“I never insulted you,” said the monster.
“Pig told me you did,” replied Monkey.
“You shouldn't believe that sharp-tongued old gossip,” said the monster.
“Let's stop beating about the bush,” said Monkey. “You've treated me very shabbily for a guest from far away. You may not have any wine or fine delicacies to feed me but you do have a head, so stretch it out and let me hit it with my cudgel-that'll do instead of tea.”
The mention of hitting made the monster bellow with laughter. “You've got it all wrong this time, Monkey,” he said. “You shouldn't have come in if you wanted to fight me. I have a thousand devils of all sizes in here. Even if you were covered with arms you'd never be able to fight your way out.”
“Nonsense,” replied Monkey. “Never mind one thousand-if you had thousands or tens of thousands of them I'd only need to see them clearly for my every blow to strike home. I'll wipe the lot of you out.”
The monster at once ordered all the fiends and ogres in and around the cave to muster with their weapons and put a close blockade on all the doors. Monkey was delighted to see them, and wielding his cudgel with both hands he shouted “Change!” and suddenly had six arms and three heads. Then he shook his gold-banded cudgel and turned it into three gold-banded cudgels. He went into action with his six arms and three cudgels. He was a tiger in a sheepfold, a hawk in a chicken run. The poor little demons had their heads smashed to pulp, while their blood flowed like water. He rushed to and fro as if there was nobody else there until only the old ogre was left.
He followed Monkey outside and said “Insolent ape. How dare you come here and bully us?”
Monkey turned, beckoned to him and said, “Come here, come here. Let me win the credit for killing you.”
The monster struck at the head with his sword, and Monkey riposted to the face with his cudgel. They fought it out amid the mists on the mountain top.
Mighty was the magic of the Great Sage,
Awful the monster's power.
One of them wielded an iron cudgel;
The other, a sword of tempered steel.
When the sword was raised it shone with a bright aura;
The parrying cudgel was wreathed in cloud.
They leapt to and fro protecting their heads,
Turning and somersaulting over and over.
One of them changed his face with every breeze,
The other stood still and shook his body.
One glared with fiery eyes as he stretched out his simian arm,
The other's golden pupils flashed as he twisted his tigerish waist.
They were locked in mortal combat
As sword and cudgel struck without mercy.
The Monkey King wielded his iron club according to the martial classic,
And the monster's swordplay followed the ancient manuals.
One was a demon king experienced in the black arts,
The other used magical powers to protect the Tang Priest.
The ferocious Monkey King became fiercer than ever,
The heroic monster grew an even greater hero.
They fought in space, ignoring death,
All because the Tang Priest went to see the Buddha.
They had fought fifty or sixty rounds without issue when Monkey thought, “That bloody monster's sword is as good as my cudgel. I'll pretend to give him an opening and see if he can tell it's a trick.” The Monkey King raised his cudgel and did a “Reaching Up to a Tall Horse” movement. The monster, not realizing that this was a trick, and imagining that he saw a real opening, took a tremendous swipe at Monkey with his sword. Monkey at once did a high swing to avoid the blow, then struck at the monster's head with a “Stealing a Peach from under the Leaves” movement and knocked him so hard he vanished without a trace. Monkey put his cudgel away and looked for him but without success.
“Wow,” exclaimed Monkey in astonishment, “I didn't just hit him-I knocked him out of existence. But if I really killed him there ought at least to be some blood and pus, and there's no sign of any. Perhaps he got away.” He leapt up on a cloud to look around, but nothing was moving. “My eyes can see anything at a glance,” he thought, “so how can he have got away so mysteriously? Now I see. He said he seemed to recognize me, so he can't be an ordinary monster. He must be some spirit from Heaven.”
This was too much for Monkey, who lost his temper and somersaulted up to the Southern Gate of Heaven with his cudgel in his hands. The startled Heavenly Generals Pang, Liu, Gou, Bi, Zhang, Tao, Deng, and Xin bowed low on either side of the gateway, not daring to block his way. They let him fight his way through the gates and straight on to the Hall of Universal Brightness, where the four great Heavenly Teachers Zhang, Ge, Xu and Qiu asked, “What have you come for, Great Sage?”
“As I was escorting the Tang Priest to Elephantia an evil monster abducted a princess and harmed the master. I had to fight him, and in the middle of our battle he disappeared. I thought that he couldn't be an ordinary monster and was probably a spirit from Heaven, so I've come to check up if any wicked deities have left their posts.” On hearing this the Heavenly Teachers went and reported it to the Jade Emperor in the Hall of Miraculous Mist. He ordered an investigation. They found that nobody was missing among the Nine Bright Shiners, the Gods of the Twelve Branches, the five Dippers of North, South, East, West and Centre, the hosts of the Milky Way, the Five Peaks, the Four Rivers, and all the other gods of Heaven. Then they investigated outside the Palace of the Dipper and the Bull, and found that one of the Twenty-eight Constellations, the Strider, was missing.
“Strider, the Wooden Wolf, has gone down to Earth,” they reported to the throne.
“How long has he been away from Heaven?” the Jade Emperor asked.
“He has missed four roll-calls,” they replied, “and with one roll-call every three days that makes thirteen days.”
“Thirteen days in Heaven would be thirteen years down on Earth,” said the Emperor, and he ordered the Strider's fellow stars to go down and bring him back to Heaven.
On receiving this edict the twenty-seven other constellations went out through the gates of Heaven and startled the Strider as each chanted his own spell. Do you know where he had been hiding? He had been one of the heavenly generals who was beaten when Monkey had sacked the Heavenly Palace, and he had lain low in a mountain stream that masked his demonic cloud and kept him out of sight. Only when he heard the other constellations shouting their spells did he dare to emerge from the water and go back to Heaven with them. The Great Sage was blocking the gates of Heaven and would have killed him but for the pleas of the other constellations, who saved him and escorted him to see the Jade Emperor. The monster now produced his golden tablet of office from his belt and kowtowed on the floor of the palace, admitting his guilt.
“Strider the Wooden Wolf,” said the Jade Emperor, “why did you go off by yourself instead of being content with the infinite beauty of Heaven?”
“I deserve to die, Your Majesty,” the Strider replied. “That daughter of the king of Elephantia was no ordinary mortal. She was a Jade Maiden in the Hall of Incense who wanted to have an affair with me. As we did not want to defile the Heavenly Palace she decided to become a mortal first and was reborn in a king's palace. Then I became an evil monster and occupied a mountain in order not to let her down. I carried her off to my cave, and we were man and wife for thirteen years. 'Every bite and every sip is preordained,' as the saying goes, and now the Great Sage has succeeded in bringing me here.” The Jade Emperor withdrew his tablet of office and degraded him to be a menial helping Lord Lao Zi stoke his fires in the Tushita Palace. If he did well he would be restored to his previous post; if not, his sentence would be made heavier. Monkey was delighted to see how the Jade Emperor dealt with him, and chanting a “na-a-aw” of respect he said to the assembled gods, “Gentlemen, I'm off.”