The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 2 (33 page)

“Brother,” said the old demon, “take the Tang Monk, Sha Monk, Eight Rules, the white horse, and the luggage—take them all and return them to Pilgrim Sun. Let’s shut the door on conflict.” “What are you saying, Elder Brother?” said the second demon. “You have no idea how much effort I spent in devising this plan to bring back all those monks. And now intimidated by Pilgrim Sun’s trickery you want to return them to him unconditionally. You have become, in fact, a person who fears the knife and shuns the sword. Is that manliness? Sit down and don’t be afraid. I heard you say that Pilgrim Sun had vast magic powers; though I met him, I have yet to wage a contest with him. Bring me my armor. Let me fight three rounds with him: if he can’t defeat me in those three rounds, the Tang Monk is still our food. If I can’t prevail against him in those three rounds, there’s still time then for us to return the Tang Monk to him.” The old demon said, “You are right, Worthy Brother.” He ordered at once for the armor to be brought out.

After the various fiends hauled out his armor, the second demon suited up himself properly and walked out the door, holding the treasure sword. “Pilgrim Sun,” he cried, “where have you gone to?” At the time, you see, the Great Sage had already reached the edge of the clouds. When he heard
his
name called, he turned quickly and saw that it was the second demon. “How is he dressed?” you ask.

    
He wears a phoenix helmet whiter than snow

    
And an armor made of bright Persian steel.

    
The belt on his waist is dragon’s tendon.

    
Plum-flower shaped gaiters top his goat-skin boots.

    
He seems the living Lord of Libation Stream;
⁴

    
He looks no different from Mighty Spirit.
⁵

    
He holds in his hands the sword of seven stars,

    
Stern and imposing in a towering rage.

“Pilgrim Sun,” cried the second demon, “give us back quickly our mother and our treasures. I’ll let you and the Tang Monk go to acquire scriptures.” Unable to contain himself any longer, the Great Sage roared, “This impudent monster! You’ve made a mistake in thinking that your Grandpa Sun will let you go so easily! Return at once my master, my younger brothers, the white horse, and our luggage, and give us, moreover, some travel money for us to take on our road to the West. If half a ‘No’ leaks through your teeth, you might as well hang yourself with rope. That’ll save your Grandpa from having to raise his hands.” When the second demon heard these words, he leaped up to the clouds swiftly and stabbed with the sword. Pilgrim met him face to face with the uplifted iron rod, and it was some battle between the two of them in midair.

    
The chess master finding his match,

    
The general meeting a good warrior—

    
Finding his match the chess master can’t suppress his joy;

    
Meeting a good warrior the general must apply himself.

    
When those two divine fighters come together,

    
They seem like tigers brawling on South Mountain

    
Or dragons striving in North Sea.

    
As dragons strive,

    
Their scales sparkle;

    
When tigers brawl,

    
Teeth and claws strike madly.

    
Teeth and claws strike madly like silver hooks,

    
And sparkling scales upturn like iron leaves.

    
This one all in all

    
Uses a thousand ways to attack;

    
That one back and forth

    
Does not let up for half a moment.

    
The golden-hooped rod

    
Is
only three-tenths of an inch from the head.

    
The seven-stars sword,

    
Poised at the heart, needs only one thrust.

    
The imposing air of this one chills the Great Dipper;

    
The angry breaths of that one menace like thunder.

The two of them fought for thirty rounds but no decision was reached.

