Now the fiend had sent Tripitaka out of the cave, and Sha Monk came forward to ask, “Master, you are out — but where has our elder brother got to?” Bajie said, “He has a plan of his own. He will have traded himself for the master, depend on it.” Tripitaka pointed at the fiend with his hand and said, “Your elder brother is in her belly.” Bajie laughed. “Filthy, that is what it is.
“What is he doing in her belly? Come on out.” Pilgrim called from inside, “Open your mouth and let me out.” The monster really did open her mouth.
Pilgrim made himself very small and scrambled up inside her throat. He was about to come out when it struck him that she might be unreasonable enough to bite, so he brought out his iron rod, blew a magic breath on it and cried, “Change!”
It turned into a peg shaped like a date stone, which he braced against the roof of her mouth. Then he gave a leap, sprang out past her lips, dragged the rod after him as he went, arched his back and stood there in his own true form again, and swung the rod down to strike; and the fiend, just as readily, drew out a pair of treasure swords and met it with a clang.
The two of them on the mountain top now fought a fine fight:
Twin swords danced up to block him face to face; the gold-banded rod came down at her head.
One is a heaven-born ape by nature, a body of the Mind-Ape; one is an earth-bred sprite, the very bones of the Fair Girl.
The two of them, hatred swelling in their breasts, made a great muster where delight breeds a grudge.
That one means to take his primal yang and make a match of it; this one means to fight her pure yin and knot the holy embryo.
The rod flew up and cold fog filled the sky; the swords came on and black dust sifted over the ground.
For the elder's sake, to reach the Tathagata, they strove in bitter hatred and each showed great skill.
Water and fire will not mix, and the way of the mother is spoiled; yin and yang will not join, and each pulls apart.
The two households fought a good long while; the ground shook, the mountain swayed, and the trees came down.
Bajie watched the two of them going at it and began muttering away to himself, his temper turning against Pilgrim. He swung round to Sha Monk and said, “Brother, our elder brother is making a mess of this. He was in her belly just now. He could have swung a fist, sent her a bellyful of red, torn the skin open and climbed out — and would that not have settled the account?
“Why come out through her mouth instead, and stand there trading blows, and let her rage about like this?” Sha Monk said, “Just so. Still, we have our elder brother to thank for getting the master out of the deep cave, and now he is fighting the fiend on top of that.
“Let the master sit here by himself. You and I will take up our weapons, go and help our eldest brother, and knock the fiend down.” Bajie waved both hands. “No, no, no. She has powers. We are no match for her.” Sha Monk said, “What a thing to say. This benefits all of us. We may be no match, but a fart still adds to the wind.”
The Idiot's blood was up in a moment. He hauled out his muckrake and shouted, “Let us go!” The pair of them left the master where he was, rode the wind up together, and laid into the fiend, the rake swinging and the treasure staff coming down. The fiend had been unable to beat Pilgrim single-handed. Now that she saw the other two as well, how was she to hold out? She whipped her head round and turned to run.
Pilgrim shouted, “After her, brothers!” The fiend saw them pressing her hard, so she stripped the flowered shoe off her right foot, blew a magic breath on it, said a spell over it and cried, “Change!” It changed at once into the very likeness of her, and came dancing back with two swords; and she gave her own body a shake, turned into a gust of clean wind, and went straight back the way she had come.
This time she meant only that she could not beat the three of them and was running to save her skin. Who could have known that something quite different was waiting?
It was also that Tripitaka's unlucky star had not yet set. When she reached the archway in front of the cave mouth she found the Tang Monk sitting there all alone. She went straight up, threw her arms round him, snatched the baggage, bit through the bridle rope, and carried man and horse together back inside — of which no more for now.
Meanwhile Bajie had found an opening, and one blow of the rake knocked the fiend to the ground — where she turned out to be a single flowered shoe. Pilgrim saw it and said, “You pair of idiots. You were to keep an eye on the master — who asked you to come and help with anything?” Bajie said, “Sha Monk, how about that? I said we should not come.
