The Great Sage was gazing at the Eastern Ocean, sighing sadly at being driven away by the Tang Priest. “I haven't been this way for five hundred years,” he said. As he looked at the sea,

 

Vast were the misty waters,

Boundless the mighty waves.

The vast and misty waters stretched to the Milky Way;

The boundless and mighty waves were linked to the earth's arteries.

The tides came surging,

The waters swirled around.

The surging tides

Roared like the thunder in spring;

The swirling waters

Howled like a summer hurricane.

The blessed ancients riding on dragons

Surely must have frowned as they came and went;

Immortal youths flying on cranes

Certainly felt anxious as they passed above.

There were no villages near the coast,

And scarcely a fishing boat beside the sea.

The waves' crests were like immemorial snows;

The wind made autumn in July.

Wild beasts roamed at will,

Shore birds bobbed in the waves.

There was no fisherman in sight,

And the only sound was the screaming of the gulls.

Though the fish were happy at the bottom of the sea,

Anxiety gripped the wild geese overhead.

 

With a spring Monkey leapt over the Eastern Ocean and was soon back at the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. As he brought his cloud down and gazed around him, he saw that all the vegetation on the mountain had gone and the mists had disappeared completely. The peaks had collapsed and the woods were shriveled and dead. Do you know why? It was because when Monkey was taken to the upper world after wrecking the Heavenly Palace, the god Erlang and the Seven Brothers of Meishan had burnt it all down. This made the Great Sage even more miserable than ever. There is a poem in the ancient style about the ruined landscape of the mountain:

 

I came back to the immortal mountain in tears;

On seeing it, my sorrow is doubled.

I used to think that it was safe from harm,

But now I know that it has been destroyed.

 

If only Erlang had not defeated me;

Curse you for bullying me like that.

I shall dig up the graves of your ancestors,

And not stop at destroying their tombs.

 

Gone, gone, the mists that filled the sky;

Scattered the winds and clouds that covered the earth.

On the Eastern ridge the tiger's roar is silent.

The ape's howl no more on the Western mountain.

 

No sign of hare or fox in the Northern valley;

No shadow of a deer in the Southern ravine.

The blue rock was burnt to a thousand cinders,

The jade-green sands are now just mud.

 

The lofty pines outside the cave all lean askew;

Few are the cypresses before the cliff.

Cedar, fir, locust, chestnut, juniper, and sandalwood—all are burnt.

Peach, apricot, plum, pear, and jujube—gone every one.

 

How are the silkworms to be fed without oak and mulberry?

The birds cannot nest with no willow or bamboo.

The crags and boulders have been turned to dust,

The springs have dried up, and weeds grow in the stream-beds.

 

The earth is black in front of the cliff, and no orchids grow.

Creepers crawl in the brown mud by the path.

Where did the birds of yesterday fly?

To what other mountain did the animals go?

 

Leopards and pythons dislike this ruined spot;

Cranes and snakes avoid the desolation.

My criminal thoughts of those days past

Brought on the disaster of today.

 

The Great Sage, deep in gloom, heard a sound from a thorny hollow in front of a grassy slope as seven or eight little monkeys leapt out, rushed up to him, and surrounded him kowtowing. “Great Sage,” they shouted, “have you come home today?”

“Why aren't you playing?” the Handsome Monkey King asked them. “Why were you all hiding? I was here for ages without seeing a sign of you. Why?”

Tears poured from the eyes of the other monkeys as they told him, “Ever since you were taken up to Heaven as a prisoner, Great Sage, the hunters have given us a terrible time. What with their powerful bows and crossbows, their brown falcons and evil hounds, their nets, loops, hooks, and spears, we are all too afraid for our lives to come out and play. We have to hide deep in our caves and keep away from our usual dens. When we're hungry we filch some grass from the hillside, and we drink the fresh spring water from the stream. We've only just heard you, Great Sage, Your Majesty, and come out to greet you. Please, please help us.”

The Great Sage felt more depressed than ever on hearing this, and he went on to ask, “How many of you are there left on this mountain?”

“Only about a thousand of all ages.”

“In the old days,” said the Great Sage, “I had forty-seven thousand fiends. Where have they all gone now?”

