The tale tells how the Great Sage Sun, having wrangled a while inside the old fiend's belly, left the monster sprawled in the dust, soundless and without breath. Since he did not speak, the Sage supposed him dead, and so let go his grip a little. The fiend got his wind back and cried out: “Most merciful and compassionate Bodhisattva, Great Sage Equal to Heaven!” Wukong heard him and said: “My boy, spare yourself the trouble. Save a few syllables and just call me Grandpa Sun.” The demon, who valued his skin, called out in earnest: “Grandpa! Grandpa! The fault was mine. By one slip and a second blunder I swallowed you, and now you repay me by destroying me.
“I beg the Great Sage's mercy. Pity the ant that clings to life, spare me, and I will gladly see your master over the mountain.” The Great Sage, for all his heroism, cared greatly about advancing Tripitaka's journey. Seeing the fiend plead, and being a man easily worked on by flattery, he softened at once and called out: “Monster, I will spare you. How do you mean to see my master across?” The old fiend said: “Here I have no gold or silver, no pearls or kingfisher feather, no agate, coral, coloured glass, amber or tortoiseshell, none of the rare and precious things one might offer. We three brothers will carry a sedan chair of scented vine, and bear your master over this mountain.”
Wukong laughed and said: “If you will carry him in a chair, that beats any treasure. Open your mouth and I will come out.” The fiend did indeed open his mouth. Then the third fiend stepped close and said softly to the old one: “Elder brother, when he comes out, bite down hard, chew the monkey to pieces and swallow him. Then he will not be able to torment you.”
Now Wukong, listening from within, did not go out first. Instead he pushed the gold-banded cudgel through, to test him. The monster bit down, and with a crunch his front teeth were smashed to bits. Wukong drew the cudgel back and said: “A fine monster you are. I was willing to spare your life and come out, and you bite at me instead and try to take mine. I shall not come out. I shall simply worry you to death where I am. I am not coming out. I am not coming out.” The old fiend rounded on the third: “Brother, this is our own people undoing our own people. It was going well; I had got him to come out. Then you told me to bite him.
“He was not bitten at all, and my gums are throbbing for it. How did this come about?”
The third fiend, seeing the old one blame him, tried a goading stratagem, and cried out in a ringing voice: “Sun Wukong! Your name struck my ear like a peal of thunder. They said you flaunted your power outside the Southern Gate of Heaven, that you threw your weight about below the Hall of Miraculous Mist, that you subdue demons and bind monsters along the road to the West. And you turn out to be a small-time monkey after all.” Wukong said: “How am I small-time?” The third fiend said: “There is a saying: a fine traveller goes a thousand li, and his name travels ten thousand. Come out and match yourself against me. That is what a real man does.
“What sort of business is it to work away inside a man's belly? If that is not small-time, what is?” Wukong heard this and thought privately: “True, true, true. If I were now to tear his bowels apart, rip open his liver and finish this creature off, where would the difficulty lie? But it would truly ruin my good name. So be it, so be it. Open your mouth, and I will come out and match myself against you. Only this cave mouth of yours is cramped and awkward. There is no room to work a weapon. We must go somewhere open.” The third fiend heard him and at once mustered his monsters great and small. All told, front and rear, there were above thirty thousand goblins, every one of them gripping a keen weapon. They marched out of the cave and drew up in the Three Powers formation, waiting only for Wukong to leave the mouth, so that they might fall on him together.
The second fiend supported the old one out to the gate, and they called: “Sun Wukong! Come out if you are a man. Here is ground for fighting, and good fighting it will be.”
The Great Sage, still in the fiend's belly, heard from outside the cawing of crows and the chatter of magpies, the cry of cranes and the noise of wind, and knew they had come to open ground. But he thought: “If I do not go out, I break my word to him. And if I do go out, this monster has a man's face and a beast's heart. Earlier he said he would see my master across, then coaxed me out to bite me, and now he has mustered troops here as well. Very well then, very well. I shall give him the best of both ways: out I go, and still I leave a root growing in his belly.”
