Journey to the West (vol. 2) Page 20

  “He hasn't gone yet,” Raksasi replied. “He was here yesterday to borrow the fan, and as he'd destroyed our boy I put my armor on and went out to cut him to bits with my swords. But he endured the pain, called me his sister-in-law, and said that you and he were once sworn brothers.”

  “He was my seventh sworn brother five hundred years ago,” the Great Sage replied.

  “He said not a word when I swore at him,” Raksasi continued, “and didn't strike back when I cut him. Finally I blew him away with the fan. Goodness only knows where he got some wind-fixing magic from, but this morning he was back shouting outside the door again, and the fan wouldn't move him no matter how hard I waved it. When I swung my swords around and went for him with them he wasn't being polite any more. I was so scared of the force of his cudgel I came back in here and had the doors tightly shut. Somehow or other he managed to get right into my belly and it practically killed me. I had to call him brother-in-law and lend him the fan before he'd go.”

  The Great Sage put on a great show of beating his chest and saying, “How terrible, how terrible. You did wrong, wife. You should never have given that treasure to the macaque.”

  “Don't be angry, Your Majesty,” Raksasi replied. “I lent him a false fan and tricked him into going away.”

  “Where's the real one?” the Great Sage asked.

  “Don't worry,” she replied, “don't worry. It's safely put away.” She then told the serving girls to lay on wine and a feast to welcome him back. “Your Majesty,” she then said, offering him a goblet of wine, “please don't forget the wife of your youth in the joy of your new marriage. Won't you drink this cup of wine from home?” The Great Sage had no choice but to accept the goblet and smile as he raised it.

  “You drink first, wife,” he said, “I've left you looking after the home by yourself, good lady, for too long, while I've been busy with my other property. Let this be a gesture of my gratitude.”

  Raksasi took the goblet back, lifted it again, and handed it to the king with the words, “As the old saying goes: The wife is the equal, but the husband is the father who supports her. You don't need to thank me.” It was only after more such politeness that the two of them sat down and began drinking. Not wanting to break his vow to avoid meat, the Great Sage only ate some fruit while he talked to her.

  After they had each had several cups Raksasi was feeling a little drunk and rather sexy. She started to press herself against the Great Sage, stroking and pinching him. Taking him by the hand, she whispered tender words to him; leaning her shoulder against him, she spoke quietly and submissively. They shared the same cup of wine, drinking a mouthful each at a time, and she fed him fruit. The Great Sage pretended to go along with this and smile. He had no choice but to lean against her. Indeed:

  The hook to catch poetry,

  The broom to sweep away sorrow,

  The remover of all difficulties is wine.

  The man, though virtuous, unbuttoned his lapel;

  The woman forgot herself and began to laugh.

  Her face had the complexion of a peach,

  Her body swayed like a willow sapling.

  Many a word came babbling from her mouth

  As she pinched and nipped in her desire.

  Sometimes she tugged at her hair,

  Or waved her delicate fingers.

  She often raised a foot

  And twitched the sleeves of her clothes.

  Her powdered neck sunk lower

  And her fine waist started to wiggle.

  She never stopped talking for a moment

  As she opened gold buttons to half show her breasts.

  In her cups she was like a landslide of jade,

  And as she rubbed her bleary eyes she did not look at her best.

  Watching her get drunk the Great Sage had kept his wits about him, and he tried to lead her on by saying, “Where have you put the real fan, wife? You must watch it very carefully all the time. I'm worried that Sun the Novice will trick it out of you with some of his many transformations.” At this Raksasi tittered, spat it out of her mouth, and handed it to the Great Sage. It was only the size of an apricot leaf.

  “Here's the treasure,” she said.

  The Great Sage took it but could not believe that it really was. “How could a tiny little thing like this blow a fire out?” he wondered. “It must be another fake.”

  Seeing him looking at the treasure so deep in thought, Raksasi could not restrain herself from rubbing her powdered face against Monkey's and saying, “Put the treasure away and have another drink, darling. What are you looking so worried about?”

  The Great Sage took the chance to slip in the question, “How could a little thing like this blow out 250 miles of fire?” She was now drunk enough to have no inhibitions about speaking the truth, so she told him how it was done: “Your Majesty, I expect you've been overdoing your pleasures day and night these last two years since you left me. That Princess Jade must have addled your brains if you can't even remember about your own treasure. You just have to pinch the seventh red silk thread with the thumb of your left hand and say, 'Huixuhexixichuihu.' Then it'll grow twelve feet long. It can do as many changes as you like. It could blow 250,000 miles of flame out with a single wave.”

  The Great Sage committed all this very carefully to memory, put the fan in his mouth, rubbed his face and turned back into himself. “Raksasi!” he yelled at the top of his voice. “Have a careful look: I'm your brother-in-law. What a disgusting way you've been carrying on in with me, and for what a long time too. You're shameless, quite shameless.”

  In her horror at realizing it was Sun Wukong she pushed the dining table over and fell into the dust, overcome with shame and screaming. “I'm so upset I could die, I could die.”

  Not caring whether she was dead or alive, the Great Sage broke free and rushed straight out of the Plantain Cave. He was indeed not lusting after that female beauty, and glad to turn away with a smiling face. He sprang on his auspicious cloud that took him up to the top of the mountain, spat the fan out of his mouth, and tried the magic out. Pinching the seventh red tassel with the thumb of his left hand, he said “Huixuhexixichuihu,” and indeed it grew to be twelve feet long. On close examination he found it quite different from the false one he had borrowed before. It glittered with auspicious light and was surrounded by lucky vapors. Thirty-six threads of red silk formed a trellis pattern inside and out. But Brother Monkey had only asked how to make it grow and had not found out the spell for shrinking it. So he had to shoulder it as he went back by the way he had come.

  When the Bull Demon King's feast with all the spirits at the bottom of the Green Wave Pool ended he went outside to find that the water-averting golden-eyed beast was missing. The ancient dragon king called the spirits together to ask them, “Which of you untied and stole the Bull Demon King's golden-eyed beast?” The spirits all knelt down and replied, “We wouldn't dare steal it. We were all waiting, singing or playing at the banquet. None of us was out here.”

  “I am sure that none of you palace musicians would have dared to take it,” the ancient dragon said. “Have any strangers been here?”

  “A crab spirit was here not long ago during the banquet, and he was a stranger.”

  At this the Bull King suddenly realized what had happened. “Say no more,” he exclaimed. “When you sent your messenger with the invitation this morning there was a Sun Wukong there who'd come to ask to borrow my plantain fan as he couldn't get the Tang Priest he's escorting to fetch the scriptures across the Fiery Mountains. I refused. I was in the middle of a fight with him that neither of us was winning when I shook him off and came straight here to the banquet. That monkey's extremely quick and adaptable. I'm sure that the crab spirit was him here in disguise to do a bit of spying. He's stolen my beast to go and trick the plantain fan out of my wife.” This news made all the spirits shake with fright.

  “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.

  “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.”