“After you went away the god Erlang set fire to the mountain and most of us were killed in the blaze. Some of us squatted at the bottom of wells, or hid in gullies, or took cover under the iron bridge, and escaped with our lives. When the fire burnt itself out and the smoke cleared we came out to find that there were no more plants or fruit to feed us, making life almost impossible, so half of the survivors went away. The rest of us have been having a very lean time on this mountain, and half of those left have been caught by hunters in the past two years.”

“What do they do that for?” Monkey asked.

“We hate the very name 'hunters,'“ the other monkeys replied. “They shoot us with arrows, spear us, poison us, and beat us to death. They take us away to skin us and cut the flesh from our bones before boiling us in soy sauce, steaming us with vinegar, frying us in oil, or stir-cooking us with salt. Then they eat us to help their rice down. Those of us who are caught in nets or loops are taken away alive and made to dance in a ring, act, do somersaults, jump around, play drums and gongs in the street, and make fools of themselves in every possible way.”

“Who's in charge in the cave?” asked Monkey, now thoroughly angry.

“Marshals Ma and Liu and Generals Ben and Ba,” they replied, “are still in command.”

“Then tell them that I'm here,” said Monkey.

The junior fiends rushed in to report, “His Majesty the Great Sage has come home.” As soon as they heard this Ma, Liu, Ben and Ba rushed out to kowtow and welcome him into the cave.

The Great Sage sat in the middle of it, with his fiendish hosts prostrating themselves before him and asking, “Why have you come back to your mountain instead of going to the West, Your Majesty? We heard recently that you had come back to life and were escorting the Tang Priest to fetch scriptures from the Western Heaven.”

“What you don't know, my little ones,” said Monkey, “is that Sanzang can't tell a good man when he sees one. I captured monsters and demons for him all along the way, and I used every one of my magical powers to kill evil spirits for him. But he called me a murderer and wouldn't have me as his disciple any longer. He sent me back here and gave me a letter of dismissal to certify that he'll never employ me again.”

All the monkeys clapped their hands for joy. “What luck,” they said, “what luck. Now you're home again after being some kind of monk or other, you can be our leader for the next few years.”

“Lay on some coconut toddy at once to welcome His Majesty back,” someone ordered.

“No,” said the Great Sage, “don't let's drink. How often do the hunters come to our mountain?”

“Great Sage,” replied Marshals Ma and Liu, “they come here in all seasons and harass us for days on end.”

“Then why haven't they come today?” Monkey asked.

“They'll be here soon enough,” replied the marshals.

“Little ones,” Monkey ordered, “you are all to go out, gather those broken cinders that were burnt brittle in the fire, and pile them up. I want twenty to thirty or fifty to sixty in a pile. I have a use for them.” Like a swarm of bees the little monkeys rushed around making piles all over the place. When Monkey saw them he said, “Go and hide in the cave, little ones, while I do some magic.”

When the Great Sage went up to the mountain peak to look around he saw over a thousand men with horses approaching from the South. They were beating drums and gongs, and they all had falcons, hounds, swords or spears. Examining them closely the Monkey King saw that they were most menacing—fine lads and brave ones:

 

With fox skins over their shoulders,

And brocade covering their chests.

Their quivers were full of wolf-fanged arrows,

And carved bows hung by their legs.

 

The men were like tigers that comb the hills,

The horses like ravine-leaping dragons.

They came in hordes, leading their hounds,

And their arms were packed with falcons.

 

In thornwood baskets they carried muskets,

And powerful eagles were fastened to their belts.

They had sticky poles by the hundred

And hare forks by the thousand.

 

Bull-headed fiends blocked the paths with nets,

Demon kings were handling knotted ropes.

As they all roared their ferocious cries

They swarmed over the hill like the stars in the sky.

 

The Great Sage was furious at the sight of them spreading all over his mountain. He made a spell with his fist, muttered the words that went with it, breathed in a mouthful of air from the quarter that the winds came from, and puffed it out again. It was now a hurricane, a splendid hurricane,

 

Picking up the dust and earth,

Blowing down trees and whole forests.

Waves reared up as high as mountains,

As they beat in thousands upon the shore.

Heaven and Earth were thrown into gloom,

Sun and moon cast into darkness.