At once he reached back, plucked a hair from his tail, breathed on it and cried: “Change!” It changed into a cord no thicker than a hair, yet fully forty zhang in length. He let the cord out, and it thickened as soon as it met the air. One end he tied to the monster's heart and liver, working it into a slipknot. The knot did not bite so long as it was not pulled; pull it tight and it hurt. Holding the other end, he laughed and said: “Once I am out of here, if he sends my master across, well and good. If he does not, and starts swinging weapons about, I have no time to fight him. I need only tug this cord, and it will be as though I were still inside.”
Then he shrank himself very small and crawled outward. Crawling down to the throat, he saw the monster's square mouth held wide, the steel teeth above and below ranged like knife blades, and he thought suddenly: “No good, no good. If I go out by the mouth and pull this cord, he will feel the pain, bite down, and will he not cut it through? I shall leave by the place where he has no teeth.” Good Great Sage: paying out the cord, he crawled forward along the roof of the monster's mouth and up into his nostril. The old fiend's nose began to itch. With a sneeze he blew, and shot Wukong straight out.
Wukong met the wind, arched his back, and grew to some three zhang in height, one hand hauling on the cord, the other holding the iron cudgel. The fiend, not knowing what was good for him, saw him come out, raised his steel sabre and hacked at his face. The Great Sage met it with the iron cudgel in one hand. Then he saw the second fiend come on with a spear and the third with a halberd, striking wildly at head and face together. The Great Sage slackened the cord, put up his cudgel, and swiftly sprang away on a cloud. The truth was that he feared being ringed about by that crowd of lesser demons, where there would be no working room.
He sprang clear of the camp, went to an open hilltop, came down from his cloud, took the cord in both hands and hauled with all his force. Only then did the old fiend's heart begin to hurt. The fiend, in his pain, strained upward, and the Great Sage hauled downward again. The lesser demons, watching from a distance, cried out together: “Great King, do not provoke him! Let him go. This monkey pays no heed to the season. Qingming is not here yet — so where does he get off flying a kite?” The Great Sage heard this, and put his strength into a downward stamp on the cord. Down came the old fiend out of the air with a clatter, spinning like a spinning wheel, and fell into the dust.
He struck the dead hard yellow earth at the foot of the slope and made a pit two chi deep.
In alarm the second and third fiends brought their clouds down together, ran up and caught hold of the cord, knelt at the foot of the slope and pleaded: “Great Sage! We took you for an immortal of broad and oceanic capacity. Who would have thought you had the belly of a rat and the gut of a snail? We did indeed coax you out, meaning to meet you in the field; we never expected you to fasten a cord to our elder brother's heart.” Wukong laughed and said: “You pack of vile demons are thoroughly without manners. The first time you coaxed me out you bit me. This time you coaxed me out and drew up a battle line against me instead.
“Some tens of thousands of demon soldiers fighting me single-handed — it does not even stand to reason. Drag him off, drag him off, and let us go to my master.” The monsters knocked their heads on the ground together and said: “Great Sage, have mercy. Spare our lives, and we will gladly see the old master over the mountain.” Wukong laughed and said: “If you want your lives, you have only to take a knife and cut the cord through.” The old fiend said: “Grandfather! Cut the outside part, and the part in here is still tied to my heart, and there is a retching in my throat. What am I to do?”
Wukong said: “If that is how it is, open your mouth and let me go back in and untie the cord.” The old fiend took fright and said: “If he goes in this time, he will refuse to come out again. That would be hard indeed, hard indeed.” Wukong said: “I have the skill to loosen the inner end of the cord from out here. Once it is loosed, will you truly see my master across?” The old fiend said: “Loose it and we will send him. We would not dare speak a lying word.” The Great Sage examined the matter and found it honest. He gave his body a shake and took back the hair.
At once the monster's heart stopped hurting. This was the Great Sage's trick of concealment. It was a hair that had been tied to the creature's heart, so once the hair was taken back there was no more pain. The three monsters sprang to their feet and gave thanks: “Let the Great Sage return, report to Tripitaka, and have the baggage made ready. We will bring the chair at once and see him across.” The monsters laid down their spears and shields, and all went back into the cave.
