The goblins were so busy scrapping with each other over who would get to try out the gourd first that they did not notice for some while that Monkey had vanished. “Hey, he said he’d teach us immortality after we’d swapped treasures!” complained Wily Worm.
“Forget it,” said Cunning Devil. “We’ve lucked out with this new treasure of ours. Let’s have a go at bottling Heaven.” He threw it into the air; it immediately fell back down to the ground.
“What’s wrong?” Wily Worm yelped in alarm. “Give it here and I’ll have a go. You forgot the spell.” Up the calabash went and down it came again, before the “incantation” was even out of his mouth. “It’s a fake!” screeched the imps.
Seeing from midair that the game was up, Monkey summoned back the hair that had been the gourd, leaving the two little imps suddenly empty-handed. “Give me back the calabash,” demanded Cunning Devil.
“I thought you had it,” replied Wily Worm. After a bout of frantic, fruitless searching, the two goblins started to panic. “What are we to do?” shrieked Wily Worm. “Our king told us to capture Monkey with those treasures, and now we have neither Monkey nor the treasures. He’ll beat us to death, for sure.”
Then Cunning Devil came up with a plan. “King Silver Horn has a soft spot for you. I’ll put the blame on you and maybe he’ll let both of us off.”
After the imps set off for home, Monkey turned into a fly to follow them. (The treasures, like his staff, shrank with him.) After the imps entered the cave, Monkey perched on the door frame to listen to their confession. “This must be the work of Monkey,” thundered Golden Horn. “Some idiot spirit’s released him and now he’s got our treasures.”
“Calm down, brother,” soothed Silver Horn. “We still have two of the others: the Sword of Seven Stars and the inferno-generating Palm-Leaf Fan. The Golden Rope is in the safekeeping of our beloved mother, in Dragon-Squashing Cave on Squashing-Dragon Mountain. Let’s send another couple of fiends to fetch it and invite Mother to the monk banquet while we’re at it. Out of my sight, you useless lumps!” shouted Silver Horn at Cunning Devil and Wily Worm, who could hardly believe their luck. “Send in some competent goblins instead.” In came imps three and four, Mountain Tiger and Lounging Dragon. “Go and invite our mother to dinner, and ask her to bring the Golden Rope with her. Don’t mess this up.”
Off the two new goblins raced, with Monkey-as-fly buzzing in pursuit. Two or three miles into the journey, Monkey turned himself into another goblin and pretended to be running to catch up with them. “Wait for me!” he called. “Silver Horn sent me to remind you to hurry.” On they ran, until Lounging Dragon pointed out a forest up ahead as their destination. Figuring that he could find his way from here, Monkey held back a little, allowing the two goblins to run ahead, then smashed them both to mincemeat. After scraping them up into some roadside bushes, he turned himself into Lounging Dragon and one of his hairs into Mountain Tiger and soon found his way to a double stone door in the forest.
“Who are you?” asked a female janitor-demon.
“We’ve come from Lotus-Flower Cave. Kings Golden Horn and Silver Horn invite their mother Monstress Dowager to a banquet of an exceptionally succulent monk from the Tang empire. They also ask if she could bring her Golden Rope to capture a troublesome monkey.”
“What filial sons!” exclaimed the mother-fiend as soon as she heard, calling at once for her sedan chair. The party set off immediately: two attendants to carry the monster, plus the two goblins impersonated by Monkey.
After five or so miles, “Lounging Dragon” plucked a hair from his chest and transformed it into an enormous flatbread, then sat down and began to nibble on it. “Can we have some, too?” asked the carriers, pausing for a rest. As they approached, Monkey pounded both into mush. Disturbed by the whimpers of pain, the Monstress Dowager looked out of the sedan and was also pulverized by Monkey, who quickly located and tucked up his sleeve the Golden Rope. Then he transformed himself into the old woman, plucked three more hairs to stand in for the rest of the goblin party, and carried on toward Lotus-Flower Cave.
Soon enough this curious ensemble reached their destination, and Monkey swaggered into the cave, in grandiloquent imitation of the dowager, to a resplendent reception: the cave’s full detail of fiends, drums, and flutes, wisps of perfumed smoke from an enormous urn, and kowtows from Golden Horn and Silver Horn.
Pigsy suddenly giggled.
“What’s so funny?” Sandy asked sourly.
