“May I ask you,” he said to the local deity, “what that Bull Demon King's powers are like?”
“He has very great magic,” the local god replied, “and his dharma powers are unlimited. He and the Great Sage Sun are well matched.”
“Wukong is a very good traveler,” Sanzang replied. “He can normally go six or seven hundred miles and back in an instant. Why has he been away all day? I'm sure he must be fighting the Bull Demon King.” With that he called for Pig and Friar Sand and asked, “Which of you will go to meet your elder brother? If he is up against an enemy you will have to help him in the fight, get the fan, and come back. I am very impatient to cross these mountains and continue along our way.”
“It's getting late,” Pig replied, “and I'd like to go to meet him. The only thing is that I don't know the way to Mount Thunder Piled.”
“But I do,” the local god said. “Tell the Curtain-lifting General to keep your master company while you and I go there.”
Sanzang was delighted. “I am most grateful to you for going to such trouble,” he said, “and I shall thank you again when you have succeeded.”
Pig then summoned up his spirits, tightened the belt round his black brocade tunic, and took his rake in his hands as he rose up on his cloud with the local god and headed due East. As they were going along they heard great shouts and were buffeted by strong winds. Stopping his cloud for a good look he saw that it was all caused by Monkey and the Bull Demon King fighting.
“Why don't you join in, Marshal Tian Peng?” the local deity asked. “What are you waiting for?”
At that the idiot brandished his rake and said with a great shout, “Brother, I'm coming.”
“Idiot,” said Monkey bitterly, “you've ruined things for me.”
“But the master told me to come to meet you,” Pig protested. “He asked the local god to guide me as I don't know the way. That's why I'm a bit late. How can you say I've ruined things for you?”
“I'm not angry with you for being late,” Monkey replied. “It's this damned bull who's a thorough disgrace. I'd got the fan off Raksasi, but he turned himself into your double and came to meet me. I was so pleased to see you that I passed him the fan. He turned back into himself and we've been fighting it out ever since. That's why I said you'd ruined things for me.”
This news put Pig into a flaming temper. Raising his rake he shouted abuse to the Bull Demon King's face: “I'll get you, you pox-ridden bag of blood! I'll get you for pretending to be me, your own ancestor, to trick my brother and stir up trouble between us.”
Watch as he starts lashing out wildly with the rake. The Bull Demon King, who had been fighting Monkey all day, was tiring, and he also realized that he would never be able to withstand the onslaught of Pig's rake, so he fled in defeat. But his way was blocked by a force of spirit soldiers led by the local god of the Fiery Mountains.
“Wait, Strongarm King,” the local deity said. “All the gods and heavens are protecting Tang Sanzang on his journey West to fetch the scriptures. The Three Worlds all know about him, and the Ten Directions are supporting him. Please lend him your plantain fan to blow out the flames so that he can cross the mountains without danger or disaster. Otherwise Heaven will hold you criminally responsible and you're bound to be executed.”
“You haven't looked into the rights and wrongs of this at all,” King Demon Bull replied. “That damned ape has done one evil thing after another: he's stolen my son, bullied my concubine, and defrauded my wife. I wish I could swallow him whole and turn him into shit to feed to the dogs. I'll never lend him my treasure.”
Before the words were all out of his mouth Pig had caught up with him and was saying abusively, “I'll get you, you poxy bull. The fan or your life!” The Bull Demon King had to turn round to fight Pig off with his swords while the Great Sage Monkey wielded his cudgel to help him. It was a fine fight they had there:
A boar turned spirit,
A bull become monster.
A monkey who had robbed Heaven and found the Way.
Dharma-nature can always overcome what has been created;
Earth must be used to combine with the prime cause.
Pointed and sharp were the nine teeth of the rake;
Flexible and keen were the two sword blades.
The movements of the iron cudgel dominated the fray;
The local god formed the cinnabar head.
The three of them struggled to overcome,
Each of them scheming to give play to his powers.
Metal money is best at making the bull draw the plough;
If the boar goes in the oven, wood is finished.
Unless the heart is in it the Way cannot be completed;
To keep the spirit controlled the monkey must be tied up.
Amid wild shouts and desperate pleas
The three types of weapon whistled through the air.
There was no kindness in the blows of rake and sword;
The gold-banded cudgel rose for good reason.
Their fight put out the stars and dimmed the moon;
The sky was filled with a cold, dark dreary fog.
The demon king fought hard and courageously for mastery, falling back all the while. When the dawn came after a whole night of battle there was still no victor, and in front of them now was the entrance to the Cloud-touching Cave on Mount Thunder Piled. The ear-splitting noise that the three of them, the local god and the spirit soldiers were making alarmed Princess Jade, who sent her serving girls to see who was causing the din.
The little demons on the doors came in to report, “It's our master. He's fighting the man with a face like a thunder god, another monk with a long snout and big ears, and the local god of the Fiery Mountains and his men.” The moment Princess Jade heard this she ordered the senior and junior officers of the guard to take their swords and spears and help their lord.
“Good to see you,” said the Bull Demon King with delight, “good to see you.” All the demons rushed wildly into the attack. It was more than Pig could cope with and he fled in defeat, trailing his rake behind him. The Great Sage sprang aloft out of the multiple encirclement on a somersault cloud; the spirit soldiers broke and ran. Old Bull led his host of demons back to the cave in victory and the doors were shut tightly behind them.
“He's tough, damn him,” said Monkey. “He started fighting me at about four yesterday afternoon and we were nowhere near a result when you two came along to help last night. He fought for half a day and a whole night without showing any sign of tiring. And that bunch of little devils who came out just now were a rough lot too. Now he's shut the doors of his cave and won't come out. What are we to do?”
“It was about ten yesterday morning when you left the master, brother,” Pig said, “so why was it four in the afternoon when you started fighting him? What were you doing for the six hours in between?”
“I reached this mountain soon after I left you,” Monkey replied, “and saw a woman. When I questioned her she turned out to be his favorite concubine Princess Jade. I gave her a bit of a fright with my cudgel, so she fled into the cave and sent her Bull Demon King out. He and I swapped a few insults then started fighting. We'd been at it for a couple of hours when someone came to invite him to a banquet. I tailed him to the bottom of the Green Wave Pool on Ragged Rock Mountain and turned into a crab to do a little spying. Then I stole his water-averting golden-eyed beast and changed myself into the Bull Demon King's double to go back to the Plantain Cave on Mount Turquoise Cloud, where I conned Raksasi into giving me the fan. I went outside to try the magic spell out on the fan and made it grow, but I didn't know how to make it shrink again. As I was walking along with it on my shoulder he turned himself into your spitting image and tricked it back off me again. That's how I wasted six hours.”