The Great Sage gathered in his cord and turned back east along the mountain. From far off he saw Tripitaka lying on the ground, rolling and weeping bitterly, while Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing had opened the bundles, laid the baggage out in shares, and were dividing it there. Wukong sighed quietly to himself: “No need to spell it out. Bajie has surely told the master that the monster ate me, and the master, who cannot bear to lose me, is weeping. And that fool is splitting up the goods and breaking the party up. Well! Can that be what is happening? Let me call out to him once and see.”
He came down from his cloud and called: “Master.” Sha Wujing heard it and rounded on Bajie: “You are a coffin prop, you are — you do nothing but harm people. Our elder brother was never dead. You said he was, and you got up to this business here — how could he not have called out to us?” Bajie said: “I saw it plainly. The monster swallowed him at a gulp. It must be an unlucky day, and that monkey has come back to show his ghost.” Wukong came up to him, seized Bajie by the face with one hand, and with a slap set him staggering. “Blockhead! What ghost am I showing?”
The fool covered his face and said: “Brother, the creature really did eat you. How — how are you alive again?” Wukong said: “You useless bag of pus, is that what you think? He ate me, so I clawed at his bowels and squeezed his lungs, and then threaded this cord through his heart and hauled until the pain was past bearing. Every one of them knocked his head on the ground and begged, and only then did I spare his life. Now they are bringing a chair to carry my master over the mountain.” Tripitaka heard this, scrambled up in a rush, and bowed to Wukong: “Disciple, you have worn yourself out for me.
“Had I believed what Wuneng told me, I should have been finished.” Wukong swung his fist at Bajie and cursed him: “This chaff-stuffed idiot is thoroughly idle, and no sort of person at all. Master, do not be vexed. That monster will be here shortly to carry you.” Sha Wujing too was much ashamed, and quickly covered it over, gathering up the baggage and strapping the horse. They all waited on the road, and we say no more of it.
Now the three fiends led their host back into the cave, and the second said: “Elder brother, I took this Sun Wukong for something with nine heads and eight tails. He turns out to be a little bit of a monkey like that. You should not have swallowed him. Had you merely fought him, how could he have got the better of you and me? The tens of thousands of demons in this cave could drown him by spitting. Instead you swallowed him into your belly, where he could work his arts and make you suffer. How could you dare match yourself against him then? What was said just now about sending the Tang monk on was all of it pretence. What really mattered was my elder brother's life, so we coaxed him out. We shall certainly not send the monk.”
The old fiend said: “Worthy brother, what is your reason for not sending him?” The second fiend said: “Give me three thousand of the lesser demons and let me draw up a battle line. I have the skill to take this monkey.” The old fiend said: “Say nothing of three thousand. Raise the whole camp if you please. Only take him, and the credit will be shared among us all.”
The second fiend at once told off three thousand lesser demons, went straight to the roadside and drew them up, and set a blue-flag man to carry the word back and forth: “Sun Wukong, come out early and fight our Second Great King!” Bajie heard it and laughed: “Brother, there is a saying: do not tell your lies to a man from your own village. So you come playing tricks and stirring up mischief. How is it that you said you had subdued the monster and that a chair would come to carry the master, and now here he is challenging us to battle?” Wukong said: “The old fiend has been subdued by me and dares not show his head. If he so much as catches the word Sun his head aches.
“This will be the second monster, who is not content to send us on, and so is calling for a fight. I tell you, brother, this monster has two brothers, and see how they stand by each other. We are three brothers too. Are we to have none of that between us? I have subdued the elder fiend. The second is out there, and it would be no bad thing for you to give him a fight.” Bajie said: “What is there to fear in him? Let me go and give him a battle.” Wukong said: “Go then, if you are going.” Bajie laughed and said: “Brother, I will go — but lend me that cord of yours to use.”
Wukong said: “What do you want it for? You have not the skill to bore into his belly, nor the skill to tie it to his heart. What use is it to you?” Bajie said: “I want it buckled round my waist here, for a lifeline. You and Sha Wujing hold the far end and let me out to fight him. If you reckon I am winning, slacken off and I will take him. And if I am losing to him, pull me back, and do not let him drag me off.” Wukong laughed to himself: “Here is a chance to have some sport with the fool.” So he buckled the cord about Bajie's waist and packed him off to the fight.