“This monkey has a touch of wind in the brain. We subdue his demon for him and all we get back is his complaining.” Pilgrim said, “Where exactly did you subdue any demon? When that demon fought me yesterday she used the same abandoned-shoe trick to fool me.
“You two ran off, and heaven knows what has become of the master. Let us get back there quickly and look.” The three of them hurried back, and sure enough the master was gone — baggage and white horse with him, not a trace of any of them. Bajie in his panic went dashing about in both directions at once; Sha Monk hunted front and back; and even the Great Sage Sun was frantic and hot-tempered with it.
As they were casting about, they caught sight of half a length of bridle rope trailing crookedly at the side of the road. He picked it up, and could not hold back the tears in his eyes. He cried out, “Master! When I left I said goodbye to a man and a horse, and I come back to nothing but this piece of rope.” It was just as they say: seeing the saddle he thought of the fine horse; the tears fell as he thought of the one he loved.
Bajie saw him in tears and could not help roaring with laughter at the sky. Pilgrim swore at him. “You great oaf, are you looking to break up the company again?” Bajie laughed again. “Brother, that is not it at all. The master has certainly been carried off into the cave by the fiend again. As the old saying goes: nothing is done in fewer than three tries.
“You have been into the cave twice. Go in once more and you will be sure to bring the master out.” Pilgrim wiped his eyes and said, “Very well. Things have come to such a pass that there is no help for it. I will go in again. You two have no baggage or horse to worry about now, so mind you guard the cave mouth properly.”
The fine Great Sage turned about and sprang inside, and this time he worked no transformation at all but went in his own true form. It was truly a case of this:
Odd-shaped, with jutting cheeks, and hard of heart within; a monster from his youth, and stout in supernatural strength.
High and low, his face outdoes a saddle-bow; his eyes shoot golden light, bright as fire.
The hair all over him is stiff as steel needles; the tiger-skin kilt is tied on and its bright flowers rustle.
Up in heaven he scattered ten thousand flying clouds; down in the sea he stirred a thousand layers of waves.
Facing heaven he trusted his strength and fought the Heavenly King; he drove back a hundred and eight thousand generals.
By command he was styled Great Sage, the Handsome Monkey Sprite; in his hand he has always wielded the gold-banded rod.
Today in the west he puts forth all he can; back he comes into the cave to hold up Tripitaka.
Look at him: he brought his cloud to a halt and went straight to the outside of the fiend's house. Seeing the gate of the gatehouse shut, he did not stop to sort good from bad but swung the iron rod and broke it open at a blow, and charged in. Inside it was silent as ever, without a footprint anywhere. Under the eastern gallery there was no Tang Monk.
On the pavilion the tables and chairs, and the household gear everywhere, were gone to the last item. It turned out that the inside of her cave ran three hundred lǐ and more round about, and the fiend had a great many burrows in it. The time before, when she carried the Tang Monk off to this place, Pilgrim had managed to find him; this time she had carried him off and, afraid Pilgrim would come hunting again, had moved at once, and where to nobody knew.
It so exasperated Pilgrim that he stamped and beat his breast, and cried out at the top of his voice, “Master! You are a Tang Tripitaka turned out of sheer bad luck, a scripture-seeking monk cast out of pure calamity. Ai! I know this road well enough by now — how is it you are not here? Where does that leave old Monkey to go looking?”
He was in the middle of hollering and fuming when all at once a gust of scented wind came to his nose. He recovered himself and said, “That incense smoke is drifting out from the back. She must be somewhere behind here.” He strode out, lifted the iron rod, and walked on in to have a look — but there was nothing stirring.