“It’s our mutual friend.”
“Who?”
“Monkey!”
“How d’you know?”
“When he bent over to return the monsters’ greetings, his tail rode up. Being hung up on this high beam certainly gives you perspective.”
Sandy shushed him. “Let’s hear what they’re saying.”
“We have neglected you recently, dearest Mother,” one of the brothers began. “Today we captured an exceptionally virtuous and tender monk, and plan to steam him for your delectation. He’s rich in longevity.”
“I don’t really feel like monk today. What I fancy is a nice bit of pig’s ear. D’you have anything like that?”
“Curse you!” spat Pigsy. “How about I tell them their mother’s grown a tail?”
This outburst unfortunately blew Monkey’s cover. Some patrol goblins also happened to rush in at this moment with more bad news: “Disaster, great king! Monkey has beaten your mother to death and infiltrated the cave in disguise.” Unsheathing his Sword of Seven Stars, one of the kings slashed at the face of Monkey, who transformed himself this time into red light and escaped the cave as ether, which he thoroughly enjoyed. Silver Horn pulled on his armor—a wrought-iron suit, cinched at the waist with a dragon’s tendon—strode out of the cave, and hurled himself into combat with Monkey on the edge of the clouds.
After a while, Monkey tried to settle the fight by lassoing his opponent with the Golden Rope. But here Monkey was out of his depth. Just as the noose settled around Silver Horn’s head, the demon recited a loose-rope spell. The monster then seized hold of one end and, before Monkey could do his body-thinning magic, lassoed him with a tight-rope spell. In an instant Monkey was comprehensively trussed with an inescapable gold ring enclosing him around his neck. The monster also dealt him seven or eight blows to the head with his sword, to which Monkey was entirely indifferent. “All right, you hardheaded ape,” said the demon, “back to the cave where I’ll beat you some more. But first I want my other two treasures back.” After a careful search, Silver Horn took back the gourd and the vase, then used one end of the rope as a leash to lead Monkey back to the cave. He and Golden Horn tied Monkey to a pillar and went back to their drinking.
“Looks like you won’t be nibbling my ears anytime soon!” Pigsy chortled down at Monkey from the beam. But Monkey was already busy with an escape plan. When no one was paying attention, he turned his staff into a steel file, sawed his way out of the neck ring, turned a hair into a specious Monkey still tied to the pillar, and changed himself into a goblin.
“Phony Monkey alert!” Pigsy trilled.
“Pigsy’s just making a fuss,” the Monkey-goblin explained to the kings, “because Monkey’s refusing to use magic to escape.”
“Tricksy devil!” said Silver Horn. “Give him twenty strokes on the snout.”
“Gently now,” warned Pigsy as Monkey approached with a stick, “or I’ll rat you out again.”
“I’m trying to get us all out of this hole,” hissed Monkey. “Why do you keep on giving me away? Anyway, how come you’re the only one in this caveful of fiends who can still recognize me?”
“Your art of seventy-two transformations doesn’t reach as far as your red buttocks. They’re a bit of a giveaway.”
Monkey then shuffled over to the kitchen to rub his bottom against the charcoal burned onto the base of a pot while Pigsy giggled some more.
Monkey now plotted to take back the treasures. “Monkey has frayed that Golden Rope,” the Monkey-goblin informed the kings. “How about I replace it with something thicker?”
“Good idea,” responded the demon, undoing a lion-buckled belt and handing it to the fake goblin. Monkey reattached his phony self to the pillar with the belt, slipped the Golden Rope up his sleeve, and turned another hair into a fake Golden Rope, which he handed back to the demon. Busy guzzling wine, the demon put it away without noticing.
Now in possession of one of the treasures, Monkey sprang out of the cave door and changed back to his true form. “Fiends!” he shouted. “Know that Yeknom is here!”
“Who?” asked a startled Golden Horn.
“Don’t worry,” soothed Silver Horn. “I’ll prepare the calabash so we can bottle up our unexpected visitor if necessary.” Just outside the door, he encountered an ever-so-slightly-shorter replica of Monkey.
“I am the brother of Monkey,” said Monkey. “I’m here to reckon with his captors.”
Silver Horn yawned. “I suppose you want to fight me now. Well, I’m not playing that game. I’ll call your name instead. Will you answer to it?”
“Ten thousand times!”