The fool raised his muckrake, ran up the cliff and shouted: “Come out, monster, and fight your Grandfather Pig!” The blue-flag man ran to report: “Great King, a monk with a long snout and big ears has come.” The second fiend came straight out of camp, saw Bajie, and without a word of parley levelled his spear and thrust at his face. The fool raised his rake and went forward to meet him. The two of them closed in front of the slope. Before seven or eight passes were done the fool's arms went weak, he could not hold the monster off, and he turned his head and cried: “Brother! It is going badly! Pull the lifeline! Pull the lifeline!”
On this side the Great Sage heard him — and instead slackened the cord off and threw it after him. The fool, beaten, turned tail and ran. Now while the cord was dragging along behind him he did not feel it. But when he turned back, the slack fouled his feet, and he tripped himself and went down; he got up and went down again. The first fall was a stagger; the next put his snout in the ground. The monster caught up with him, unfurled his trunk like a river dragon, wrapped it once round Bajie, and carried him back to the cave in triumph. The demons sang a victory song together and came home in a crowd.
Down at the foot of the slope Tripitaka saw it, and turned on Wukong again: “Wukong, no wonder Wuneng cursed you for dead. It seems there is no love or kindness between you brothers at all, only envy and spite. He told you so plainly — pull the lifeline, pull it. Why did you not pull? Why throw the cord away instead? Now you have let him be taken. What is to be done?” Wukong laughed and said: “Master, you do cover up for him, and you are partial. Enough of it. When it was I who was carried off, you spared me not a thought — one way or the other I am timber to be spent.
“This fool has been caught for one moment, and at once you blame me. Let him take some hardship too, and then you will see what fetching the scriptures costs.” Tripitaka said: “Disciple, when you went, do you think I did not worry? But I thought how you can change your shape, and that you would surely come to no harm. That fool is built clumsy and cannot shift himself about. In going out there he has little luck and much peril. Go and rescue him, I beg you.” Wukong said: “Master, do not hold a grudge. Let me go and rescue him.”
He sprang up at once and hurried over the mountain, saying to himself in resentment: “That fool wished me dead. I shall not make things comfortable for him. Let me follow along and see how the monsters deal with him. When he has taken some punishment, then I will rescue him.” So he made the sign, spoke the true words, shook himself and changed into a gnat, flew across and settled at the root of Bajie's ear, and went with the monsters into the cave. The second fiend led his three thousand lesser monsters, with a great blowing and beating, and camped at the cave mouth. He carried Bajie in himself and said: “Elder brother, I have taken one.”
The old fiend said: “Bring him here and let me see.” He loosened his trunk, dropped Bajie down, and said: “Is this not he?” The old fiend said: “This one is no use.” Bajie heard it and said: “Great King, if the useless ones are let go, then send for a useful one and catch him instead.” The third fiend said: “Useless he may be, but he is still Zhu Bajie, the Tang monk's disciple. Tie him up and put him in the pond at the back to soak. When the soaking has taken the bristles off, split his belly open, salt him, dry him in the sun, and keep him for a rainy day with the drink.”
Bajie was appalled: “That does it, that does it. I have run into the pickling trade.” The monsters all set to at once, trussed the fool with his four limbs gathered like hooves, carried him swaying between them to the edge of the pond, and shoved him into the middle; then away they all went.
The Great Sage flew up to look, and there was the fool with all four limbs in the air, snout thrust out, half floating and half sinking, snorting through his mouth — truly a funny sight. He was for all the world like a big black lotus pod in the eighth or ninth month, frosted and dropping its seeds. The Great Sage looked at that face of his, and hated him and pitied him at once, and said: “What is to be done with him? He is one of the company for the Dragon Flower assembly after all. Only I cannot forgive him for forever splitting up the baggage and breaking the party, and for egging the master on to say the tightening spell at me.