One gust shook the pines with a tiger's roar,

Howling like a dragon as it rushed through the bamboos.

Heaven belched angrily through all its orifices,

As flying dirt and stones brought injury and death.

 

The hurricane that the Great Sage had called up made the piles of broken stone whirl wildly around, and the thousand men with their horses were reduced to a pathetic state.

 

The aconite was smashed to pieces by the stones,

While the flying dirt injured all the sea horses.

Ginseng and cassia were in panic by the ridge,

And blood stained the cinnabar ground.

The aconite was stranded away from home,

The betel-nut could not return to its own town.

Corpses lay scattered like powder on the mountainside

Leaving the red lady waiting anxiously at home.

 

As another poem says,

 

With men and horses all dead, they could not go back—

Ghosts and lonely spirits in terrible confusion.

Alas that the martial and heroic generals

Should bleed in the sand for trusting fools.

 

Bringing his cloud down, the Great Sage clapped his hands and laughed aloud. “What luck,” he said, “what luck. Ever since I submitted to the Tang Priest and became a monk, he was always telling me 'if you do good for a thousand days you still won't have done enough, but if you do ill for one day that will be too much.' How true it was. I killed a few evil spirits when I was with him and he regarded me as a murderer; and now I've come home I've wiped out all these hunters.”

“Come out, little ones,” he shouted, and now that the hurricane was over and the Great Sage had called them, the monkeys came bounding out one after the other. “Go and strip the clothes off the dead hunters at the foot of the Southern mountain,” he said, “bring them back here, and wash the bloodstains out. Then you can wear them to keep warm. Push all the corpses into the pool that's ten thousand fathoms deep, and when you've dragged all the dead horses here, strip off their hides to make into boots, and pickle their flesh—it'll feed us for a long time. I'll give you all those bows, arrows, spears and swords for you to practice your military skills with. And bring me back all those many coloured flags and banners for us to use.” The monkeys all accepted his orders.

The Great Sage had the banners unstitched and washed, then put them all together as one multicolored banner which bore the legend, Great Sage Equaling Heaven, Restorer of the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, Recreator of the Water Curtain Cave. They hung the banner from a pole outside the cave, and for days on end he invited demons and held gatherings of the wild beasts. He accumulated provisions, and the word “monk” was never mentioned. As he was so generous and his powers so great he was able to go and borrow some sweet magic waters from the dragon kings of the four seas with which to bathe the mountain and make it green again. In front of it he planted elms and willows, and behind it pines and cedars; he also put in peaches, greengages, jujubes, and plums. Thus he led a happy and carefree life.

 

Let us return to the Tang Priest, who had trusted the word of crafty Nature and dismissed the Mind Ape. He climbed into his saddle, and with Pig leading the way and Friar Sand carrying the luggage they carried on Westwards. After crossing the White Tiger Ridge they saw a range of forested hills of which it could truthfully be said that creepers climbed and twisted among the bluish cypresses and green pines.

“Disciples,” said Sanzang, “this rough mountain path is very hard going, and we must be careful in the dense pine forests ahead as I'm afraid there may be evil spirits and monsters.” At this the idiot Pig summoned up his spirits and, telling Friar Sand to guide the horse, cleared a path with his rake along which he led the Tang Priest into the forest. As they were going along, the venerable Sanzang reined in his horse and said to Pig, “I'm really starving today. Is there anywhere you could find some food for me?”

“Please dismount, master,” Pig replied, “and wait here while I go and find some.” Sanzang dismounted, while Friar Sand put down his load, took out his begging bowl, and handed it to Pig. “I'm off,” said Pig, and when asked by Sanzang where he was going he replied, “Don't let that bother you. I'll beg you some food even if it's like cutting through ice to get fire, or even if it means squeezing oil out of snow.”

He traveled West about four miles from the pine forest without meeting anybody. It was indeed a lonely place inhabited only by wolves and tigers. The idiot found the going heavy, and he muttered to himself, “When Monkey was with us the old priest could have anything he wanted, but now I have to do it all. How true it is that 'you have to keep house to realize how expensive rice and firewood are, and raise sons to understand parental love'. There's nowhere at all to beg on this road.” By now he felt sleepy after all this walking and he thought, “If I go back now and tell the old monk that there's nowhere I can beg food, he may not believe I've come this far. I'd better hang around here for another hour or two before reporting back. Oh well, I may as well take a snooze in that grass.” With that the idiot pillowed his head in the grass and went to sleep. He had only meant to take forty winks and then get up again, not realizing that he was so exhausted by the journey that he would be sound asleep as soon as his head was down.

