“Do you mean the Sun Wukong who made havoc in Heaven?” they asked.
“Yes,” the Bull Demon King replied. “If any of you gentlemen have any trouble on the road West keep your distance from him whatever you do.”
“But if all that's true, what about Your Majesty's steed?” the ancient dragon asked.
“No problem,” the Bull Demon King replied with a smile. “You gentlemen may all go home now while I go after him.”
With that he parted his way through the waters, sprang up from the bottom of the pool and rode a yellow cloud straight to the Plantain Cave on Mount Turquoise Cloud, where he heard Raksasi stamping her feet, beating her breast, howling and moaning. He pushed the doors open to see the water-averting golden-eyed beast tethered by them.
“Where did Sun Wukong go, wife?” the Bull Demon King said.
Seeing that the Bull Demon King was back, the serving girls all knelt down and said, “Are you home, Your Majesty?”
Raksasi grabbed hold of him, banged her head against his, and said abusively, “Damn and blast you, you careless fool. Why ever did you let that macaque steal the golden-eyed beast and turn himself into your double to come here and trick me?”
“Which way did the macaque go?” the Bull Demon King asked, grinding his teeth in fury. Beating her breast Raksasi continued to pour out abuse: “The damn monkey tricked me out of my treasure, turned back into himself, and went. I'm so angry I could die.”
“Do look after yourself, wife,” the Bull Demon King said, “and don't be so upset. When I've caught the macaque and taken the treasure off him I'll skin him, grind his bones to powder, and bring you his heart and liver. That'll make you feel better.” He then called for weapons.
“Your Majesty's weapons aren't here,” the serving girls replied.
“Then bring your mistress' weapons,” the Bull Demon King replied. The servants brought her pair of blue-tipped swords, and the Bull Demon King took off the duck-green velvet jacket he had worn to the banquet and tied the little waistcoat he wore next to his skin more tightly. He then strode out of the Plantain Cave, a sword in each hand, and headed straight for the Fiery Mountains in pursuit of Monkey. It was a case of
The man who forgot a kindness
Tricking a doting wife;
The fiery-tempered old demon
Meeting a mendicant monk.
If you don't know whether this journey was ill-fated or not, listen to the explanation in the next installment.
Chapter 61
Zhu Bajie Helps to Defeat a Demon King
Monkey's Third Attempt to Borrow the Fan
The story tells how the Bull Demon King caught up with the Great Sage Sun and saw him looking very cheerful as he went along with the plantain fan over his shoulder. “So the macaque has also tricked the art of using the fan out of her,” the demon king thought. “If I ask him for it back to his face he's bound to refuse, and if he fans me with it and sends me sixty thousand miles away that would be just what he wants. Now I know that the Tang Priest is sitting waiting by the main road. When I was an evil spirit in the old days I used to know his second disciple the Pig Spirit. I think I'll turn myself into a double of the Pig Spirit and play a trick back on him. That macaque will no doubt be so pleased with himself that he won't really be on his guard.” The splendid demon king could also do seventy-two transformations and his martial skills were on a par with those of the Great Sage: it was just that he was rather more clumsily built, was less quick and penetrating, and not so adaptable.
First he hid the swords then he said the words of the spell, turned himself into the exact likeness of Pig, went down, and met Monkey face to face. “I'm here, brother,” he called.
The Great Sage was indeed delighted. As the ancient saying goes, a cat that's won a fight is more pleased with himself than a tiger. Monkey was so confident of his powers that he did not bother to investigate why the new arrival was here, but seeing that he looked like Pig, called out, “Where are you going brother?”
The Bull Demon King made up an answer on the spot: “You'd been away for so long that the master wondered if the Bull Demon King's magic powers were too much for you and you couldn't get the treasure. So he sent me to meet you.”
“There was no need to worry,” said Monkey. “I've already got it.”
“How did you manage that?” the Bull Demon King asked.
“Old Bull and I fought over a hundred rounds without either of us getting the upper hand till he broke off the fight and went to the bottom of the Green Wave Pool in Ragged Rock Mountain for a banquet with a whole lot of lesser dragons and dragons. I tailed-him there, turned into a crab, stole the water-averting golden-eyed beast, made myself look like him, and went to the Plantain Cave to trick Raksasi, She as good as married me on the spot and I conned it out of her.”
“You had to go to a lot of trouble, brother,” the Bull Demon King replied. “Can I hold the fan?” Not realizing that this Pig was an impostor, or even considering the possibility, the Great Sage Sun handed him the fan.
Now the Bull Demon King knew the secret of making the fan shrink or grow, and as soon as he had the fan in his hands he made a spell with them that nobody could see, shrunk it back to the size of an apricot leaf, and reverted to his true form. “Bloody macaque,” he swore, “do you know who I am now?” As soon as he saw this Monkey regretted making so terrible a mistake.
With a cry of anguish he stamped his feet and yelled, “Aagh! After all these years I've been hunting wild geese a gosling has pecked out my eye!” He was now leaping around in a thunderous fury, and he took a crack at the Bull Demon King's head with his iron cudgel. The demon king then fanned him with the fan, not realizing that the Great Sage had inadvertently swallowed the wind-fixing pill he had in his mouth when he turned himself into a tiny insect to go into Raksasi's stomach. This had made all his entrails, his skin and his bones so solid and firm that no matter how hard the Bull Demon King fanned he could not move him. This alarmed the Bull Demon King, who put the treasure in his mouth and fought back, swinging a sword in each hand. The two of them fought a splendid battle up in mid-air:
The Great Sage Equaling Heaven,
The Bull Demon King of evil,
All for the sake of a plantain-leaf fan.
When they met each showed his powers;
The careless Great Sage got the fan by a trick,
But allowed the Bull King to take it back.
One mercilessly raised the golden cudgel,
The other wielded with skill his blue-tipped swords.
The mighty Great Sage belched out coloured mists
While the evil Bull King breathed brilliant lights.
Well matched in courage,
Both of them wicked,
They gnashed and ground their teeth in terrible wrath.
Heaven and earth were darkened by the dust they kicked up;
Gods and ghosts alike hid from the flying stones.
“How dare you try to turn a trick against me!”
“I'll get you for what my wife promised you!”
Coarse was their language and fierce were their tempers.
“For tricking my wife you deserve to die.”
“When I sue you the sentence will surely be death.”
The cunning Great Sage Equaling Heaven,
The murderous Strongarm Demon King:
Both of them only wanting to fight,
Neither of them willing to pause and discuss.
Equal the effort of swords and of cudgel;
Had either relaxed he'd have gone straight to Hell.
The story now tells not of those two locked in their struggle but of the Tang Priest sitting by the road and finding the heat unbearable. He was also very anxious and thirsty.