“The other day I heard Sha Wujing say he has put a little by in private. I wonder whether it is so. Let me give him a fright and see.”
Good Great Sage: he flew close to Bajie's ear, put on a false voice and called: “Zhu Wuneng! Zhu Wuneng!” Bajie was thrown into a panic: “This is bad luck. My name Wuneng was given me by the Bodhisattva Guanyin, and since I followed the Tang monk I have been called Bajie as well. How can anyone here know I am called Wuneng?” The fool could not hold back and asked: “Which of you is calling my religious name?” Wukong said: “It is I.” The fool said: “And who are you?” Wukong said: “I am a summoner from the courts below.” The fool took fright: “Officer, where have you come from?”
Wukong said: “I am sent by the Five Kings of the Dead to fetch you.” The fool said: “Officer, go back for now and report to the Five Kings. They are on excellent terms with my elder brother Sun Wukong. Have them grant me a day, and come to fetch me tomorrow.” Wukong said: “Nonsense. If the King of the Dead has set you down for the third watch, who would dare keep you to the fourth? Come along smartly and spare yourself being roped and dragged.” The fool said: “Officer, is there nowhere you could do me a kindness? Look at the state of my face — do you suppose I still want to live?
“Die I certainly shall. Only wait a day. This monster means to fetch my master and the rest of them here as well, and then we can all meet, and settle up together.” Wukong laughed to himself and said: “Very well. I have thirty people on this warrant, all of them hereabouts. Let me collect them and bring them to you, and you may have your day's delay. Have you any money for the road? Give me a little and I will go.” Bajie said: “Alas, sir. Where would a man who has left his home have travelling money?” Wukong said: “If you have no money for the road, then I rope you, and you walk with me.”
The fool took fright: “Officer, do not rope me. I know that cord of yours. It is called the life-taking cord, and the moment it is on, the breath goes. I have some, I have, I have — I have a little, only not much.” Wukong said: “Where is it? Bring it out, quickly.” Bajie said: “Have pity, have pity. Ever since I became a monk down to this day, when devout families have given a meal to the monks, they have seen what a large stomach I have and given me rather more of the offering money than the others. I took it and put it by here, and in odds and ends it comes to five mace of silver.
“Because it was awkward to keep, I went into the city a while back and got a silversmith to melt it into one piece. And he had no conscience and stole a few fen of it, so it came to only four mace six fen in a single lump. Take it and go.” Wukong laughed to himself: “This fool has not even a pair of trousers to wear. Where can he have hidden it? Hey! Where is your silver?” Bajie said: “It is stuffed inside the hole of my left ear. I am tied up and cannot reach it. Take it yourself.”
Wukong heard him, reached into the hollow of the ear and drew it out, and it was indeed a lump of silver shaped like a saddle, a good four mace five or six fen in weight. He held it in his hand and could not keep back a great shout of laughter. The fool knew Wukong's voice, and swore at him from the water: “Damn you for a stable-boy! I am in this misery and you still come shaking me down for money.” Wukong laughed again: “You mash-fed thing. I have guarded the master and taken I cannot say how much hardship, and you have been putting money by in private.”
Bajie said: “You have a face on you. What private money is this? Every bit of it was scraped off my own teeth. I could not bring myself to spend it on food for my mouth. I kept it to buy a length of cloth and have a garment made, and you have frightened it out of me. Give me some of it back at least.” Wukong said: “You will not get half a fen of it.” Bajie swore: “Keep it then as the price of my life. But you might at least get me out of here.” Wukong said: “Do not lose your temper. Let me rescue you.” He put the silver away, showed himself in his own shape, drew out the iron cudgel, paddled the fool over to the bank, took hold of his feet, hauled him up and untied the ropes.
Bajie sprang up, stripped off his clothes, wrung the water out, gave them a shake and pulled them on again sodden, and said: “Brother, let us go out by the back door.” Wukong said: “Go out by the back door? Is that any way to get on? We go out by the front.” Bajie said: “My feet are numb from the ropes. I cannot run.” Wukong said: “Come along after me, quickly.”
