talk such nonsense. Am I the sort of creature who sets fires?”
“So it is that you no longer know me,” said the Local Spirit. “This place had no such mountain at the first. When, five hundred years ago, the Great Sage made his great havoc in Heaven, he was taken by the Manifest Sage, haled before Lord Lao, and set within the Brazier of the Eight Trigrams. When the smelting was done and the vessel opened, you kicked the cinnabar brazier over, and several bricks came down; there was fire yet within them, and on reaching this place they were transformed into the Mountain of Flames. I was formerly the Daoist who kept the brazier in the Tuṣita Palace. Then Lord Lao held me at fault for my dereliction and sent me down here, and so I became the Local Spirit of the Mountain of Flames.”
Zhu Eight Rules, hearing this, said resentfully, “No wonder you are got up in that fashion — a Daoist turned Local Spirit, after all.”
Half believing and half not, Pilgrim said, “Say on, then. Why should I go seeking the King of Great Strength?”
“The King of Great Strength is husband to the Rākṣasī. Of late he has cast her off, and is now at the Cloud-Touching Cave on the Mountain of Massed Thunder. There was a Fox King of ten thousand years. That Fox King died, leaving behind a single daughter, who is called the Jade-Faced Princess. That princess has a private fortune of a million, and no one to have charge of it. Two years ago she learned that the Bull Demon King's powers were vast, and willingly settled her fortune upon him in reverse, taking him into her house as a husband. So the Bull King has abandoned the Rākṣasī, and this long while has not looked back.”
“If the Great Sage will seek the Bull King out and entreat him to come here, only so may the true fan be borrowed. First, the flames would be fanned out and the Master might go forward; second, the peril of fire would be done away for ever and the living things of this region preserved; third, I should be pardoned and returned to Heaven, and might hand back Lord Lao's decree.”
“Where does the Mountain of Massed Thunder lie?” said Pilgrim. “What distance is it to reach there?”
“Due south. From this place to that is somewhat above three thousand lǐ.”
Pilgrim at once gave orders that Sha Monk and Eight Rules should guard the Master, and charged the Local Spirit to keep them company and not withdraw. Then with a sudden sound he was away, and vanished into nothing. Scarcely had half a watch been spent when he saw before him a high mountain piercing the sky. He brought his cloud down, halted upon the topmost peak, and looked about him. Truly it was a fine mountain:
How high? — its summit grazes the blue empyrean;
How vast? — its roots are driven down to the Yellow Springs.
Before the mountain the sun is warm; behind the ridge the wind is cold.
Before the mountain the sun is warm, yet through the three months of winter the grass and trees know nothing of it;
Behind the ridge the wind is cold, and through the ninety days of summer one sees the ice and frost unmelted.
The dragon's pool meets the ravine, and the water runs long; the tiger's den leans on the cliff, and the flowers open early.
The water runs in a thousand courses like flying jade; the flowers open with a single heart like spread brocade.
Winding the ridge above, and winding the trees upon it; jagged beyond the rocks, and jagged the pines among them.
Truly here are: high mountains, steep ridges;
sheer cliffs, deep ravines;
fragrant flowers, fine fruits;
red vines, purple bamboo;
green pines, kingfisher willows.
Through the eight divisions and the four seasons its face does not alter; through a thousand years and ten thousand ages its colour is as a dragon's.
When the Great Sage had looked his fill, he stepped down from the pointed peak, entered the deep mountain and searched out a path. Just as he was finding no trace of anything, he suddenly saw beneath the shade of the pines a woman, who had plucked a sprig of fragrant orchid and came along with a slow and swaying grace. He slipped aside behind a grotesque rock and watched her with a fixed eye. What manner of woman was she?
Delicate, delicate — a beauty to overthrow a kingdom; slowly, slowly — her lotus steps advance.
Her form is Wang Qiang's; her face that of the woman of Chu.
Like a flower that understands speech; like jade that gives off fragrance.
Her high coiled hair heaps up its blackness to a kingfisher's raven gloss; her paired eyes, steeped in green, lie level as autumn water.
Her Xiang-silk skirt half discloses the small bow-shoes; her kingfisher sleeve opens a little on the long pale wrist.