Secretly delighted, Pilgrim said to himself, “This lawless monster does manage to withstand the iron rod of old Monkey. But I have already acquired three of his treasures. If I continue to fight bitterly like this with him, won’t it just delay what I want to do? Perhaps I should use the gourd or the pure vase to store him up.” He then thought further, “No good! No good! The proverb says, ‘Each thing has its master.’ If I call him and he doesn’t answer, it will just defeat my purpose. Let me use the yellow-gold rope to lasso his head.” Dear Great Sage! He used one hand to wield his iron rod while his other hand whipped out the rope and lassoed the demon’s head. The demon, however, knew a Tight-Rope Spell and a Loose-Rope Spell. If the rope had bound another person, he would recite the Tight-Rope Spell and that person would not be able to escape. But if the rope had been fastened on one of his own, he would recite the Loose-Rope Spell and no harm would come to the person. When he saw, then, that it was his own treasure, he recited at once the Loose-Rope Spell; the rope loosened itself and he came out of the noose. Taking the rope, he threw it at Pilgrim instead and it caught hold of the Great Sage instantly. The Great Sage was about to exercise his magic of thinning the body when the demon recited the Tight-Rope Spell and it had him firmly bound. It was impossible for him to escape, for when the rope was drawn down to his neck, one end of it changed into a gold ring tightly enclosing him. The fiend then gave the rope a tug and pulled Pilgrim down before he gave that bald head seven or eight blows with the sword. The skin on Pilgrim’s head did not even redden at all.

“This monkey,” said the demon, “has quite a hard head! I won’t hack at you anymore. Let me take you back to the cave first before I hit you again. But you’d better return my other two treasures right now.” “What treasures have I taken from you?” asked Pilgrim, “that you should ask me for them?” The demon searched Pilgrim carefully and found both the gourd and the vase. Using the rope as a leash, he brought Pilgrim back to the cave, saying, “Elder Brother, I’ve caught him.” The old demon said, “Whom did you catch?” “Pilgrim Sun!” said the second demon. “Come and look! Come and look!” The old demon took one look and recognized that it was indeed Pilgrim. He smiled happily and said, “It’s he! It’s he! Tie him up with a long rope to the pillar just for fun.” They indeed had Pilgrim tied to a pillar, after which the two demons went to the hall in the back to drink.

As
the Great Sage was crawling around beneath the pillar, he was seen by Eight Rules. Hanging on the beam, Idiot laughed loudly, saying, “Elder Brother, you can’t quite manage to eat my ears!” “Idiot,” said Pilgrim, “are you comfortably hung up there? I’ll get out right now, and you can be certain that I’ll rescue all of you.” “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” asked Eight Rules. “You can’t even escape yourself, and you want to rescue others. O, let it be, let it be! Master and disciples might as well die together so that we could ask for our way in the Region of Darkness.” Pilgrim said, “Stop babbling nonsense! You watch me leave here.” “I’ll see how you leave here,” said Eight Rules. Though the Great Sage was talking to Eight Rules, his eyes were fixed on those two demons. He saw that they were drinking inside, and there were a few little fiends running madly back and forth to bring in the dishes and to pour wine. When their guard lapsed momentarily and no one stood near the Great Sage, he at once exercised his divine powers. Slipping out his rod, he blew on it, saying, “Change!” and it changed instantly into a file of pure steel. Gripping the gold ring on his neck, he filed it through with four or five strokes and freed himself by pulling the ring apart. Yanking off a piece of hair, he commanded it to change into a specious form of himself tied to the pillar; his true self, however, changed with one shake of the body into a little monster and stood to one side.

“Bad news! Bad news!” cried Eight Rules once more on the beam. “The one tied up is a false product. The one hanging is genuine.”

Putting down his cup, the old demon asked, “What’s that Zhu Eight Rules yelling about?” Pilgrim, who had changed into a little monster, went forward to say, “Zhu Eight Rules is trying to persuade Pilgrim Sun to escape by transformation, but Sun isn’t willing. That’s why Zhu is hollering.” “And we say that Zhu Eight Rules is without guile!” said the second demon. “Now I see what a sneak he is! He should have his mouth caned twenty times.”

Pilgrim indeed went to get a cane for the beating. “You’d better hit me lightly,” said Eight Rules. “If the strokes are even slightly heavy, I’ll yell again that I recognize you.” Pilgrim said, “It’s for the sake of all of you that old Monkey has undergone the transformation. Why did you have to let the truth leak out? All the monster-spirits of this cave can’t recognize me. Why does it have to be you who can recognize me?” “Though you have changed your features,” said Eight Rules, “your ass hasn’t been changed! Aren’t those two patches of red still on your buttocks? That’s why I can recognize you.” Pilgrim slipped out to the kitchen and wiped some soot off the pots to blacken his buttocks before returning to the front. When Eight Rules saw him, he said, chuckling, “This monkey must have gone somewhere to mess around so that he has now come back with a black ass!”

