“We once sent some of the horsemen and infantry of our night scouts to find out what was happening,” the king replied. “The return journey took them over fifty days. It's over a thousand miles away to the South.”
“Pig, Friar Sand,” said Monkey on learning this, “stay on guard here. I'm off.”
“Wait another day, holy monk,” said the king, grabbing hold of him. “Don't go till we have had some dried provisions prepared for you. We'll give you silver for the journey and a fast horse too.”
“You're talking as if I'd have to go slogging up mountains and over ridges, Your Majesty,” Monkey replied. “I tell you truthfully that I can do the return journey of a thousand miles each way before a cup of wine you've poured out has had time to get cold.”
“Holy monk,” the king replied, “I hope you won't take offence at our saying this, but your distinguished features are very much like those of an ape. How can you have such magical powers of travel?” To this Monkey replied:
“Although my body is the body of an ape,
When young I mastered the paths of life and death.
1 visited all the great teachers who taught me their Way
And trained myself by night and day beside the mountain.
I took heaven as my roof and the earth as my furnace
And used both kinds of drug to complete the sun and moon,
Taking from positive and negative, joining fire and water,
Until suddenly I-was aware of the Mystic Pass.
1 relied entirely on the Dipper for success in my movements,
Shifting my steps by relying on the handle of that constellation.
When the time is right I lower or increase the heat,
Taking out lead and adding mercury, watching them both.
By grouping the Five Elements transformations are made;
Through combining the Four Forms the seasons can be distinguished.
The two vital forces returned to the zodiac;
The three teachings met on the golden elixir road.
When understanding of the laws came to the four limbs
The original somersault was given divine assistance.
With a single bound I could cross the Taihang mountains;
At one go I could fly across the Cloud-touching Ford.
A thousand steep ridges are no bother to me,
Nor hundreds of rivers as great as the Yangtse.
Because my transformations are impossible to stop
I can cover sixty thousand miles in a single leap.
The king was both alarmed and delighted to hear this. He presented a cup of royal wine to Monkey with a chuckle and the words, “Holy monk, you have a long and tiring journey ahead of you. Won't you drink this wine to help you on your way?”
All the Great Sage had on his mind was going off to defeat the demon, he was not at all interested in drinking. “Put it down,” he said. “I'll drink it when I come back.” No sooner had the splendid Monkey said this than he disappeared with a whoosh. We will not describe the amazement of the king and his subjects.
Instead we tell how with a single leap Monkey was soon in sight of a tall mountain locked in mists. He brought his cloud down till he was standing on the summit. When he looked around he saw that it was a fine mountain:
Soaring to the heavens, occupying the earth,
Blocking out the sun and making clouds.
Where it soared to the heavens
The towering peak rose high;
In the earth it occupied
Its ranges spread afar.
What blocked the sun
Was the ridge dark with pines;
Where clouds were made
Was among the boulders glistening underneath the scar.
The dark pines
Were green throughout all seasons;
The glistening boulders
Would never change in many a thousand years.
Apes could often be heard howling in the night,
And evil pythons would often cross the deep ravines.
On the mountains birds sang sweetly
While the wild beasts roared.
Mountain roebuck and deer
Moved around in many a pair.
Mountain magpies and crows
Flew in dense flocks.
There was no end of mountain flowers in sight,
While mountain peaches and other fruit gleamed in season.
Steep it was, and the going impossible,
But this was still a place where evil immortals could live in retirement.
The Great Sage gazed with unbounded delight and was just about to look for the entrance to the cave when flames leapt out from a mountain hollow. In an instant the red fire blazed to the heavens, and from the flames there poured out evil smoke that was even more terrible than the fire. What splendid smoke! This is what could be seen:
The fire glared with a myriad golden lamps;
The flames leapt in a thousand crimson rainbows.
The smoke was not a stove chimney's smoke,
Nor the smoke of grass or wood,
But smoke of many colours,
Blue, red, white, black and yellow.
It blackened the columns outside the Southern Gate of Heaven,
Scorched the roofbeams in the Hall of Miraculous Mist.
It burned so hard that
Wild beasts in their dens were cooked through, skins and all,
And the forest birds lost all their plumage.
At the mere sight of this appalling smoke he wondered
How the demon king could be captured in the mountain.
Just as the Great Sage was transfixed with terror a sandstorm burst out of the mountain. What magnificent sand! It blotted out the sun and the sky. Look:
Swirling masses of it filled the sky,
Dark and turbid as it covered the earth.
The fine grains blinded the people everywhere,
While bigger cinders filled the valleys like rolling sesame seeds.
Immortal boys collecting herbs lost their companions;
Woodmen gathering firewood could not find their way home.
Even if you were holding a bright-shining pearl
It still would have blown too hard for you to see.
Monkey had been so absorbed in enjoying the view that he did not notice the sand and cinders flying into his nose till it started tickling. Giving two great sneezes he stretched his hand out behind him, felt for two pebbles at the foot of a cliff and blocked his nostrils with them, then shook himself and turned into a fire-grabbing sparrowhawk that flew straight in among the flames and smoke, made a few swoops, and at once stopped the sand and cinders and put out the fires. He quickly turned back into himself, landed, and looked around again. This time he heard a banging and a clanging like a copper gong.
“I've come the wrong way,” he said to himself. “This is no den of demons. The gong sounds like an official messenger's gong. This must be the main road to some country, and that I must be an official messenger on his way to deliver some document. I'll go and question him.”
As Monkey went along what looked like a young demon appeared. He was holding a yellow flag, carrying a document on his back and beating a gong as he hurried along so fast he was almost flying. “So this is the so-and-so who was beating that gong,” Monkey said. “I wonder what document he's delivering. I'll ask him.”
The splendid Great Sage shook himself and turned into a grasshopper that lightly flew over and alighted on his document bag. Here Monkey could hear the evil spirit talking garrulously to himself as he beat the gong. “Our king is thoroughly vicious. Three years ago he took the Golden Queen from the Kingdom of Purpuria, but fate's been against him and he hasn't been able to get his hands on her. The poor palace ladies he took had to suffer on her behalf. He killed two of them who came, then the next four. He demanded them the year before last, last year and earlier this year. When he sent for two more this time he found his match. The vanguard warrior who went to demand the palace ladies was beaten by someone called Sun the Novice or whatever. He didn't get his palace girls. It made our king so angry he wants to wage a war on Purpuria. He's sent me with this declaration of war. Their king will be all right if he doesn't fight, but if he does fight it'll be a disaster for him. When our king uses his fire, smoke and sandstorms their king, ministers and common people will all die. Then we'll take over their city. Our king will be its monarch and we'll be his subjects. But even though we'll get official posts it goes against Heaven.”