What talk is there of evening rain and morning cloud? Here truly are vermilion lips and gleaming teeth.
Smooth as the waters of the Brocade River, her moth-eyebrows are finely drawn; she surpasses Wenjun and Xue Tao.
The woman drew gradually nearer to the rock. The Great Sage bowed low, made his salutation, and said in a slow voice, “Whither away, lady bodhisattva?”
She had not been looking about her; hearing herself hailed and questioned, she raised her head. Suddenly seeing how ugly his features were, she took a great fright. She would have drawn back and could not; she would have gone forward and could not; and so, all a-tremble, she forced herself to answer: “What place are you come from? How dare you question anyone here?”
The Great Sage fell to thinking. If I speak out the business of fetching scriptures and borrowing the fan, this creature may well be kin to the Bull King. Better to lean upon a feigned kinship for my pretext, and answer with the story that I am come to invite the Demon King.
Seeing that he did not speak, the woman changed colour and shouted at him in anger, “Who are you, that you dare come questioning me?”
The Great Sage bowed and said with an ingratiating smile, “I am come from Kingfisher Cloud Mountain, and being newly arrived in your honoured region I do not know the roads. I make bold to ask, bodhisattva — is this place the Mountain of Massed Thunder?”
“It is.”
“There is a Cloud-Touching Cave. Whereabouts does it lie?”
“What do you want with that cave?”
“I am sent by the Iron-Fan Princess of the Banana-Leaf Cave on Kingfisher Cloud Mountain, to invite the Bull Demon King.”
The moment she heard the words the Iron-Fan Princess invites the Bull Demon King, a great rage rose in her heart. She flushed crimson to the very roots of her ears and railed at him foul-mouthed: “That base slut! She is truly without sense. Since the Bull King came to my house, not two years have passed, and there is no counting how much pearl and kingfisher-feather, gold and silver, gauze and damask and bolts of satin have been sent to her — firewood supplied by the year and rice by the month, and she living at her ease upon it all. Has she still no shame, that she must send now to invite him back?”
At that the Great Sage knew her for the Jade-Faced Princess. He deliberately whipped out his gold-hooped cudgel and shouted with a great shout: “You foul slut! You bought and kept the Bull King with your household wealth — you paid out money to get yourself a husband, and it is you who should be ashamed. Whom do you dare rail at?”
At the sight of the cudgel the woman was so terrified that her spirits scattered and her soul took flight. She could find no proper footing, but went stamping wildly on her golden lotuses as, trembling, she turned and ran, and the Great Sage came shouting and hallooing along behind her. It proved that through the shade of the pines lay the very mouth of the Cloud-Touching Cave. She ran inside and slammed the door to with a bang.
The Great Sage put up his cudgel, halted his step and looked. A fine place it was:
The groves stand thick and dark; the cliffs are sheer and jagged.
The fig-vine and the dodder cast a slow-drifting shade; orchid and iris breathe a lingering sweetness.
The running spring rinses jade as it threads the tall bamboo; the artful rocks, knowing the season, carry the fallen blossom.
Mist and rosy cloud enshroud the far summits; sun and moon light the screen of cloud.
Dragons intone and tigers roar; cranes cry out and orioles sing.
One whole reach of clear seclusion, and truly to be loved; with jasper flowers and jade grasses the prospect is bright without end.
It yields nothing to the immortal grottoes of Tiantai, and surpasses Penglai and Yingzhou upon the sea.
But leave the Pilgrim there, looking his fill at the scenery. The story turns to the woman, who had run till the powder on her face was streaked with sweat and her orchid heart fluttered with fright, and who went straight into the study. It turned out that the Bull Demon King was there at that moment, quietly poring over a book of cinnabar lore. Quite out of temper, she collapsed into his arms, clawed at her ears and scratched at her cheeks, and wept aloud.
“Beauty, do not distress yourself,” said the Bull King, his face all smiles. “What have you to tell me?”
She leapt to the sky and clawed at the ground, railing aloud, “You foul demon, you have been the death of me!”
“On what account do you rail at me?” he said, laughing.
