“Brother,” said Pig, “if you kill them that way, like rolling out dough for noodles, you could do it in four hours.”
“Master,” said Friar Sand with a laugh, “as my elder brother has such divine powers we've got nothing to fear. Please mount up so that we can be on our way.” Having heard them discussing Monkey's powers Sanzang could not but mount with an easy heart and be on his way.
As they traveled along the old man disappeared. “He must have been an evil spirit himself,” said Friar Sand, “deliberately coming to frighten us with cunning and intimidation.”
“Take it easy,” said Monkey. “I'm going to take a look.” The splendid Great Sage leapt up to a high peak but saw no trace of the old man when he looked around. Then he suddenly turned back to see a shimmering coloured glow in the sky, shot up on his cloud to look, and saw that it was the Great White Planet. Walking over and grabbing hold of him, Monkey kept addressing him by his personal name: “Li Changgeng! Li Changgeng! You rascal! If you had something to say you should have said it to my face. Why did you pretend to be an old man of the woods and make a fool of me?”
The planet hastened to pay him his respects and said, “Great Sage, I beg you to forgive me for being late in reporting to you. Those demon chiefs really have tremendous magical abilities and their powers are colossal. With your skill in transformations and your cunning you may just be able to get over, but if you slight them it will be very hard.”
“I'm very grateful,” Monkey thanked him, “very grateful. If I really can't get across this ridge I hope that you'll go up to Heaven and put in a word with the Jade Emperor so he'll lend me some heavenly soldiers to help me.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said the Great White Planet. “Just give the word and you can have a hundred thousand heavenly troops if you want them.”
The Great Sage then took his leave of the planet and brought his cloud down to see Sanzang and say, “The old man we saw just now was actually the Great White Planet come to bring us a message.”
“Disciple,” said Sanzang, putting his hands together in front of his chest, “catch up with him quick and ask him where there's another path we could make a detour by.”
“There's no other way round,” Monkey replied. “This mountain is 250 miles across, and goodness knows how much longer it would be to go all the way around it. How ever could we?” At this Sanzang could not restrain himself from weeping.
“Disciple,” he said, “if it's going to be as hard as this how are we going to worship the Buddha?”
“Don't cry,” Monkey said, “don't cry. If you cry you're a louse. I'm sure he's exaggerating. All we have to do is be careful. As they say, forewarned is forearmed. Dismount and sit here for now.”
“What do you want to talk about now?” Pig asked.
“Nothing,” replied Monkey. “You stay here and look after the master carefully while Friar Sand keeps a close eye on the baggage and the horse. I'm going up the ridge to scout around. I'll find out how many demons there are in the area, capture one, ask him all the details, and get him to write out a list with all of their names. I'll check out every single one of them, old or young, and tell them to shut the gates of the cave and not block our way. Then I can ask the master to cross the mountain peacefully and quietly. That'll show people my powers.”
“Be careful,” said Friar Sand, “do be careful!”
“No need to tell me,” Brother Monkey replied with a smile. “On this trip I'd force the Eastern Ocean to make way for me, and I'd smash my way in even if it were a mountain of silver cased in iron.”
The splendid Great Sage went whistling straight up to the peak by his somersault cloud. Holding on to the vines and creepers, he surveyed the mountain only to find it silent and deserted. “I was wrong,” he said involuntarily, “I was wrong. I shouldn't have let that old Great White Planet go. He was just trying to scare me. There aren't any evil spirits here. If there were they'd be out leaping around in the wind, thrusting with their spears and staves, or practicing their fighting skills. Why isn't there a single one?”
As he was wondering about this there was a ringing of a bell and a banging of clappers. He turned round at once to see a little devil boy with a banner on which was written BY ORDER over his shoulder, a bell at his waist and clappers in his hands that he was sounding. He was coming from the North and heading South. A close look revealed that he was about twelve feet tall.
“He must be a runner,” thought Monkey, grinning to himself, “delivering messages and reports. I'll take a listen to what he's talking about.” The splendid Great Sage made a spell with his hands, said the magic words, shook himself and turned into a fly who landed lightly on the devil's hat and tilted his head for a good listen.
This is what the little devil was saying to himself as he headed along the main road, sounding his clappers and ringing his belclass="underline" “All we mountain patrollers must be careful and be on our guard against Sun the Novice. He can even turn into a fly!” Monkey was quietly amazed to hear this. “That so-and-so must have seen me before. How else could he know my name and know that I can turn into a fly?” Now the little devil had not in fact seen him before. The demon chief had for some reason given him these instructions that he was reciting blindly. Monkey, who did not know this, thought that the devil must have seen him and was on the point of bringing the cudgel out to hit him with when he stopped.
“I remember Pig being told,” he thought, “when he questioned the planet that there were three demon chieftains and 47,000 or 48,000 junior devils like this one. Even if there were tens of thousands more juniors like this it would be no problem. But I wonder how great the three leaders' powers are. I'll question him first. There'll be time to deal with them later.”
Splendid Great Sage! Do you know how he questioned the demon? He jumped off the devil's hat and landed on a tree top, letting the junior devil go several paces ahead. Then Monkey turned round and did a quick transformation into another junior devil, sounding clappers, ringing a bell and carrying a flag over his shoulder just like the real one. He was also dressed identically. The only difference was that he was a few inches taller.
He was muttering the same things as the other as he caught him up, shouting, “Hey, you walking ahead, wait for me.”
Turning round, the junior devil asked, “Where have you come from?”
“You're a nice bloke,” Monkey said with a smile, “not even recognizing one of your own people.”
“You're not one of ours,” said the demon.
“What do you mean?” Monkey asked. “Take a look and see if you can recognize me.”
“I've never seen you before,” the demon said. “I don't know you.”
“It's not surprising you don't know me,” said Monkey. “I work in the kitchens. We've rarely met.”
“You don't,” said the demon, shaking his head, “you don't. None of the brothers who do the cooking has got a pointy face like yours.”
“I must have made my face too pointy when I did the transformation,” thought Monkey, so he rubbed it with his hands and said, “It isn't pointy.” Indeed it was not.
“But it was pointy just now,” the little devil said. “How did you stop it being pointy just by rubbing it? You're a very shady character. I don't have the faintest idea who you are. You're not one of us. I've never met you. Very suspicious. Our kings run the household very strictly. The kitchen staff only work in the kitchen and the mountain patrols keep to patrolling the mountain. How could you possibly be a cook and a patroller?”
“There's something you don't know,” said Monkey, improvising a clever answer. “I was promoted to patrolling because the kings saw how well I'd worked in the kitchens.”