He saw only three rooms facing north, and against the back wall stood a carved-lacquer altar table with a dragon-swallow mouth. On the table was a great gilt incense burner, and inside it the incense smoke lay rich and heavy. Set up on the altar above was a great gilt-lettered tablet, and on the tablet was written HONOURED FATHER, HIS PLACE, LI THE HEAVENLY KING;
and a little lower down was written HONOURED ELDER BROTHER, NEZHA, THIRD PRINCE, HIS PLACE. Pilgrim saw it and his heart filled with delight. He gave up hunting for the fiend and looking for the Tang Monk, pinched the iron rod down to an embroidery needle, tucked it into his ear, spread his hands, picked up tablets and incense burner together, turned his cloud round and went straight out of the door. At the cave mouth he came out chortling and cackling, laughing without a stop.
Bajie and Sha Monk heard him, pulled back from the cave mouth and came to meet him. “Brother, you are as pleased as all that — you must have got the master out?” Pilgrim laughed. “There is no need for us to rescue anybody. We only ask this tablet for him.” Bajie said, “Brother, this tablet is not the fiend, and it cannot talk either. How are you going to ask it for anybody?”
Pilgrim set them down on the ground. “Look at these.” Sha Monk came close and looked, and there written above were HONOURED FATHER, HIS PLACE, LI THE HEAVENLY KING and HONOURED ELDER BROTHER, NEZHA, THIRD PRINCE, HIS PLACE. Sha Monk said, “What does this mean?” Pilgrim said, “This is what that fiend's household worships.
“I broke into the place where she lives and found neither person nor thing there, only this tablet. My guess is that she is a daughter of Li the Heavenly King and a younger sister of the Third Prince, that she longed for the mortal world and came down to it, put on the disguise of a fiend, and has carried my master off. If I do not ask her people for him, who am I to ask?
“You two stand guard here. Let old Monkey take these tablets straight up to heaven and lay an accusation before the Jade Emperor himself, and make the Heavenly King and his sons give me back my master.” Bajie said, “Brother, the old saying goes: accuse a man of a capital crime and you get the capital crime. It has to stand up in reason before you can do it.
“Besides, is an accusation before the throne a thing to be laid lightly? Tell me first: how do you mean to accuse him?” Pilgrim laughed. “I have it worked out. I shall make these tablets and this incense burner my evidence, and get up another plaint on paper besides.” Bajie said, “What will you write on the plaint?
“Read it out and let me hear it.” Pilgrim said:
“The accuser is Sun Wukong. His age and particulars are on the register. He is a disciple of the Tang Tripitaka, a monk of the Tang court of the Eastern Land, sent west to fetch scriptures.
“The charge is: a false fiend has seized and imprisoned a person. There is now Li Jing, the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King, together with his son Prince Nezha, whose household discipline is slack, who have let a daughter of their own out of doors. In the world below, at the Bottomless Cave of Mount Empty-Trap, she has changed herself into a fiend and deluded and destroyed lives beyond counting.
“She has now carried off my own master into a deep and winding place, where there is no trace of him to be found.
“If I do not bring this plaint, then I must consider that father and son have been unkind, and have deliberately let a woman of their house turn demon and injure the multitude.
“I humbly beg your compassion and approval: that a summons be issued and the case brought to court, the wickedness taken up and my master rescued, and the guilt plainly established. This would be a deep kindness.
“Herewith the above accusation.”
Bajie and Sha Monk heard him out and were delighted. “Brother, the accusation is sound. You are bound to have the better of it. But you must come back quickly. Any delay and I fear the fiend will do the master a fatal injury.” Pilgrim said, “I shall be quick, I shall be quick. As long as it takes rice to cook, or tea to come to the boil, and I am back.”
The fine Great Sage held the tablets and the incense burner, gave his body a leap, rode an auspicious cloud, and went straight to the outside of the South Heaven Gate. The Mighty Heavenly King and the Kingdom-Guarding Heavenly King, who held the gate at that time, saw Pilgrim and every one of them bowed with hands behind his back and did not dare bar the way, but let him through.