“It was because my father and mother left me without support that I took you in, to guard my person and keep me alive. On the rivers and lakes they call you a stout fellow. You turn out to be a common creature that goes in fear of his wife.”
Hearing this, the Bull King took her in his arms. “Beauty, what faults have I? Tell it out slowly, and I will make my apologies to you.”
“Just now,” she said, “I was strolling outside the cave in the shade of the flowers, plucking orchid and gathering iris, when all at once there was a monk with a hairy face and a thunder-god's beak, who came up on a sudden and made me a bow, and frightened me stiff. When I had steadied myself and asked who he was, he said the Iron-Fan Princess had deputed him to come and invite the Bull Demon King. I said a word or two to him, and instead he railed at me roundly, and took a cudgel and came after me to beat me. If I had not run the faster, I should have been beaten to death by him. Is this not to have taken you in and got a calamity by it? You have been the death of me!”
Hearing this, the Bull King composed his countenance and made his apologies to her, and soothed her a good while before her temper at last subsided.
Then the Demon King said fiercely, “Beauty, with you before me I dare conceal nothing. That Banana-Leaf Cave is out of the way, it is true, but it is quiet and free. My mountain wife has practised austerities from her youth and is herself a female immortal who has attained the Way. Her household is strictly kept: within it there is not a child of one chǐ. How should there be a man with a thunder-god's beak for her to depute? This must be some fiend from I know not where, who has perhaps taken the name falsely and come here to seek me out. Let me go out and take a look.”
Excellent Demon King! He strode out, quitted the study, went up into the great hall, took down his armour and buckled it on. Then he took up a wrought-iron staff, went out at the door and called loudly, “Who is it that behaves so ill in my place?”
Pilgrim, standing to one side, saw that his aspect was very different from what it had been five hundred years before. He saw only this:
On his head a helm of tempered iron, water-ground to a silver brightness; on his body a suit of golden mail, brocade-worked and threaded with floss; on his feet a pair of deerskin boots, curl-toed and pale-soled;
about his waist a lion-and-barbarian belt of three plaited strands of gathered silk.
A pair of eyes with light like clear mirrors; two brows glowing as a red rainbow.
A mouth like a basin of blood; teeth ranged like plates of bronze.
The sound of his roar shakes the mountain spirits with dread; the majesty of his movement throws the wicked ghosts into panic.
Within the Four Seas he has a name, and is called Confounder of the World; in the western quarter he is styled the Demon King of Great Strength.
The Great Sage straightened his dress, stepped forward and made a deep obeisance with a loud salutation. “Elder brother, do you still know your younger brother?”
The Bull King returned the courtesy. “Are you Sun Wukong, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven?”
“I am, I am. It is long since we parted and I have not paid my respects. Just now I came here and enquired of a woman, and so was able to see my brother. Your bearing is finer than it was. I congratulate you.”
“Spare me your glib tongue,” the Bull King shouted. “I hear that you made havoc in Heaven and were pressed down by the Buddha beneath the Mountain of Five Phases; that of late you were loosed from that celestial calamity, and now guard the Tang Monk westward to see the Buddha and seek scriptures. How is it, then, that at the Fire-Cloud Cave by the Withered Pine Ravine on Mount Hao you destroyed my little son, the Bull Sage Boy? I am at this moment nursing my anger against you here. How is it that you come seeking me into the bargain?”
The Great Sage made his bow. “Elder brother, do not blame your younger brother wrongly. At that time your honoured son had seized my master and meant to eat his flesh, and I could not get near him. Happily the bodhisattva Guanyin, wishing to save my master, exhorted him to turn to the right way. He is now the Page of Good Wealth, higher in station than my elder brother himself, enjoying the halls of utmost bliss and receiving the unending life of untrammelled ease. What is amiss in that, that you should turn and blame me?”
“You clever-mouthed ape!” the Bull King railed. “The grievance of my son you have talked away; but just now you insulted my beloved concubine and came beating at my gate. What of that?”
The Great Sage laughed. “It was because I came to wait upon my elder brother and did not find him that I made my enquiry of that woman, not knowing that she was my second sister-in-law. Because she railed at me a few words, your younger brother was for the moment coarse and rough, and startled my sister-in-law. I beg my elder brother to forgive it, to forgive it.”