The demon leaped into the air, holding the calabash upside down, and roared: “Yeknom!”
Monkey now hesitated, knowing the power of the gourd.
“Answer!” cried the fiend.
“My ears are a little blocked today. Speak up, would you?”
“YEKNOM!”
Monkey experienced some inner turmoil: My real name is Monkey; Yeknom is just an alias. If I answer to a false name, will I still be sucked inside? He soon found out. Answering to Yeknom, he was swallowed whole and the calabash was taped up. It turned out that Monkey had been overthinking the matter. The gourd didn’t bother checking your identity: as long as you answered back, it had you.
Inside the gourd it was perfectly dark. Unworried about the calabash’s power over him—forty-nine days in Laozi’s brazier had only made him stronger—Monkey concentrated on following what was going on outside. “All good,” he heard Silver Horn tell Golden Horn. “I’ve got Monkey’s brother inside.”
“Sit down and take your ease, excellent brother.” Golden Horn said jubilantly. “When we can hear monkey-slime sloshing around inside, we’ll take the seal off.”
First, Monkey thought of hoaxing the monsters by urinating inside the gourd to generate a liquid sound effect, but rethought when he considered what a smelly mess it would make of his shirt. I’ll gargle instead, he decided. Bored of waiting for the monsters to remember to shake the gourd, Monkey resorted to some amateur dramatics to accelerate matters: “Oh, goodness! What’s happened to my shins?” No response from the demons. “My pelvis is pus!”
“He must be almost done,” reflected Golden Horn. “Let’s take a look.”
Monkey plucked a hair and transformed it into a half monkey stuck to the bottom of the gourd, while changing his real self into a cicada perched near the rim of the calabash. The instant that Silver Horn lifted the seal, Monkey flew out and instantly transformed again into Lounging Dragon, who had met such a sticky end earlier. Panicked by glimpsing the partially dissolved body inside the gourd, the monster didn’t wait to verify that it was Monkey. “He’s not finished, quickly put the stopper back on.” Back went the seal with Monkey sniggering on the outside.
Golden Horn poured his brother a full cup of wine. “Let me toast your success in capturing Tripitaka, Pigsy, Sandy, Monkey, and Monkey’s brother Yeknom.” Anxious to take the proffered cup respectfully, with two hands, Silver Horn passed the gourd to Lounging Dragon—the disguised Monkey. While the two brothers politely toasted each other, Monkey had time to tuck the treasure up his sleeve and turn another of his hairs into a replica. The toasts complete, Silver Horn took back the gourd without checking it over, while Monkey slipped out of the room.
Returning to his true form outside the cave, Monkey now tried another grand entrance. “Open up, monsters! It’s Nomyek, brother of Monkey and Yeknom!”
“How can that Monkey have so many damn brothers?” asked Golden Horn.
“Relax,” reassured Silver Horn. “This calabash can bottle up a thousand people. I’ll deal with him straightaway.” And out he strode to receive his visitor. “I won’t fight you,” Silver Horn told Nomyek. “But I will call your name. Will you answer to it?”
“Happy to oblige.” Monkey chuckled. “But if I call your name, will you answer to it?”
“I want to call your name,” revealed the disingenuous fiend, “so that my calabash here will swallow you up. Why do you want to call my name?”
“Because I have my own humble calabash,” replied Monkey.
“Let’s see,” said the monster. Monkey waved it in front of Silver Horn, then shook it back up his sleeve, afraid that the monster would grab it. “Extraordinary,” wondered a flustered Silver Horn. “The exact likeness of mine. Where did it come from?”
Having no idea, Monkey threw the question back at his interlocutor: “Where did yours come from?”
Silver Horn earnestly embarked on an exhaustive account of the calabash’s origins: “When primeval chaos divided, heaven and earth were created. The Supreme Primordial Venerable Patriarch died and was reborn as the goddess Nüwa. She smelted stones to mend the heavens to save the world. When she came to the crack at the base of Kunlun Mountain, she found this crimson-gold gourd growing on a tendril of immortal vine and passed it to Laozi for safekeeping.”
“That’s where mine came from, too,” Monkey glibly interpolated. “Let’s try them out—you go first.”
“Nomyek!” the fiend duly cried, leaping into the air. Monkey replied almost a dozen times, but nothing happened. The demon returned to the ground, stamping his feet in vexation.