He went straight down to the Hall of Universal Brightness, where the four great Celestial Masters Zhang, Ge, Xu and Qiu came to meet him with a bow. “What brings the Great Sage here?” Pilgrim said, “I have a plaint on paper. I want to accuse two people.” The Celestial Masters were taken aback. “This shameless creature — who can he want to accuse?” There was nothing for it: they took him in below the Hall of Divine Mists and made the report, and an edict came down admitting him.
Pilgrim set down the tablets and the incense burner, made his bow to the throne, and handed up the plaint. The Immortal Ge received it and spread it out on the imperial desk.
The Jade Emperor read it through from the top, saw how the matter stood, and had the plaint itself endorsed as an edict. He summoned the Gold Star of Venus, Changgeng of the west, to receive the order and go to the Cloud Tower Palace to summon Li the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King before the throne. Pilgrim came forward and submitted, “I hope the Heavenly Lord will punish him properly; otherwise there will be more trouble out of it.”
The Jade Emperor gave a further instruction: “The accuser goes too.” Pilgrim said, “Old Monkey goes as well?” The four Celestial Masters said, “His Majesty has issued the edict. You may go along with the Gold Star.” Pilgrim did indeed follow the Gold Star. They rode the cloud head and were soon at the Cloud Tower Palace.
It turned out that this was the Heavenly King's own house, and it was called the Cloud Tower Palace. The Gold Star saw a boy attendant standing at the palace gate. The boy knew the Gold Star, and went straight in to report, “The old lord, the Gold Star of Venus, has come.” The Heavenly King thereupon came out to receive him.
Seeing besides that the Gold Star was carrying an edict, he at once ordered incense to be lit. Then, as he turned, he saw Pilgrim come in behind, and the Heavenly King turned angry on the spot. Do you know why he turned angry?
In the year when Pilgrim made his great uproar in heaven, the Jade Emperor had appointed the Heavenly King Grand Marshal Demon-Queller, and appointed Prince Nezha God of the Three Altars and the Assembly of the Sea, to lead the heavenly host and take Pilgrim in. They fought repeatedly and could not win. It was still the sore feeling of that defeat five hundred years ago; he had some resentment of him, and that was why he turned angry.
He could not hold it in. “Old Changgeng, what edict is it you have fetched?” The Gold Star said, “It is a plaint against you laid by the Great Sage Sun.” The Heavenly King had been out of temper already; hearing the word accuse spoken, he burst into a thunderclap of rage. “What is he accusing me of?” The Gold Star said, “He accuses you of a false fiend seizing and imprisoning a person.
“Burn your incense and read it for yourself.” The Heavenly King, huffing and puffing, set out the incense table and gave thanks to the empty air. The bowing done, he opened out the edict and read it, and found it was thus and thus, so and so. It so galled him that he thumped the incense table with his hand. “This monkey head — he has accused me wrongly.” The Gold Star said, “Calm your anger.
“The tablets and the incense burner are there before the throne as evidence, and they say she is a daughter of your own.” The Heavenly King said, “I have only three sons and one daughter. My eldest boy is called Jinzha. He serves the Tathagata and is a guardian of the vanguard; my second boy is called Muzha, and is in the Southern Sea, a disciple following Guanyin;
“my third boy is called Nezha, and is at my side, attending court morning and evening as a guard. My one daughter is a girl of just seven years, called Zhenying. She does not understand the affairs of people yet — how could she manage to be a fiend? If you do not believe it, I will have her carried out for you to see. This monkey head is downright insolent.
“Never mind that I am a founding officer of heaven, holding an office that lets me execute first and report afterwards — even a small commoner in the world below cannot be falsely accused. The statute says: false accusation, three degrees added.” He called to his people, “Take the demon-binding rope and tie this monkey head up.”
Ranged below the hall were the Mighty Spirit God, General Fish-Belly and the Yaksha Chieftain. They rushed forward in a body and had Pilgrim tied. The Gold Star said, “Heavenly King Li, do not go making trouble. I came with him from before the throne, bearing an edict to summon you. That rope of yours is rather heavy. Bind him too long and it will do him harm, and there will be bad feeling.”