“Since you put it so,” said the Bull King, “I will have regard to our old acquaintance and let you off. Go.”
“Since I have received so generous a pardon,” said the Great Sage, “my thanks are beyond telling. But there is yet one matter with which I must trouble you, and I earnestly beg your help in it, your help in it.”
“This ape does not know rising from falling!” the Bull King railed. “I let you off, and instead of going you turn back and pester me. What help, what help?”
“I will hide nothing from my elder brother. Because I am guarding the Tang Monk on his westward way, our road is blocked by the Mountain of Flames and we cannot go forward. On enquiry of the local people I learned that my honoured sister-in-law the Rākṣasī has a banana-leaf fan, and I wished to beg the use of it. Yesterday I went to the old residence to wait upon her, and she held firm and would not lend it. Therefore I come expressly to entreat my elder brother. I hope you will open a heart wide as heaven and earth and go once with your younger brother to the first lady's place, and by all means lend the fan to fan out the flames, so that the Tang Monk may be got safely over the mountain; and the jade shall be returned whole at once.”
Hearing this, the Bull King's heart flared as with fire. He ground his steel teeth till they rang, and railed, “You said you had done no discourtesy — and the whole cause of it turns out to be the borrowing of the fan! Assuredly you first insulted my mountain wife; my mountain wife, I suppose, would not consent; and so you came seeking me, and chased my beloved concubine into the bargain. The common saying has it: the wife of a friend is not to be wronged; the concubine of a friend is not to be slighted. You have wronged my wife and slighted my concubine both. How great an incivility is that? Come up and take a stroke of my staff!”
“If my elder brother will talk of fighting,” said the Great Sage, “his younger brother is not afraid. But it is in all sincerity that I ask for the treasure. I beg you ten thousand times to lend it me for a use.”
“If in three bouts you can match me, I will have my mountain wife lend it to you; if you cannot match me, I shall beat you to death and wipe out my grudge.”
“My elder brother speaks rightly. Your younger brother has been idle this long while and has not met with his brother; I do not know how the martial art of these last few years compares with what it was. Let us brothers try our staffs and see.”
The Bull King would allow no explaining: he whipped out his wrought-iron staff and struck straight at the head, and the Great Sage held up his gold-hooped cudgel and met it as it came. A fine bout the two of them made of it:
Gold-hooped cudgel, wrought-iron staff — the faces changed, and no more reckoning as friends.
That one says: “It is you, ape, that I blame for the harming of my son.”
This one says: “Your honoured son has attained the Way; have done with your resentment.”
That one says: “Witless creature, how dare you come to my gate?”
This one says: “I have my reasons, and came expressly to ask.”
The one would beg the fan to guard the Tang Monk; the one will not lend the banana-leaf, and is mean beyond measure.
Words going and words coming lose the old affection; a whole house without right feeling, and rancour breeding in them all.
The Bull King's staff rises, outdoing a flood-dragon; the Great Sage's cudgel meets it, and gods and demons flee.
At first they strove and fought before the mountain; afterwards they rode the auspicious cloud together and mounted.
In mid-air they showed their divine powers; amid five-coloured light they worked their marvellous turns.
The two staffs ring and shake the barrier of heaven; no winning or losing is to be seen, and the two are matched within a cùn.
The Great Sage and the Bull King fought a hundred bouts and more, and no winner could be told between them. Just at the point where they could be neither loosed nor parted, a voice was heard calling from the mountain peak: “Lord Bull! My great king sends his most respectful greetings, and begs the favour of your early coming, that the seats may be duly set.”
Hearing this, the Bull King used his wrought-iron staff to hold off the gold-hooped cudgel and called out, “Ape, hold a while. Let me go to a friend's house and attend the gathering, and I will be back.”
So saying, he pressed his cloud down, went straight into the cave, and said to the Jade-Faced Princess, “Beauty, that thunder-god-beaked man of just now was the ape Sun Wukong. I beat him off with a round of my staff, and he will not dare come again. Set your mind at rest and take your pleasure. I am going to a friend's place to drink wine.”