Good Great Sage: he set the iron cudgel going through its whole repertoire and fought his way out. The fool bore the numbness and could only keep close behind him. Then he caught sight of his own muckrake propped inside the second gate. He went forward, shoved the little demons aside, scooped it up and set about laying into them, and with Wukong fought out through three or four sets of gates, killing more of the small demons than anyone could count. The old fiend heard it and said to the second: “A fine prisoner you took. A fine prisoner. Look at Sun Wukong — he has broken Zhu Bajie out and is wounding the small demons at the gates.”
The second fiend sprang up in haste, caught up his spear and ran out at the gate, shouting: “Wretched ape! Such insolence — how dare you make so little of us?” The Great Sage heard him, and answered and halted where he stood. The creature allowed no talking, but used his spear and thrust at once. Wukong was exactly the old hand who never hurries: he drew the iron cudgel and met the point full in the face. The two of them were outside the cave gate, and this was a fine slaughter:
The yellow-tusked old elephant took human shape · and swore brotherhood with the lion king.
Because the great fiend came to make the match · they were of one mind in plotting to eat the Tang monk.
The Great Sage Equal to Heaven has powers that reach far · upholding the right and clearing away evil, bent on destroying the fiends.
Bajie, having no skill, fell into cruel hands · and Wukong went out at the gate to rescue him.
The monster king came up and showed his fierceness · spear and cudgel crossing, each displaying his powers.
That one, his spear coming on, was like a python threading a wood · this one, his cudgel rising, was like a dragon breaking from the sea.
The dragon leaving the sea gate, the clouds hanging thick · the python threading the forest trees, the mist rolling up.
Reckon it up, and all of it was for the Tang priest · a bitter grappling, and quite without mercy.
As for Bajie, seeing the Great Sage engaged with the monster, he stood his muckrake up on the spur of the hill and did not come to help, but only stared and stared. The monster saw that Wukong's cudgel was heavy, that his repertoire was complete and offered no opening anywhere, so he brought his spear up to block, shook out his trunk and made to wrap him in it. Wukong knew what he was about, took the gold-banded cudgel in both hands, held it crosswise and raised it above him. The monster's trunk wrapped him about the waist and hips, and did not catch his hands. And there he was with both hands on top of the monster's trunk, twirling the staff about for sport.
Bajie saw it, beat his breast and said: “Well! That monster has no luck at all. When he wrapped up a clumsy thing like me, he took my hands in with the rest and I could not stir; and when he wraps a slippery one like that, he goes and misses the hands. With those two hands of his holding the staff, he need only jab it up the nostril. The holes will smart and stream, and how then will he keep his hold?”
Wukong had had no such intention; it was Bajie who taught it to him. So he gave the cudgel a shake, made it small as a hen's egg and something over a zhang in length, and jabbed it fairly up the monster's nostril. The monster took fright, and with a hiss let the trunk drop. Wukong turned his hand over, caught the trunk in a grip and hauled forward with all his strength. The monster, nursing the pain, went along with the hand and stepped after him. Only then did Bajie dare come near, and he took his muckrake and set about striking at the monster's haunches. Wukong said: “No, no.
“The teeth of that rake are sharp. I am afraid you will break the skin and bring the blood out, and when the master sees it he will say again that we are taking life. Use the handle on him instead.”
The fool did indeed take the rake by the handle, and at every step he took he landed a blow. Wukong led it by the nose, and the pair of them were for all the world like two elephant grooms bringing it down to the foot of the slope. There was Tripitaka, staring hard down the road, and seeing the two of them come along with a great noise and clamour he called out: “Wujing, look — what is it Wukong is leading?” Sha Wujing saw and laughed: “Master, the eldest brother has the monster by the nose and is dragging it here. It really is a killing sight.” Tripitaka said: “Mercy on us!
“Mercy on us! Such a great big monster, and such a long nose. Now ask him this: if he will send us gladly over the mountain, you may spare him, and do him no hurt.” Sha Wujing sprang forward to meet them and called out: “The master says that if the creature will truly send him over the mountain, we are not to hurt him.” The creature heard, knelt down at once, and made a mumbling noise in its mouth by way of answer. The reason was that Wukong had it by the nose and had pinched it shut, so that it sounded exactly like a bad head cold. It called out: “Venerable Tang, if you will only spare my life, I will fetch the chair at once and carry you.”