The Heavenly King said, “Gold Star, when a creature brings a lying, harassing accusation like this, how can he be tolerated? Sit down a while. Wait till I take the demon-cleaving blade and cut off this monkey head, and then I will go with you to the throne and report back.” The Gold Star, seeing him fetch the blade, was frightened out of his wits. He said to Pilgrim, “You have gone about this wrongly.
“Is an accusation before the throne a thing to be laid lightly? You did not even establish the facts, and you go blundering about like this. If it costs you your life, what then?” Pilgrim was not in the least afraid. He said, smiling all over his face, “Set your mind at rest, old sir. There is nothing in it at all. Old Monkey does business this way as a rule. It always goes lose first and win after.”
Before he had finished, the Heavenly King swung the blade round and brought it down at Pilgrim's head. Up came the Third Prince at once, who caught it on his demon-cleaving sword and cried, “Father, stay your anger.” The Heavenly King went white with shock. Ai!
When a father sees a son block his blade with a sword, he should shout him down. Why should he go white with shock instead? It turns out that when the Heavenly King fathered this son, there was the character NA on his left palm and the character ZHA on his right, and so he was named Nezha.
This prince, three days old, went down into the sea to wash himself and got into trouble. He trampled the Crystal Palace flat and caught a scaly dragon, meaning to draw out its sinews for a sash-cord. The Heavenly King learned of it and, fearing what would come of it later, wanted to kill him. Nezha flew into a rage. Taking the blade in his own hand, he cut off his flesh and gave it back to his mother, scraped his bones and gave them back to his father, and returned to them the seed and blood of his parents.
A single point of his soul went straight to the Western Paradise to lay a complaint before the Buddha. The Buddha was in the middle of expounding the scriptures to the assembled bodhisattvas when he heard, from among the banners and jewelled canopies, somebody crying, “Save me!”
One look from the Buddha's eye of wisdom and he knew it was Nezha's soul. He took green lotus root for bones and lotus leaves for a coat, said over him the true words that raise the dead, and Nezha thereby got his life again. Putting his divine strength to use, he subdued the demons of ninety-six caves by magic, and his powers were vast. Afterwards he meant to kill the Heavenly King, to avenge the scraping of his bones.
The Heavenly King, having no other course, went and begged our Buddha the Tathagata. The Tathagata, holding that peace is best, gave him a pagoda of yellow gold, openwork and translucent, made of relic-grains and answering to the will. On every tier of that pagoda there were buddhas, in a dazzle of light. He told Nezha to take the Buddha as his father, and the feud was dissolved.
And that is why he is called Li the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King. Today, being at leisure at home, he had not got that pagoda in his hand, and fearing Nezha might mean to take his revenge, he was frightened into going white with shock.
So he turned his hand at once, took the yellow-gold pagoda from its stand, held it in his hand, and asked Nezha, “Child, you have blocked my blade with your sword. What have you to say?” Nezha threw down his sword, knocked his head on the ground, and said, “Father, there is a daughter of ours in the world below.”
The Heavenly King said, “Child, I fathered just the four of you, brothers and sister. Where would another daughter come from?” Nezha said, “Father, have you forgotten? That daughter was a fiend to begin with. Three hundred years ago she turned monster, and on the Spirit Mountain she stole and ate the Tathagata's incense flowers and precious candles. The Tathagata sent us, father and son, with heaven's troops, and we took her.
“When we had taken her, she ought only to have been put to death, but the Tathagata instructed us: keep water and rear fish and in the end do not angle for them; feed deer in the deep hills and hope for long life. So at the time her life was spared. Out of gratitude for the kindness she bowed to my father as her father and to me as her elder brother, and she set up tablets to us in the world below and kept the incense burning.