Then he took off helm and mail, put on a crow-blue jacket of cut velvet, went out at the door, mounted the water-averting golden-eyed beast, ordered the little ones to keep watch over the gate, and half in cloud and half in mist went straight away toward the north-west.
The Great Sage watched from the high peak and thought within himself: There is no telling what friends this old bull has made now, or where he goes to attend this gathering. Let old Sun follow him a while.
Excellent Pilgrim! He gave his body a shake, changed into a gust of clear wind, overtook him and went along at his side. In no long time they came into a mountain, and the Bull King was all at once nowhere to be seen. The Great Sage gathered up his own form again and went in to search.
In that mountain was a deep pool of clear water, and beside the pool stood a stone tablet, and on the tablet were six large characters: Green Wave Pool of Tumbled Rock Mountain. The old bull has certainly gone down into the water, thought the Great Sage. A spirit at the bottom of the water — if it is not a flood-dragon spirit, it must be a dragon spirit or a fish spirit, or else the spirit of a tortoise, a turtle, a soft-shell or an alligator. Let old Sun go down into the water too and take a look.
Excellent Great Sage! Pinching his sign and reciting a spell, he shook himself and changed into a crab, neither large nor small, of thirty-six catties' weight. With a splash he leapt into the water and sank straight to the bottom of the pool, where he suddenly saw an archway of delicate open-work, and tethered beneath it that same water-averting golden-eyed beast. Once inside the archway there was no water at all. The Great Sage crawled in, and looking carefully saw over on that side a strain of music. He saw only this:
Vermilion halls and cowrie towers, in nothing different from the world above.
Gold serves for the roof-tiles; white jade makes the door-pivots.
Screens are spread with plates of tortoiseshell; railings are laid with beads of coral.
Auspicious cloud and lucky haze light the lotus throne; above they reach the three luminaries, below they enter the thoroughfares.
It is not the Palace of Heaven, nor yet the Treasury of the Sea; truly this place outdoes Penglai.
In the high hall a feast is laid, host and guests in their ranks; officers great and small in caps and beads.
In haste the jade maidens are called to bear the ivory trays; the immortal beauties are urged to tune the pitch-pipes.
The long whale sings, the giant crab dances, the turtle blows the reed-organ, the alligator beats the drum; the pearl from beneath the black dragon's chin lights goblet and platter.
Bird-seal script is ranged upon kingfisher screens; curtains of shrimp-whisker hang along the corridors.
The eight timbres sound in turn, mingled with the immortal Shao; gong and shang ring out and halt the clouds of heaven.
Green-headed perch-girls stroke the jasper zither; red-eyed horse-lads finger the jade flute.
Dame Mandarin-fish bears up the fragrant deer jerky; the dragon maidens have golden phoenix pins in their hair.
What they eat is the eight-treasure delicacies of the heavenly kitchen;
what they drink is the jasper liquor of the Purple Palace, well brewed and mellow.
Seated in the upper place was the Bull Demon King; to right and left were three or four flood-dragon spirits; in front sat an old dragon spirit; and on either hand were dragon sons, dragon grandsons, dragon dames and dragon maidens. Just as the goblets and tallies were passing back and forth, Sun the Great Sage walked straight up, and the old dragon caught sight of him and at once gave order: “Seize that wild crab and fetch him here.” The dragon sons and grandsons crowded forward and laid hold of him.
The Great Sage suddenly spoke with a human voice and cried, “Spare my life, spare my life!”
“Where are you come from, wild crab?” said the old dragon. “How dare you come up into the hall and go sidling and blundering about before an honoured guest? Confess quickly, and I will remit the capital charge.”
Excellent Great Sage! He framed a false tale and deposed before the company:
“Born in a lake, I make my living there; beside the cliff I dig my hole and lodge as I may.
Because the days have been long I have come to some ease of body, and hold office as a Sidling Gentleman-at-Arms.
Treading the weeds and trailing the mud, a shabby thing, I have never learned the forms of conduct.
Not knowing the statutes I have affronted the royal majesty. Prostrate I beg your honoured mercy to forgive the offence!”
