“Please don't get yourself killed, monk,” she said. “Your two fine brothers couldn't beat Yellow Robe, so how can you talk about such a thing, you skinny little wretch, all gristle and no bone? You're like a crab, the way your bones all stick out. You don't have any magic powers, so don't talk about capturing ogres.”
“What a poor judge of people you are,” laughed Monkey. “As the saying goes, 'A bubble of piss is big but light, and a steelyard weight can counterbalance a ton.' Those two are big but useless. Their bulk slows them down in the wind as they walk, they cost the earth to clothe, they are hollow inside, like fire in a stove, they are weak and they give no return for all that they eat. I may be small, but I'm very good value.”
“Have you really got magic powers?” the princess asked.
“You've never seen such magic as I have,” he replied. “I have no rival when it comes to subduing monsters and demons.”
“Are you sure you won't let me down?” said the princess.
“Yes,” said Monkey.
“As you're so good at putting down demons, how are you going to catch this one?”
“Hide yourself away and keep out of my sight,” said Monkey. “Otherwise I may not be able to deal with him properly when he comes back. I'm afraid you may feel more friendly towards him and want to keep him.”
“Of course I won't want to keep him,” she protested. “I've only stayed here under duress.”
“You've been his wife for thirteen years,” said Monkey, “so you must have some affection for him. When I meet him it won't be for a child's game. I shall have to kill him with my cudgel and my fists before you can be taken back to court.”
The princess did as she had been told and went off to hide in a quiet place. As her marriage was fated to end she had met the Great Sage. Now that the princess was out of the way the Monkey King turned himself with a shake of his body into the very image of the princess and went back into the cave to wait for the ogre.
Pig and Friar Sand took the children to the city of Elephantia and hurled them down on the palace steps, where the wretched boys were smashed to mincemeat; their blood splashed out and their bones were pulverized. The panic-stricken courtiers announced that a terrible thing had happened-two people had been thrown down from the sky. “The children are the sons of the Yellow-robed Monster,” shouted Pig at the top of his voice, “and they were brought here by Pig and Friar Sand.”
The monster, who was still asleep in the Hall of Silvery Peace, heard someone calling his name as he was dreaming, turned over, and looked up to see Pig and Friar Sand shouting from the clouds. “I'm not bothered about Pig,” he thought, “but Friar Sand was tied up at home. However did he escape? Could my wife have let him go? How did he get to catch my sons? Perhaps this is a trick Pig is using to catch me because I won't come out and fight with him. If I'm taken in by this I'll have to fight him, and I'm still the worse for wear after all that wine. One blow from his rake would finish off my prestige. I can see through that plan. I'll go home and see whether they are my sons before arguing with them.”
Without taking leave of the king, the monster went back across the forested mountains to his cave to find out what had happened. By now the palace knew he was an evil spirit. The seventeen other women who had fled for their lives when he ate the Palace Beauty had told the king all about it early the next morning, and his unannounced departure made it even clearer that he was an ogre. The king told the officials to look after the false tiger.
When Monkey saw the monster coming back to the cave he thought of a way to trick him. He blinked till the tears came down like rain, started to wail for the children, and jumped and beat his breast as if in grief, filling the cave with the sound of his sobbing. The monster failed to recognize who Monkey really was and put his arms round him. “What makes you so miserable, wife?” he asked.
“Husband,” said Monkey, weeping as he concocted his devilish lies, “How true it is that 'A man without a wife has no one to look after his property; a woman who loses her husband is bound to fall'. Why didn't you come back yesterday after going to the city to meet your father-in-law? Pig came and seized Friar Sand this morning, and then they grabbed our sons and refused to spare them despite all my pleas. They said they were taking them to the palace to meet their grandfather, but I haven't seen them all day. I don't know what's become of them, and you were away. I've been so miserable at losing them that I can't stop crying.” The monster was furious.
“My sons?” he asked.
“Yes,” Monkey replied, “Pig carried them off.”
The monster, now jumping with rage, said, “Right, that's it. He's killed my sons. He'll die for this. I'll make that monk pay for it with his life. Don't cry, wife. How are you feeling now? Let me make you better.”
“There's nothing wrong with me,” said Monkey, “except that I've cried so much my heart aches.”
“Never mind,” the monster replied. “Come over here. I've got a treasure here that you just have to rub on your pain to stop it hurting. But be very careful with it and don't flick it with your thumb, because if you do you'll be able to see my real body.”
Monkey was secretly delighted. “What a well-behaved fiend,” he thought, “giving that away without even being tortured. When he gives me the treasure I'll flick it to see what kind of monster he really is.” The ogre then led him to a remote and secluded part of the cave and spat out a treasure about the size of a hen's egg. It was magic pill skillfully fashioned from a piece of a conglomeration of internal secretion. “What a splendid thing,” Monkey thought. “Goodness knows how many times it had to be worked, refined and mated before becoming such a magic relic. Today it was fated to meet me.”
The ape took it, rubbed it over his pretended pain, and was just going to flick it with his thumb when the monster took fright and tried to grab it from him. The crafty Monkey popped it into his mouth and swallowed it. The monster clenched his fist and hit at him, but Monkey parried the blow, rubbed his face, and reverted to his real form with a shout of, “Behave yourself, ogre. Take a look and see who I am.”
“Wife,” said the shocked monster, “however did you get that terrible face?”
“I'll get you, you damned fiend,” said Monkey. “I'm not your wife. Can't you even recognize your own grandfather?” The monster, now beginning to see the light, said, “You do look a bit familiar.”
“Take another look,” said Monkey, “I won't hit you.”
“I know you by sight,” the monster said, “but I can't remember your name. Who are you? Where are you from? Where have you hidden my wife? Why did you swindle me out of my treasure? This is a disgusting way to behave.”
“As you don't know who I am,” said Monkey, “let me tell you that I am Sun Wukong, Brother Monkey, the Tang Priest's senior disciple. I'm your ancestor by a clear five hundred years.”
“Nonsense,” the ogre replied, “nonsense. I know that the Tang Priest only had two disciples when I captured him. They were called Pig and Friar Sand. Nobody mentioned anyone by the name of Monkey. You must be a fiend from somewhere or other who has come to trick me.”
“I didn't come here with the other two,” said Monkey, “because my master is a kind and merciful man who sent me back home for killing too many evil spirits. You ought to know your ancestor's name.”
“What sort of man are you?” asked the monster, “how can you have the face to come back after your master has sent you away?”
“You wouldn't understand, you damned monster,” said Monkey, “that when a man has been your teacher for a single day, you should treat him as your father for the rest of his life, and that father and son should never let the sun set on a quarrel. You've harmed my master, so of course I've come to rescue him. Even if I could ignore that, it's quite outrageous that you insulted me behind my back.”