“Not looking for it, she turned monster again, did the Tang Monk a mischief, and was then tracked to her nest by Sun the Pilgrim, who carried off the tablets and used them as grounds to lay a plaint before the throne. This is a daughter by kindness and adoption; she is no true sister of mine, of one womb.” The Heavenly King heard him out and said, startled and shaken, “Child, I really had forgotten.
“What is she called?” The prince said, “She has three names. By her own origin and nature she is called the Gold-Nosed White-Haired Rodent Sprite; for stealing the incense flowers and precious candles she was renamed the Half-Sized Guanyin; and now that she has been pardoned into the world below she has changed it again, and is called the Lady of the Earth Spring.”
The Heavenly King came to his senses at last, set down the precious pagoda, and went with his own hands to untie Pilgrim. Pilgrim promptly started playing up. “Who dares untie me? If you want anything, carry me before the throne rope and all. That is how old Monkey wins his lawsuit.” It so flustered the Heavenly King that his hands went weak, the prince had nothing to say, and the household generals shrank back in confusion.
The Great Sage rolled about on the ground and played the shameless rogue, insisting the Heavenly King go before the throne. The Heavenly King had no plan left. He begged the Gold Star to say something to smooth it over. The Gold Star said, “The ancients had it: in all things be generous.” You handled this a touch too tightly. You tied him up, and then you wanted to kill him as well.
“This monkey is a famous shameless rogue. What would you have me do about it now? And to go by what your son says, though she is a daughter by kindness and not by blood, still the kinship came late and the obligation is heavy. However you argue it, you have a charge to answer.” The Heavenly King said, “Old Star, what form of words would you find that would leave me innocent?”
The Gold Star said, “I do want to make peace between you, only there is nothing I can appeal to.” The Heavenly King said, “Tell him about that business of memorialising to have him pardoned and given office. That should do it.” So the Gold Star came forward, laid his hand on Pilgrim and said, “Great Sage, for the sake of my poor face, let the ropes be untied and let us go before the throne.”
Pilgrim said, “Old sir, there is no need to untie me. I have a rolling method — I shall just roll the whole way there.” The Gold Star laughed. “You monkey, you are altogether too heartless. In days gone by I did you some kindnesses. And in this small matter of mine you will not oblige me?” Pilgrim said, “What kindnesses have you ever done me?”
The Gold Star said, “In the year you were a monster on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, subduing tigers and taming dragons, striking your name off the register of the dead by force, gathering the demon host and running riot — heaven meant to take you, and it was this old self who argued the case, so that an edict came down pardoning you. You were called up to heaven and made Master of the Heavenly Stables.”
“You drank the Jade Emperor's immortal wine, and afterwards were pardoned again — and that too was this old self arguing the case, so that you were styled Great Sage Equal To Heaven. Then you would not keep to your station: you stole the peaches and helped yourself to the wine, made off with Lord Lao's elixir, and so on and so forth — and that is how you came to be neither perishable nor mortal. If it had not been for me, how would you have got to where you are today?”
Pilgrim said, “The ancients put it well: do not share a grave with an old man. He will pick you clean, right enough. All I ever did was hold the post of Master of the Heavenly Stables and make an uproar in heaven, and there was nothing much else to it. Well then, well then. For the sake of your venerable face, let him come and untie me himself.”
Only then did the Heavenly King dare to come forward. He loosed the bonds, invited Pilgrim to put on his clothes and take the upper seat, and one by one they came up and paid their respects.
Pilgrim turned to face the Gold Star. “Well, old sir? What did I say? I said lose first and win after. That is how the trade is always done. Hurry him along to the throne, and do not make me lose my master.” The Gold Star said, “Do not be in a rush. We have been at this a while; have a cup of tea first.”
Pilgrim said, “You drink his tea, take his private favours, let a prisoner off for money, treat the imperial edict lightly — what crime is that of yours?” The Gold Star said, “No tea, no tea. You will have me up on a charge as well. Li the Heavenly King — quick, quick, let us go.”