The spirits at the table, hearing this, all bowed with folded hands to the old dragon and said, “The Crab Gentleman-at-Arms has but newly entered the jasper palace and does not know the royal courtesies. We beg your honour to let him go.”
The old dragon expressed his thanks, and the spirits gave order: “Turn the fellow loose, set his beating down on record, and let him wait outside.”
The Great Sage answered with a sound, fled outside for his life, and went straight to the foot of the archway, thinking within himself: This Bull King is here greedy for his cup. How is one to wait until they break up? And even when they have broken up, he will not be willing to lend me the fan. Better to steal his golden-eyed beast, change into the Bull Demon King, go and hoodwink that Rākṣasī, cheat her out of the fan, and see my master over the mountain. That would be best.
Excellent Great Sage! He resumed his own form at once, loosed the halter of the golden-eyed beast, gave a spring, mounted the carved saddle and rode straight up out of the bottom of the pool. Once outside he changed his body into the likeness of the Bull King, and driving the beast and riding the cloud he was in no long time at the mouth of the Banana-Leaf Cave on Kingfisher Cloud Mountain.
“Open the door,” he called.
Within were two serving-maids, who heard the voice and opened, and seeing the face of the Bull Demon King went straight in to report: “Madam, the master is come home.”
The Rākṣasī, hearing it, hastily set her cloudy coiffure in order, moved her lotus steps in haste, and came out at the door to receive him. The Great Sage got down from the carved saddle and led in the golden-eyed beast; he played the bold man and cozened the fair lady. Her fleshly eyes could not make him out. She took him by the hand and went in, and ordered the maids to set a seat and serve tea; and the whole household, seeing it was their lord, were every one of them respectful and careful.
In a moment they had exchanged the courtesies of cold and warm. “Madam,” said the Bull King, “it is long since we met.”
“A thousand blessings on my lord,” said the Rākṣasī; and she added, “My lord has been doting on his new marriage and has cast off this humble person. What gust of wind has blown you here today?”
“I would not dare cast you off,” said the Great Sage with a laugh. “It is only that since the Jade-Faced Princess took me in, household affairs have been many and friends have called often, so that I was detained abroad — and I have set up a second establishment besides.” He went on: “I hear of late that the fellow Wukong is escorting the Tang Monk and is near the borders of the Mountain of Flames. I fear he may come to ask you for the loan of the fan. I bear that fellow a grudge for my son that is still unavenged. When he comes, send a man to tell me; let me take him and cut his corpse into ten thousand pieces, to wipe out the hatred of us both.”
Hearing this, the Rākṣasī told him with falling tears, “My lord, the common saying has it: a man without a wife has no master for his goods; a woman without a husband has no master for her person. My life was very near being taken by that ape.”
The Great Sage put on a show of rage and railed, “When did that foul monkey pass this way?”
“He has not gone yet. Yesterday he came here to borrow the fan, and because of his harming our child I put on my armour, swung out my precious sword and slashed at him. He bore the pain, called me sister-in-law, and said my lord had once sworn brotherhood with him.”
“Five hundred years ago,” said the Great Sage, “we did indeed bow together as seven sworn brothers.”
“Railed at, he dared not answer back; slashed at, he dared not lift a hand. Afterwards I fanned him away with a single stroke of the fan. I do not know where he got hold of some wind-stilling trick, but this morning he was at the door calling again. I used the fan on him again, and could not make him budge. When I swung the sword at him in haste, he would give way to me no longer. Fearing the weight of his cudgel, I went into the cave and shut the door fast. I do not know by what way he got in, but he bored into my belly, and my life was very near being taken. So I called him uncle a few times, and gave him the fan and let him go.”
The Great Sage again beat his breast in pretence. “What a pity, what a pity! Madam, you were wrong. How could you give that treasure to the ape? It vexes me to death!”
“Let my lord's anger rest,” she said with a laugh. “What I gave him was a false fan; I merely tricked him into going.”
“And where is the true fan?”
“Rest easy, rest easy — I have it put away.”
She called the maids to set out wine, to welcome him home and drink to his good fortune, then raised a cup and offered it, saying, “My lord, though you take your pleasure in a new marriage, do not for anything forget the wife of your hair-binding. Drink a cup of the water of your own country.”