“Monkey’s . . . I mean . . . Nomyek’s turn,” Monkey now announced. He somersaulted into the air, pointed the mouth of the calabash downward, toward the demon, and shouted, “Great King Silver Horn!” The latter felt honor bound to respond and was promptly swallowed by the gourd, which Monkey then sealed with the designated stopper. “Happy dissolving!” cheered Monkey, and the gourd soon began to make a sloshing sound, suggesting that Silver Horn was already slime, although Monkey was not about to open the gourd rashly to check. “In case you’re pissing or gargling, I’ll leave you in there for another seven days or so—just to make sure.”
Monkey stood at the cave entrance, shaking the bottle loudly. Golden Horn and his little fiends soon worked out who was inside. “Excellent brother!” Golden Horn wailed, collapsing to the ground. “When you and I left Heaven for the mortal world, we planned to live as powerful kings in this mountain cave. And now we are parted forever!” The caveful of goblins sobbed in solidarity.
“Buck up, fiends!” shouted Pigsy from his beam. “That’s the power of Monkey for you. But what’s done is done—your brother’s dead and that’s the end of it. Scrub your pots and cook up some pancakes. Once we’ve eaten, we’ll be delighted to cheer you up with a nice sutra.”
Pigsy’s intervention enraged Golden Horn. “How dare you make fun of me? Goblins, steam this pig till he’s tender. I’ll deal with that Monkey once I’ve filled my stomach.”
Just as Pigsy was getting worried, a gastronomically minded fiend intervened: “He won’t taste good steamed.”
“Thank the Buddha!” chimed Pigsy. “Some sense at last.”
“You need to skin him first,” the goblin continued.
But Golden Horn had already lost patience with this exchange. “Forget about Pigsy. Bring me the Sword of Seven Stars.” He then stormed out of the cave with three hundred fiends to face Monkey, who pulled a handful of hairs from his left armpit, chewed them into pieces, and spat them out. Each fragment became a replica Monkey, punching and biting Golden Horn and the fiends into flight. Monkey then somersaulted back into the abandoned cave, scooped up two of the other treasures—the mutton-jade vase and the Palm-Leaf Fan—and cut his fellow pilgrims down from their various beams. The reunited travelers had a hearty meal of the rice, noodles, and vegetables that they found in the cave and rested overnight.
The following day, Monkey was ordering Sandy to get things ready for their departure when an army of goblins whirled up from the southwest. For Golden Horn had mustered not only his mother’s household of female demons but also the fiendish retinue of a maternal uncle of his. The monsters were no match, though, for the combined forces of Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy. Pigsy dispatched the uncle with his rake, and when the surrounded Golden Horn turned to flee, Monkey produced the jade vase, aimed its mouth at the demon, and cried, “Great King Golden Horn!” Thinking that one of his demon soldiers was calling him, Golden Horn answered and was immediately swallowed by the vase, with the mouth then stoppered shut. The Sword of Seven Stars—the last treasure—clattered to the ground and was collected by Monkey.
The three disciples returned to the cave in time for breakfast. But just as they were preparing to set off for the west, a blind man suddenly appeared and grabbed the reins of the horse. Immediately recognizing his old friend Laozi, the Taoist patriarch, Monkey bowed. Laozi now floated up to a jade throne suspended in the air above them. “I want my treasures back, Monkey.”
Monkey rose level with him. “Which treasures would those be?”
“The calabash I use for storing elixir, the vase for holy water, the Sword of Seven Stars for tempering demons, the Palm-Leaf Fan for stoking my eternal flames, and the Golden Rope—I use the rope to hold my robe together, actually. Golden Horn and Silver Horn are two of my brazier attendants. I’ve been looking all over for them, since they stole my treasures and fled to the mortal world.”
“That was a bit slack, allowing your servants to become demons,” Monkey needled the Taoist founder.
“It was out of my hands,” Laozi explained. “Guanyin kept on pestering me for them, because she needed them to generate some demonic adversity to test your resolve.”
Unbelievable! thought Monkey. She told me she’d come and rescue us if we got into a pickle. And here she is, harassing us with monsters! Damn her to a husbandless eternity! He grudgingly returned the objects to Laozi, who unsealed the gourd and the vase and poured out the divine ether inside. One wave of his finger transformed the ether back into his servants, and the three of them drifted heavenward, haloed by auspicious light.