The Heavenly King would not go for anything. He was afraid the other would make things up that were not so, start playing the rogue, talk wild nonsense in open court — how was he to argue it out with him? There was nothing else for it. He begged the Gold Star again, and asked him to find a form of words. The Gold Star said, “I have a word to say. Will you take it from me?”
Pilgrim said, “After the rope and the blade, I am still giving your face its due. What more have you to say? Say it, say it. Say it well and I shall do as you ask; say it badly and do not blame me.”
The Gold Star said, “One day of official business, ten days of trouble. You have laid your accusation before the throne. You say the fiend is the Heavenly King's daughter and he says she is not, and the two of you will go on arguing it back and forth in front of the Emperor with no end to it. And I tell you: one day up here is a year in the world below.
“In the course of that one year the fiend will have your master shut up in her cave. Never mind the wedding — if there were a child got under the flowers, a small monk would have been born by now, and would that not have ruined the whole undertaking?”
Pilgrim lowered his head and thought. “That is so. When I left Bajie and Sha Monk I only said that in the time it takes rice to cook or tea to boil I should be back, and I have been messing about here half the day — is that not late already? Old sir, if I am to do as you say, how is this edict to be answered for?”
The Gold Star said, “Have Li the Heavenly King muster troops and go down with you to subdue the fiend, and I shall go and report the edict answered.” Pilgrim said, “And how will you report it?” The Gold Star said, “I shall simply say the plaintiff absconded and the defendant was excused attendance.” Pilgrim laughed. “Very fine. I let you off for the sake of your face, and you turn round and say I absconded.
“Have him muster his troops outside the South Heaven Gate and wait for me, and I shall go back with you to answer the edict and hand in the plaint.” The Heavenly King said in alarm, “If he goes off and says anything, that is a subject going behind his sovereign's back.” Pilgrim said, “What sort of person do you take old Monkey for?
“I am a grown man too. A word once out, four horses cannot overtake it — would I go back on it with foul language?” The Heavenly King thanked Pilgrim at once. Pilgrim and the Gold Star went to answer the edict. The Heavenly King mustered the troops of his own command and went straight out of the South Heaven Gate.
The Gold Star and Pilgrim went back to see the Jade Emperor. “The one who trapped the Tang Monk is a gold-nosed white-haired rat turned sprite, who set up false tablets to the Heavenly King and his son. The Heavenly King knows of it and has already mustered troops and gone to take the monster. We beg the Heavenly Honoured One to pardon the offence.” The Jade Emperor already knew how the matter stood, and sent down heavenly grace remitting the inquiry.
Pilgrim turned his cloud back at once, and outside the South Heaven Gate he saw the Heavenly King and the prince with the heavenly troops drawn up and waiting. Ai! Those divine generals came with the wind rolling and the mist boiling. They caught up the Great Sage and all together plunged down through the cloud head, and were soon on the Mountain of the Empty Trap. Bajie and Sha Monk were watching for him with staring eyes when they saw the heavenly troops arrive with Pilgrim.
The Idiot went to meet the Heavenly King and made his bow. “We have put you to trouble, put you to trouble.” The Heavenly King said, “Marshal Tianpeng, you do not know how it stands. It is only because my son and I accepted a stick of her incense that the fiend has grown lawless and shut your master up. Forgive our coming so late.
“Is this mountain the Mountain of the Empty Trap? Only I do not know which side his cave door opens on.” Pilgrim said, “I know this road well enough. Only the cave is called the Bottomless Cave. It runs three hundred lǐ and more round about, and the fiend has a great many burrows in it.
“Last time my master was in that gatehouse with the double eaves. This time it is silent as the grave, without even the ghost of a shadow, and I have no idea where she has moved to.” The Heavenly King said, “Let him lay every scheme he has: he will not get out of the net of heaven and earth. We will think what to do when we get to the cave mouth.” So they all set off.
Ai! It was some ten lǐ or more, and they came to that great rock. Pilgrim pointed at the door in it, the size of a jar mouth, and said, “That is the one.” The Heavenly King said, “If you do not enter the tiger's den, how will you get the tiger's cub?