The Great Sage dared not refuse it, and could only smile and smile and take the goblet in his hand. “Madam, drink first. Because I was busy managing property abroad I have long been parted from you, and morning and evening you have kept and guarded this house. Let this stand for my thanks.”
The Rākṣasī took the cup again, filled it, and handed it to him. “From of old it is said: a wife is an equal. A husband is the father who sustains one's body. What is there to thank?”
The two of them made their deferences back and forth, and only then sat down and sent the wine round. The Great Sage dared not break his abstinence from flesh, and ate only a few pieces of fruit, talking with her the while.
When the wine had gone several rounds the Rākṣasī felt herself half tipsy, and her colour stirred a little. She fell to rubbing and jostling against the Great Sage, to touching and pinching: taking his hand, she spoke him soft and low; setting her shoulder to his, she inclined toward him in a hushed voice. Taking a single cup of wine, you drink a mouthful and I drink a mouthful, and then she would feed him fruit besides. The Great Sage feigned the feeling he did not have, kept her company and kept laughing, and having no help for it leaned and nestled against her too. Truly it was a case of:
The hook that angles for poems, the broom that sweeps care away — for dissolving all things there is nothing like wine.
A man lets his reserve go and opens his breast; a woman forgets herself and opens her mouth to laugh.
Faces flush red as the young peach; bodies sway like the tender willow.
Rambling and chattering, the talk runs on; pinching and nipping, there is feeling in it.
Now she is seen smoothing her cloudy coiffure; now again waving a tapering hand.
Again and again she cocks up a little foot; time after time she shakes out a sleeve.
Her powdered neck sinks of itself; her slender waist begins to turn.
Words of joining are never let fall; her soft breast half discloses itself, the golden clasp loosened.
Drunk at last, the jade mountain topples indeed; with bleared eyes she gropes about and makes a sorry show.
Seeing her so far gone, the Great Sage kept a private watch on her and drew her out with a question. “Madam, where do you keep the true fan? Be careful of it night and morning. I only fear that Sun the Pilgrim has transformations without number, and may come and cheat it away again.”
Laughing merrily, the Rākṣasī spat it out of her mouth — a thing no bigger than an apricot leaf — and handed it to him. “Is not this the treasure?”
He took it into his hand and still would not believe it, and thought privately: So very little a thing — how should it fan a fire out? I fear this too is false.
Seeing him gaze at the treasure and brood, she could not restrain herself, but came up and pressed her powdered face against the Pilgrim's, calling, “Dearest, put your treasure away and drink your wine. What are you staring and mooning about?”
The Great Sage took the moment as she cocked up her foot, and put her a question. “So small a thing as this — how can it fan out eight hundred lǐ of flame?”
Her true nature drawn out by the wine and past all caution, she spoke out the method. “My lord, I have been parted from you two years. I suppose you have been indulging night and day, and the Jade-Faced Princess has damaged your wits. How is it you have forgotten even the working of your own treasure? You have only to pinch the seventh strand of red silk on the handle with the thumb of your left hand and say once the words huí xū a xī xī chuī hū — and it grows at once to a zhàng and two chǐ in length. The treasure's transformations are without end! Though the flames ran to eighty thousand lǐ, one fanning could put them out.”
The Great Sage laid it up earnestly in his heart. Then he put the fan too into his mouth to hold, gave his face a wipe, and stood forth in his own shape, calling out in a harsh voice, “Rākṣasī! Take a look at me — am I your own dear husband? And you went winding yourself about me through all this ugly business. For shame, for shame!”
The moment she saw it was Sun the Pilgrim she was so alarmed that she overset the table, fell to the ground and was ashamed beyond measure, and could only cry, “I am vexed to death! I am vexed to death!”
Caring nothing whether she lived or died, the Great Sage shook off her hand, strode out with a great step, and went straight from the Banana-Leaf Cave. Truly it was a case of: with no heart for beauty he coveted none, and getting his will he turned back laughing.
He gave his body a spring, trod the auspicious cloud, leapt up onto a high mountain, spat out the fan and tried the method over. He pinched the seventh strand of red silk on the handle with the thumb of his left hand, said once the words huí xū a xī xī chuī hū — and sure enough it grew to a zhàng and two chǐ in length.
