Alas! The Great Sage did not know about this treasure. Anyone put inside it who said nothing for a year would stay cool for a year; but the moment a voice was heard fires began to turn. Before Monkey had finished speaking the whole jar was full of flame. Luckily he could use the knack of making fire-averting magic with his hands as he sat in the middle of the jar completely unafraid. When he had endured the flames for an hour forty snakes emerged from all around to bite him. Swinging his arms about him Monkey grabbed hold of all of them, twisted with all his strength, and broke them into eighty pieces. A little later three fire dragons appeared to circle above and below Monkey, which was really unbearable.
It drove Monkey into a helpless desperation of which he was only too conscious, “The other things were no trouble,” he said, “but these three fire dragons are a real problem. If I don't get out soon the fire will attack my heart, and what then? I'll make myself grow,” he went on to think, “and push my way out.” The splendid Great Sage made a spell with his hands, said the words of a spell and called out, “Grow!” He made himself over a dozen feet tall, but as he grew the jar grew with him, enclosing him tightly. When he made himself smaller, the jar shrank too.
“This is terrible,” Brother Monkey thought with alarm, “terrible. It grows when I grow and shrinks when I get smaller. Why? What am I to do?” Before he had finished speaking his ankle began to hurt. Putting his hand down at once to feel it he found that it had been burnt so badly it had gone soft. “I don't know what to do,” he said with anxiety, “My ankle's been cooked tender. I'm a cripple now.” He could not stop the tears from flowing. Indeed:
When suffering at the demons' hands he thought of his master;
In facing deadly peril he worried about the Tang Priest.
“Master,” he exclaimed, “since I was converted by the Bodhisattva Guanyin and delivered from my heavenly punishment you and I have toiled over many a mountain. I've beaten and wiped out a lot of monsters, subdued Pig and Friar Sand, and gone through no end of suffering. All this was done in the hope of reaching the West and completing the true achievement together. Never did I expect to meet these vicious demons today. Now I've been stupid enough to get myself killed in here I've left you stuck in the middle of the mountains. What a mess to be in for someone who used to be as famous as I was!”
Just when he was feeling thoroughly miserable he suddenly remembered, “Years ago the Bodhisattva gave me three life-saving hairs on the Coiled Snake Mountain. I wonder if I've still got them. I'd better look for them.” He felt all over his body and found three very rigid hairs on the back of his head.
“All the other hair on my body is soft except for these three that are as hard as spears,” he said with delight. “They must be my lifesavers.” Gritting his teeth against the pain, he pulled the three hairs out, blew on them with magic breath and called, “Change!” One of them turned into a steel drill, one into a strip of bamboo, and one into a silken cord. He made the bamboo strip into a bow to which he fixed the drill. After a noisy spell of drilling at the bottom of the jar he made a hole through which the light came in. “I'm in luck,” he said with glee, “I'm in luck. Now I can get out.” No sooner had he transformed himself ready to escape than the jar became cool again. Why was that? It cooled because the hole he had bored in it let the male and female vital forces escape.
The splendid Great Sage put his hairs back, made himself small by turning into the tiniest of insects, a very delicate creature as thin as a whisker and as long as an eyebrow hair, and slipped out through the hole. Instead of making his escape Monkey flew straight to the senior demon chief's head and landed on it. The senior demon, who was drinking, slammed his goblet down and asked, “Third brother, has Sun the Novice been liquefied yet?”
“Is the time up?” the third demon chief asked. The senior demon told his messengers to carry the jar in. When the thirty-six young devils picked the jar up they found that it was far lighter.
“Your Majesty,” they reported with alarm, “the jar's lighter.”
“Nonsense!” the senior demon shouted. “It has the full powers of the male and female vital forces. It couldn't possibly get lighter.”
One of the junior demons who liked showing off picked the jar up and said, “Look. It is lighter, isn't it?” When the senior demon took the lid off to look in he saw that it was bright inside.
“It's empty,” he could not help shouting aloud, “it's leaked.” And Monkey, sitting on his head, could not help shouting, “Search, my lads! He's escaped.”
“He's escaped,” all the monsters shouted, “he's escaped!” The order was then given to shut the gates.
With that Monkey shook himself, took back the clothes that had been taken off him, turned back into himself and leapt out of the cave. “Behave yourselves, evil spirits,” he flung back insultingly. “I've bored through the jar and you can't keep anyone in it any more. You'll have to take it outside and shit in it.”
Shouting and yelling with glee he went straight back on his cloud to where the Tang Priest was. Here he found the venerable gentleman making symbolic incense with a pinch of earth and praying to the sky. Monkey stopped his cloud to listen to what he was saying. Sanzang had his hands together in front of his chest and was saying to Heaven,
“All you immortals up there in the clouds,
The Dings and the Jias and each god and goddess,
Protect my disciple, whose powers are enormous,
And magic is boundless, the good Sun the Novice.”
When the Great Sage heard this he decided to redouble his efforts. Putting his cloud away he went up to Sanzang and called, “Master, I'm back.”
Sanzang held him as he said, “Wukong, you have been to great trouble. I was very concerned because you had gone so far into these high mountains and not come back for so long a time. How dangerous is the mountain in fact?”
“Master,” Monkey replied with a smile, “that trip just now depended in the first place on the good destiny of all the living beings in the East, secondly on your boundless achievement and great virtue, and thirdly on your disciple's magical powers.” Then he told the whole story of how he had pretended to be a Wind-piercer, been drawn into the jar and escaped.
“Now I've seen your face again, Master, It's like having a second life.”
Sanzang expressed endless thanks then asked, “Did you not fight the evil spirits this time?”
“No, I didn't,” replied Brother Monkey.
“Then you won't be able to escort me safely across this mountain,” Sanzang said, at which Monkey, who hated to admit he was beaten, shouted, “What do you mean, I won't be able to escort you?”
“If you and they have not yet had it out and you can only give me evasive answers I will never dare press ahead,” the venerable elder replied.
“Master,” laughed the Great Sage, “you really don't understand. As the saying goes, you can't spin a thread from a single strand of silk, and you can't clap one-handed. There are three demon chiefs and thousands of the little devils. How could I fight them all single-handed?”
“If you are that outnumbered you would indeed find it hard by yourself,” Sanzang replied. “Pig and Friar Sand also have their talents. I shall tell them to go with you to help you clean up the path across the mountain and escort me over it.”
“What you say is completely right, Master,” replied Monkey with a smile. “Tell Friar Sand to protect you while Pig comes with me.”