Pilgrim still remained standing there for he wanted to steal their treasures. Indeed a clever person, he walked up the hall and half-knelt to the
fi
end, saying, “Great King, look how that Pilgrim Sun is crawling all over the pillar. The yellow-gold rope, I fear, may be ruined by all that rubbing and stretching. We should get something thicker to tie him up.” “You are right,” said the old demon, and he took off a belt with a lion buckle from his own waist to hand to Pilgrim. Taking the belt, Pilgrim fastened his false form to the pillar, but the rope he stuffed instantly into his own sleeve. Then he pulled off another piece of hair, which with one blow of his breath he changed into a fake yellow-gold rope, and which he presented with both hands to the fiend. Eager only for his wine, the fiend did not bother to examine it before putting it away. This is what we mean by

    
The Great Sage, ever versatile, displays his skills:

    
The hair is now exchanged for the golden rope.

As soon as he had acquired this treasure, he leaped out the door and changed back into his true form. “Monster!” he shouted. A little fiend guarding the door asked, “Who are you, that you dare shout here?” “Go in quickly,” said Pilgrim, “and report to those lawless demons that a Grimpil Sun is here.” The little fiend indeed made the report as he was told.

Highly startled, the old demon said, “We have caught Pilgrim Sun already! How is it that there is a Grimpil Sun?” “Elder Brother,” said the second demon, “Why fear him? The treasures are all in our hands. Let me take the gourd out and have him stored up.” “Brother,” said the old demon, “do be careful.” The second demon took out the gourd and walked out the door, where he encountered someone who seemed to be an exact image of Pilgrim Sun but only a little shorter. “Where did you come from?” he asked. Pilgrim said, “I’m the brother of Pilgrim Sun. When I heard that you caught my elder brother, I came to settle the score with you.” “Yes, I caught him all right,” said the second demon, “and he’s locked up in the cave. Now that you have arrived, you want to fight with me, I suppose, but I won’t cross swords with you. Let me call your name once. Do you dare answer me?” “Even if you call me a thousand times, I won’t be afraid,” said Pilgrim. “I’ll answer you ten thousand times!”

Leaping into the air with his treasure held upside down, the demon called out, “Grimpil Sun!”

Pilgrim dared not reply, thinking to himself, “If I answer him, I’ll be sucked inside.”

“Why don’t you answer me?” said the demon.

“My ears are a little stuffed up,” said Pilgrim, “and I can’t hear you. Call louder.” The fiend indeed shouted, “Grimpil Sun!”

Squeezing his fingers together to do some calculations down below, Pilgrim thought to himself, “My real name is Pilgrim Sun, but this Grimpil Sun is a fake name that I’ve made up. With the real name I can be sucked
inside,
but how could it work with a false name?” He could not refrain from answering, and instantly he was sucked into the gourd, which was then sealed by the tape. That treasure, you see, had no regard for whether the name called out was true or false: if one even breathed an answer, one would be sucked inside instantly.

When the Great Sage arrived inside the gourd, he found only total darkness. He tried to push up with his head but to no avail at all, for whatever was stopping the mouth of the gourd was exceedingly tight. Growing anxious, he thought to himself, “Those two little fiends I met on the mountain at the time told me that if a man was sucked into either the gourd or the vase, he would be reduced to pus in one and three-quarter hours. Could I be dissolved like that?” He thought further to himself, “It’s nothing. I can’t be dissolved! When old Monkey caused great disturbance in the Celestial Palace five hundred years ago and was refined for forty-nine days in the eight-trigram brazier of Laozi, the process in fact gave me a heart strong as gold and viscera hardy as silver, a bronze head and an iron back, fiery eyes and diamond pupils. How could I be reduced to pus in one and three-quarter hours? Let me follow him inside and see what he does.”