Hearing this, Monkey carried on in the same vein: “That's where my gourd came from too.”
“How can you tell?” the demon king asked.
“When the pure and the coarse were first divided,” the Great Sage replied, “heaven was incomplete in the Northwest corner, and part of the earth was missing to the Southeast. So the Great Taoist Patriarch turned himself into Nuwa to mend the sky. As he passed Mount Kunlun there was a magic vine with two gourds growing on it. The one I've got is the male one, and yours is the female one.”
“Never mind about the sex,” said the demon. “It's only a real treasure if it can hold people inside.”
“Quite right,” said Monkey. “You try to put me inside first.”
The overjoyed demon sprang into mid-air with a bound, held out his gourd, and called, “Novice the Sun.” Without hesitation the Great Sage replied eight or nine times, but he was not sucked inside. The monster came down, stamping his feet, pounding his chest, and exclaiming, “Heavens! Who said that the world never changes? This treasure's scared of its old man! The female one hasn't the nerve to pack the male inside.”
“Put your gourd away now,” said Monkey. “It's my turn to call your name.” With a fast somersault he leapt up, turned his gourd upside-down with its mouth facing the demon, and called, “Great King Silver Horn.” The demon could not keep quiet; he had to answer, and he went whistling into the gourd. Monkey then attached a label reading:
To the Great Lord Lao: to be dealt with urgently in accordance with the Statutes and Ordinances.
“Well, my boy,” he thought with pleasure, “today you've tried something new.”
He landed his cloud, still carrying the gourd. His only thought was to rescue his master as he headed for the Lotus Flower Cave. The mountain path was most uneven, and he was besides bow-legged, so as he lurched along the gourd was shaken, making a continuous sloshing sound. Do you know why this was? The Great Sage's body had been so thoroughly tempered that he could not be putrefied in a hurry. The monster, on the other hand, though able to ride the clouds only had certain magical powers. His body was still essentially that of an ordinary mortal, which putrefied as soon as it went into the gourd.
Not believing that the demon had already turned to pus, Monkey joked, “I don't know whether that's piss or saliva, my lord, but I've played that game too. I won't take the cover off for another seven or eight days, by when you'll have turned to liquid. What's the hurry? What's so urgent? When I think how easily I escaped you deserve to be out of sight for a thousand years.” As he was carrying the gourd and talking like this he was back at the doors of the cave before he realized it. He shook the gourd, and it kept making that noise.
“It's like a fortune-telling tube that you shake a stick out of,” he thought. “I'll do one and see when the Master will be coming out.” Watch him as he shakes and shakes it, repeating over and over again the spell, “King Wen's Book of Changes, Confucius the Sage, Lady of the Peach Blossom, Master Ghostvalley.”
When they saw him the little devils in the cave said, “Disaster, Your Majesty. Novice the Sun has put his Junior Majesty in the gourd and is shaking it.” The news sent all the Senior King's souls flying and turned his bones and sinews soft.
He collapsed, howling aloud, “You and I sneaked out of the world above to be reborn among mortals, brother. Our hope was to share glory for ever as rulers of this cave. We never dreamt that this monk would kill you and part us.” All the devils in the cave wept and wailed.
The sound of all this howling was too much for Pig hanging from his beam. “Stop howling, demon,” he could not help himself shouting, “and listen to me. Sun the Novice who came first, the Novice Sun who came next, and Novice the Sun who came last all have the same name shuffled around, and they are all my fellow disciple. He can do seventy-two transformations. He got in here by changing, stole your treasure and put your brother inside it. Now that he's dead there's no need for all this misery. Have your cooking pots scrubbed clean and cook some gill mushrooms and button mushrooms, tea shoots, bamboo shoots, beancurd, gluten, tree-fungus, and vegetables. Then you can invite my master, my fellow-disciple and me down to say a Life Sutra for your brother.”
“I thought Pig was well-behaved,” roared the demon king in fury, “but he most certainly is not, mocking me like that.” He then called on the little devils, “Stop wailing, and let Pig down. Cook him till he's nice and tender, and when I've had made a good meal of him I'll go out and take my revenge on Sun the Novice.”
“Wonderful,” grumbled Friar Sand at Pig. “I told you to keep your mouth shut. Your reward for blabbing will be to be cooked first.”
The idiot was quite frightened by now. A little devil standing beside him said, “Your Majesty, Pig will be hard to cook.”
“Thank heavens,” said Pig. “Is this brother winning himself some merit? It's true I wouldn't cook well.”
Then another little devil said, “He'll cook if he's skinned first.”
“Yes,” said Pig in desperation, “I'll cook. My skin and bones may be coarse, but they'll boil tender. I'm done for! I'm done for.”
Before Pig had finished shouting a little devil came in from outside to report that Novice the Sun was there again and being very abusive.
“Damn him. He thinks we're completely useless,” exclaimed the Senior Demon King with horror. “Hang Pig up again,” he told the little demons, “and check what treasures we have left.”
“We still have three in the cave,” reported the steward devil.
“Which three?” the demon king asked. “The Seven-star Sword, the Plantain Fan, and the Pure Vase,” replied the steward.
“The vase is useless,” said the demon king. “All you used to need to do was to call someone's name and get a reply for them to be put inside. But now Sun the Novice has learned the words of the spell and put my brother in it. We won't need that-leave it here. Fetch me the sword and the fan at once.”
The steward immediately fetched them for the old demon, who tucked the fan inside the back of his collar and took the sword in his hand. Then he mustered all three hundred or more of his devils and drilled them in the use of spear, staff, rope and sword. The Senior Demon King then put on his helmet and breast plate, over which he threw a cloak of fiery red silk. The demons fell into battle formation, ready to capture the Great Sage Sun. The Great Sage meanwhile, now aware that the Junior Demon King had rotted down inside the gourd, tied it up very tight and fastened it to his belt, then prepared to fight, his gold-banded cudgel in his hand. The old demon, his red battle-flag unfurled behind him, leapt out through the doors of the cave. This was how he was dressed:
Dazzling bright the tassels on his helmet,
Brilliantly coloured the belt at his waist.
The armor he wore was made of dragon scales,
Covered with a cloak of burning fire.
Lightning flashed from his glaring eyes,
Smoke curled up from his bristles of steel.
Lightly he lifted the Seven-star Sword,
His shoulders covered by the Plantain Fan.
He moved like clouds drifting from an island,
Sounded like thunderbolts shaking the mountains.
His mighty prowess would oppress Heaven's warriors
As he wrathfully led his devils from the cave.
He ordered the little devils into battle positions at once, then started hurling abuse: “Thoroughly ill-mannered ape. You've murdered my brother and ruined our fraternal love. You're utterly loathsome.”