Wu Cheng-en - Journey to the West (vol. 3)

Seeing that this human head was a real one Monkey could not help starting to wail, in which he was joined by Pig and Friar Sand.

“Stop crying, brother,” said Pig, holding back his tears. “This is very hot weather, and the head will soon become putrid. I'm going to fetch and bury it while it's still fresh. We can cry for him afterwards.”

“You're right,” said Monkey, and the idiot cradled the head against his chest, not caring about the filth, as he hurried up the cliff till he found a South-facing spot where the winds and the natural forces were gathered. Here he hacked out a hole with his rake, buried the head, and piled a grave-mound over it. Only then did he say to Friar Sand, “You and big brother weep over him while I look for some offerings.”

Going down to the side of a gill, he broke off some willow branches and gathered a few pebbles. Taking them back up to the tomb, he planted the willow branches on either side and piled the pebbles in front of it. “What's all that about?” Monkey asked.

“The willow branches are used instead of cypresses to shade the master's tomb for the time being,” Pig answered, “and the pebbles are offerings to him instead of cakes.”

“Cretin!” Monkey shouted. “He's already dead. What do you want to go offering him stones for?”

“Just to show what the living feel,” Pig replied, “and out of mourning and respect.”

“You'd better cut that nonsense out,” Monkey replied. “Tell Friar Sand to come here. He can guard the tomb and keep an eye on the horse and the luggage while we two go and smash the cave palace up, capture the monster and break his body into ten thousand bits. Then we'll have avenged the master.”

“You're absolutely right, big brother,” said Friar Sand through his tears. “You two be careful. I'll keep watch here.”

The splendid Pig then took off his black brocade tunic, tied his undershirt tightly, picked up his rake and followed Monkey. The two of them rushed straight for the stone gates, and with no more ado they smashed them down and shouted with a yell that made the heavens shake, “Give us our Tang Priest back alive!” This sent the souls flying from all the devils old and young in the cave, who complained that the commander of the vanguard had wronged them. “How are we going to deal with these monks now they've fought their way in through the gates?” the demon king asked.

“The ancients used to say,” the commander of the vanguard replied, “'Put your hand in a basket of fish and it's bound to stink.' Now we're in this we've got to see it through. We'll just have to take our troops into battle with these monks.” When the demon heard this he had no alternative but to issue the order, “Stand together, my little ones. Bring your best weapons with you and come with me.” They then charged out through the entrance of the cave with a great war cry.

The Great Sage and Pig quickly fell back a few paces before they held the devilish onslaught on a piece of flat ground on the mountainside, shouting, “Who's your best-known boss? Who's the ogre who captured our master?”

The devils had now palisaded their position, over which a multicolored embroidered flag flew, and the demon king shouted straight back as he held the iron mace, “Damned monks! Don't you know who I am? I'm the Great King of the Southern Mountains, and I've been running wild here for hundreds of years. I've eaten your Tang Priest up. What are you going to do about it?”

“You've got a nerve, you hairy beast,” retorted Monkey abusively. “How old are you, daring to call yourself after the Southern Mountains? Lord Lao Zi was the ancestor who opened up heaven and earth, but even he sits on the right of the Supreme Pure One. The Tathagata Buddha is the Honoured One who rules the world, and he sits below the Great Roc. Confucius the Sage is the Honoured One of the Confucian School, and all he's called is Master. So how dare you call yourself Great King of the Southern Mountains and talk about running wild for several hundred years? Don't move, and take this from your grandfather's cudgel!”

The evil spirit twisted aside to avoid the cudgel, which he parried with his iron mace. “How dare you try to put me down like that, monkey-face,” said the monster, glaring furiously. “What kind of powers have you got, acting like a maniac at my gates.”

“I'll get you, you nameless beast,” replied Brother Monkey with a grin. “You evidently don't know who I am, so just stand there and make yourself brave while I tell you:

My ancestral home is in the Eastern Continent,

Where heaven and earth nourished me for thousands of years.

On the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit was a magic stone egg;

When the egg broke open my roots were inside.

My birth was not like that of an ordinary being:

My body was formed when sun and moon mated.

1 cultivated myself with formidable effect;

Heaven gave me a perceptive and cinnabar head.

As the Great Sage I dwelt in the palace in the clouds,

Using my strength in a fight against the Dipper and Bull Palace.

A hundred thousand heavenly troops could get nowhere near me;

All the stars in the sky were easily subdued.

My fame resounds throughout the cosmos;

I know all about everything between earth and sky.

Since my conversion to Sakyamuni's teachings

1 have been helping my master on his journey to the West.

When I clear a path through mountains no one can stop me;

My skill at bridging rivers causes demons distress.

In forests I use my power to seize tigers and leopards;

I capture wild beasts bare-handed before sheer cliffs.

For the sake of the East's true achievement I have come to the Western Regions;

What evil monster will dare to show itself?

I hate the wicked beasts who have murdered my master;

Their lives will all be ended at this moment.”

These remarks both shocked and infuriated the ogre, who ground his teeth, sprang forward and struck at Brother Monkey with his iron mace. Monkey blocked it effortlessly with his cudgel and would have said some more to him when Pig, unable to restrain himself any longer, started swinging wildly at the demon king's commander of the vanguard. The commander of the vanguard led his whole force into action, and a hectic and splendid battle was fought on that piece of level ground on the mountainside:

The monk from the great and superior country in the East

Was going to fetch true scriptures from the Western Paradise.

The great leopard of the Southern mountains breathed out wind and clouds

To block their way through the mountains and show off his prowess.

With tricks

And deception

He had foolishly captured the priest from Great Tang.

Then he met Monkey with his tremendous powers

As well as the famous Zhu Bajie.

While the demons fought on level ground in the mountains

Dust clouds arose and darkened the sky.

Above the fray rose the junior devils' roars

As they thrust out wildly with spear and with sword.

On the other side the monks shouted back,

Fighting with rake and with cudgel together.

The Great Sage was a matchless hero,

And Pig in his perfection reveled in his strength.

The ancient ogre of the South,

And his vanguard commander

For the sake of a piece of the Tang Priest's flesh

Were prepared to throw their own lives away.

These two hated them for killing their master:

The other two were set on murder because of the Tang Priest.

The struggle long swayed to and fro,

The clashes and charges yielding no victor.

When Monkey realized that the junior devils were fighting so hard that repeated attacks were failing to drive them back he used body-dividing magic, plucked out a bunch of hairs, chewed them up in his mouth, spat the pieces out, called “Change!” and turned them all into his own doubles, each wielding a gold-banded cudgel and fighting his way into the cave from the outside. The one or two hundred junior devils, unable to cope with their attacks from all sides, all fled for their lives back into the cave. Monkey and Pig then fought their way back out through the enemy ranks from the inside. The evil spirits who had no sense tried to stand up to the rake and found themselves bleeding from nine wounds, or resisted the cudgel and had their flesh and bones beaten to paste. The Great King of the Southern Mountains was so alarmed that he fled for his life on his clouds and wind. The commander of the vanguard, who did not know how to do transformations, had already fallen to Monkey's club and been revealed as what he really was: an iron-backed gray wolf ogre.