“Who dares go first?” Pilgrim said, “I go first.” The Third Prince said, “I have an edict to subdue the fiend. I go first.” The Idiot then blundered in and shouted at the top of his voice, “Old Hog wants the front!”
The Heavenly King said, “No need for all this noise. Only follow my dispositions. The Great Sage Sun and the prince take the troops down together; we three keep the mouth above, and make it so that inside answers outside, and there is no road up to heaven for her and no door down into the earth. Then we shall see a little skill.” Everyone answered with one voice, “Yes.”
Look at them: Pilgrim and the Third Prince took the troops and went down into the cave in one long slide. They raised their cloud light, lifted their heads and looked round — and it really was a fine cave:
The same old sun and moon, twin wheels; the same view of hills and streams.
Pearl pools and jade wells warm the mist.
And there is much more worth envying.
Tier upon tier of vermilion towers and painted galleries; peak upon peak of red cliffs and green fields.
Willows of the third month of spring, lotuses of the ninth month of autumn.
Truly a cave heaven seldom seen.
In a moment they halted their cloud light and went straight to the fiend's old house. They searched door by door, hollering and shouting, fold after fold and place after place, and trod the grass bare over all three hundred lǐ — and where was there any fiend to be seen? Where was there any Tripitaka?
They all said, “This creature must have got out of the cave early and gone a long way off.” How were they to know that away on the south-east, in a dark corner, if you looked down there was another little cave?
Inside the cave was one small fold of a door, one low little house, a few kinds of flower planted in pots, and a handful of bamboo stems standing by the eaves, with dark vapours thick about it and a hidden scent on the air. The old fiend had carried Tripitaka off and moved him here, and was pressing him to the marriage. She only reckoned that Pilgrim would never find her again — little knowing that her allotted span was due to end.
Those little demons inside were chattering and clamouring, jostling and crowding together. One in the middle, bolder than the rest, stretched his neck up and took a quick look outside the cave — and ran his head straight into a heavenly soldier. He let out a yell: “They are in here!”
That set Pilgrim's temper going. He gripped the gold-banded rod and charged straight in at a rush. It was cramped in there, a hollow packed with fiends. The Third Prince set the heavenly troops on and they crowded in all at once. Where was any of them to hide? Pilgrim found the Tang Monk, and the dragon horse, and the baggage.
The old fiend, casting about and finding no way out, looked at Prince Nezha and did nothing but knock her head on the ground and beg for her life. The prince said, “This is by the Jade Emperor's own order to take you. It is no small matter. My father and I, only for taking a stick of her incense, came near enough to being monks dragging timber — carried clean out of the temple.”
He shouted to the heavenly troops, who took down the demon-binding rope and tied every one of those fiends up. The old fiend too was in for a round of bitterness to eat. They turned back their cloud light and came out of the cave together. Pilgrim was chuckling and cackling to himself.
The Heavenly King pulled the cave mouth open and came to meet Pilgrim. “This time you do see your master.” Pilgrim said, “My thanks, my thanks.” So he brought Tripitaka forward to bow his thanks to the Heavenly King, and after him to the prince.
Sha Monk and Bajie wanted nothing but to hack the old sprite to pieces, but the Heavenly King said, “She was taken under the Jade Emperor's own order. She is not to be dealt with lightly. We still have to go and report back.” On the one side the Heavenly King and the Third Prince took the heavenly troops and the divine officers, held the fiends under guard, and went off to lay the matter before the Bureau of Heaven and await sentence;
On the other side Pilgrim gathered the Tang Monk up, Sha Monk got the baggage together, Bajie brought the horse round, they asked the Tang Monk to mount, and all of them took the high road. This is just the case:
Cut through the dodder and the vine, dry up the golden sea; open the jade lock and get out of the cage.
As to how they fared going on from there, we do not yet know; listen to the explanation in the next chapter.