Wukong said: “My master and I are all of us people who favour mercy. On your word, I spare your life for now. Bring the chair up quickly. If you change your mind again, we will take you and there will be no sparing a second time.” The creature got its head free, knocked it on the ground and went. Wukong and Bajie went to Tripitaka and told him the whole of what had happened. Bajie was ashamed past bearing, and stayed at the front of the slope drying his clothes and waiting; and of that we say no more.
As for the second fiend, he went back to the cave shaking in every limb. Before he arrived, small demons had already carried word to the eldest and the third that the second had been dragged off by Sun Wukong with a hand on his nose. The old fiend was terrified. He and the third led their people out, and seeing the second come back alone they took him in among them and asked how he came to be released. The second fiend repeated to them all what Tripitaka had said about compassion and the leaning toward mercy. They looked at one another, every one of them, and none dared speak.
The second fiend said: “Elder brother, shall we send the Tang monk on?” The old fiend said: “Brother, what a thing to say. Sun Wukong is a monkey who deals out mercy and right on a large scale. When he was in my belly, had he been willing to take my life, he could have destroyed a thousand of me. And just now, when he had your nose in his hand, if he had dragged you off and not let you go, or merely pinched the end of your nose through, that too would have been a fearful thing. Make ready quickly and send him on his way.” The third fiend laughed and said: “Send him, send him, send him.”
The old fiend said: “Worthy brother, that has the sound of a man taking offence. If you will not send him, we two will.”
The third fiend laughed again: “My two elder brothers, hear me. If the monk does not want us to send him, and we get away with it as easily as that, it is his good fortune; but if he does want it, then he walks straight into my plan for luring the tiger away from the mountain.” The old fiend said: “What is this luring the tiger away from the mountain?” The third fiend said: “Now muster every demon in the cave. Out of ten thousand pick a thousand, out of the thousand pick a hundred, out of the hundred pick sixteen; and then pick thirty more.” The old fiend said: “Why sixteen and then thirty as well?”
The third fiend said: “I want thirty who can cook. Give them fine rice and good flour, bamboo shoots, tea buds, fragrant mushrooms, common mushrooms, bean curd and wheat gluten, and set them to putting up shelters every twenty or thirty li and preparing tea and food, to wait upon the Tang monk.” The old fiend said: “And what are the sixteen for?” The third fiend said: “Set eight of them to carrying and eight to crying the way. We three brothers will attend on either side and see him a stage of the way. Four hundred li and more to the west of here stands my own city, and there I have men and horses ready to meet us.
“When we come to the walls — thus and thus — we make it so that the master and his disciples cannot look to one another, front and rear. If the Tang monk is to be taken, the whole of the success rests on these sixteen.” The old fiend heard him out and was delighted past measure. It was truly like a drunk man just coming to himself, like a sleeper just waking from a dream. He said: “Good, good, good!” He told off his demons at once, picked thirty first and gave them their supplies, then picked sixteen more, who took up a sedan chair of scented vine; and out they came together.
He gave orders to the rest of the demons besides: “None of you is to go idling about the mountain. Sun Wukong is a monkey who suspects a great deal, and if he sees you coming and going he will certainly grow doubtful and see through this.”
So the old fiend led his people to the side of the high road and called out: “Venerable Tang, today falls on no Red Sand. Pray cross the mountain early, sir.” Tripitaka heard it and said: “Wukong, who is that calling me?” Wukong pointed and said: “Over there are the monsters I subdued, come with a chair to carry you.” Tripitaka joined his palms and said toward heaven: “Mercy on us! Mercy on us! Had my worthy disciple not such powers as these, how should I ever get across?” He went straight forward, made his bow to the demons and said: “I am much obliged for the kindness of you gentlemen. When this disciple has fetched the scriptures and returned east to Chang'an, I shall spread abroad the good fruit of it.”