He took it in his hand and looked at it carefully over and over: set against the counterfeit of the time before it was plainly not the same. He saw only an auspicious light dazzling and a lucky vapour thick about it, and on it six-and-thirty strands of red silk, threaded through warp and net, inner and outer answering each other. It turned out that the Pilgrim had asked only for the method of making it long, and had not asked her for the formula of making it small; so it stayed at that length, do what he would. Having no help for it, he could only hoist it onto his shoulder, find the old road and go back; of which no more.
The story turns to the Bull Demon King at the bottom of the Green Wave Pool. When the banquet with the spirits had broken up and he came out at the door, the water-averting golden-eyed beast was nowhere to be seen. The old Dragon King gathered the spirits and demanded, “Who has stolen and loosed Lord Bull's golden-eyed beast?”
The spirits knelt down. “None of us would dare steal it. We were all of us at the banquet mat, serving wine and bearing dishes, providing the singing and playing the music. Not one of us was out in front.”
“The household musicians would certainly not dare,” said the old dragon. “Was there perhaps some stranger who came in?”
“Just now, at the time of seating,” said the dragon sons and grandsons, “there was a crab spirit who came here. That one was a stranger.”
The Bull King understood on the instant. “There is no need to say more. This morning, when my worthy friend sent a man to invite me, there was one Sun Wukong escorting a Tang Monk to fetch scriptures, whose road was blocked at the Mountain of Flames; and he asked me to lend him the banana-leaf fan. I would not give it him, and he and I fought a bout together without deciding the victory. I left him standing and came straight to the noble gathering. That monkey has a thousand kinds of cleverness and ten thousand sorts of contrivance. Beyond doubt it was that fellow who turned himself into the crab spirit, came here to spy out news, stole my beast, and has gone to my mountain wife's place to cheat her out of that banana-leaf fan.”
The spirits, hearing this, were every one of them shaken in gall and startled in heart, and asked, “Can it be that Sun Wukong who made the great havoc in Heaven?”
“It is,” said the Bull King. “Gentlemen, if you are ever on the road to the west and have anything amiss, be sure to keep well out of his way.”
“If that is how it stands,” said the old dragon, “what is to become of your lordship's fine mount?”
“No matter, no matter,” said the Bull King with a laugh. “Let the company disperse; let me go after him.”
So he parted the water-road, sprang out of the pool bottom, mounted a yellow cloud and went straight to the Banana-Leaf Cave on Kingfisher Cloud Mountain. He heard only the Rākṣasī stamping her feet and beating her breast, crying aloud and calling out. He pushed the door open, and saw besides the water-averting golden-eyed beast tethered below.
“Madam,” he called loudly, “which way has Sun Wukong gone?”
The serving-maids, seeing the Bull Demon, knelt down together. “Has our master come?”
The Rākṣasī seized hold of him, knocked her head and struck her brow against him, and railed, “You foul old heaven-slain thing! How could you be so careless as to let that ape steal the golden-eyed beast, turn himself into your likeness, and come here and cheat me?”
“Which way has the ape gone?” said the Bull King through his teeth.
She beat her breast and railed, “That foul monkey has swindled me out of my treasure and gone off in his own shape again. I am vexed to death!”
“Take care of yourself, madam, and do not fret your heart. Let me overtake the ape, take back the treasure, strip off his hide, hack his bones to pieces, set out his heart and liver, and give you your revenge.” He called, “Bring my weapons.”
“Your lordship's weapons are not here,” said a serving-maid.
“Then bring your mistress's weapons.”
The waiting-women brought out two blue-edged precious swords. The Bull King stripped off the crow-blue velvet jacket he had worn to the banquet, girded his close-fitting under-dress, snatched up the swords in both hands, went out of the Banana-Leaf Cave and made straight for the Mountain of Flames in pursuit. Truly it was:
The ingrate fellow has cheated the foolish-hearted woman; the fierce-natured demon comes to close with the man of Mokṣa.
In the end there is no knowing whether this going out will prove for good or ill; and you must listen to the explanation in the next chapter.