The demons bowed their heads and said: “Will your reverence take the chair.” Now Tripitaka was of mortal eye and common flesh, and did not know it was a trick. And the Great Sage Sun, being besides a Golden Immortal of the Great Monad and of an upright nature, took it only that his work of taking and releasing had subdued the monsters, and how should he have expected that they all had a further design? So he too made no close inquiry, and gave way entirely to his master's wish. He told Bajie at once to strap the baggage on the horse and keep close with Sha Wujing, while he himself went ahead with the iron cudgel to open the road, looking about him for good or ill.
Eight of them lifted the chair, eight cried the way in turn, one after another, and three demons steadied the poles. The master sat up in the chair, thoroughly pleased. They went up the high mountain and along the main road.
Going on so, who could have known that in the midst of the gladness a grief was coming? As the classic says: when peace is at its height, stagnation comes to life again. The turn of the times has brought him up against the Year Star itself, and the Mourning Gate and the Guest of Grief besides. That crowd of monsters attended on either side with one mind and one purpose, diligent from early to late. Thirty li on they served a meal; fifty li on, another; before dusk they asked him to rest; and all along the road everything was in good order. Three meals a day, and everything as the heart could wish; a fine night's lodging, and a good place to lay the body down.
Four hundred li and more they went west, and of a sudden a walled city came in sight ahead. The Great Sage, cudgel in hand, was no more than a li from the chair when he saw the city, and it frightened him into a fall from which he could not pick himself up. You will ask how one so bold could take fright at the sight of it. The truth was that he could see a great deal of evil vapour hanging over the city. It was this:
Fiends and monsters gathered thick and close · and at all four gates the wolf spirits stand.
Striped old tigers serve as chief stewards · and white-faced panthers act as commanders in chief.
Forked-antlered deer carry the documents · and clever foxes hold the roads and walk them.
Great pythons a thousand chi long go round the walls · and long snakes of ten thousand zhang hold the roads.
Grey wolves below the tower cry the orders · and dappled leopards before the terrace speak with human voices.
Those who wave the flags and beat the drums are all of them fiends · and the night watch and the guard posts are every one a mountain spirit.
Cunning hares open the shops and drive the trade · and wild boars shoulder the loads and earn a living.
In earlier years it was a kingdom of the heavenly court · and now it is turned into a city of tigers and wolves.
The Great Sage was in the very midst of his dread when he heard a wind behind his ear. He turned his head in haste to look, and it was the third fiend, bringing down a painted-shaft square-heaven halberd on the Great Sage's head with both hands. The Great Sage rolled over, scrambled up and met it face on with the gold-banded cudgel. The two of them, each with his anger in him, breathed hard and did not so much as speak; they set their teeth, and each meant to have the other. Then the old fiend passed the word and swung his steel sabre at Bajie; Bajie in his fright dropped the horse, whirled up his rake and set about striking in front of him.
The second fiend levelled his long spear and thrust at Sha Wujing; Sha Wujing used the demon-quelling staff, opened his guard and held him off. Three demon lords and three monks, one against one, fought it out on that mountain top, careless of dying and forgetful of living.
As for the sixteen lesser demons, they followed their orders and each showed what he could do: they seized the white horse and the baggage, crowded in on Tripitaka, carried the chair straight to the city wall, and called up loudly: “His Majesty's plan has worked. The Tang monk is taken.” The demons on the wall, great and small, came running down every one and threw the city gates wide. Orders went to every camp to furl the flags and still the drums, and to allow no shouting and no beating of gongs. They said: “His Majesty gave an order beforehand that the Tang monk was not to be frightened. The Tang monk cannot bear being frightened. One fright and his flesh goes sour, and he is no good to eat.”
The demons all invited Tripitaka in with every show of delight, bending their backs and bowing to receive the master they had gone to fetch. They carried the Tang monk, chair and all, up into the golden throne hall and asked him to be seated in the middle, and on one side and the other they offered tea and offered food, circling him about. And that old master sat there dazed and heavy, and lifted his eyes and saw not one friendly face.
In the end there is no knowing how his life fared; and for that you must listen to the next chapter, where it will be explained.