 

Let us leave Pig asleep there and return to Sanzang in the forest. As he was feeling anxious and unsettled he said to Friar Sand, “It's late now. Why isn't Pig back from begging for food?”

“Master,” said Friar Sand, “you still don't understand him. He's found out that many of these Westerners give food to monks, and with his big belly he won't be bothering about you. He won't be back till he's eaten his fill.”

“True,” said Sanzang. “If he's greedily stuffing himself somewhere far away we needn't concern ourselves with him. It's getting late and this is no place to spend the night. We must find somewhere to stay.”

“There's no rush, master,” said Friar Sand. “You sit and wait here while I go and find him.”

“Very well,” said Sanzang, “very well. Never mind about the food. It's somewhere for the night that matters.” Clasping his precious staff, Friar Sand went off through the pine forest in search of Pig.

Sanzang felt thoroughly tired and miserable as he sat alone in the forest, so he summoned up his spirits, leapt to his feet, hid all the luggage in a cache, tethered the horse to a tree, took off his reed hat, and drove his staff into the ground. Then he straightened out his black robes and took a leisurely stroll among the trees to cheer himself up. As he looked at all the wild flowers he did not hear the calls of the birds returning to their nests. The grass was deep and the forest paths were narrow, and in his distraction he lost his way. He had started out to cheer himself up and also to find Pig and Friar Sand; what he did not realize was that they had headed due West while he, after wandering in all directions, was going South. He came out of the forest and looked up to see a dazzling golden light. On closer examination he saw that it was the golden roof of a pagoda whose gleaming in the setting sun. “What a sad destiny my disciples have,” he thought. “When I left the land of the East, I vowed that I would burn incense in every temple I passed, would worship every Buddha statue I saw, and sweep up every pagoda I encountered. Isn't that a golden pagoda gleaming over there? Why didn't we go that way? There's bound to be a monastery at the foot of the pagoda, and the monastery must surely contain monks. Let me have a look. The luggage and the white horse can come to no harm in that uninhabited spot. If there is some suitable place we can all spend the night here when my disciples come back.”

Alas! The venerable Sanzang was once more the victim of delusion. He strode over to the pagoda, and what he saw was

 

A cliff ten thousand fathoms high,

A lofty mountain reaching to the firmament.

Its roots sunk deep into the earth,

Its peak thrust up into the sky.

On either side were trees by the thousand,

While creepers stretched many miles around.

The wind made shadows as it bent the tips of the flowers;

The moon had no root where the waters flowed under the clouds.

A fallen tree spanned a deep ravine,

Withered creepers were knotted round the gleaming peak.

Under the stone bridge,

Ran the water from a spring;

On the sacred altar

The ever-burning lamp was as bright as chalk.

From a distance it looked like the Three Islands of Paradise;

Close to, it resembled the blessed land of Penglai.

Fragrant pine and purple bamboo grew round the mountain brooks,

Magpies, monkeys, crows, and apes roamed the lofty ridge.

Outside the door of a cave

Animals came and went in orderly groups.

Among the trees

Flocks of birds were briefly seen.

Luxuriant grew the green and scented herbs,

As the wild flowers bloomed in all their glory.

This was clearly an evil place

That the deluded priest approached,

 

Sanzang stepped out and was soon at the gate of the pagoda. Seeing a curtain of speckled bamboo hanging inside, he lifted it up and went in. He raised his head and saw an evil monster sleeping on a stone bed. Do you know what he looked like?

 

A dark blue face,

White fangs,

A huge gaping mouth.

On either side of it were matted hairs

All stained with fat and grease.

The purple tufts of his beard and moustache

Made one think of splayed-out lichee shoots.

His nose was as hooked as a parrot's beak

His eyes as dim as stars in the dawn.

His two fists

Were the size of a monk's begging bowl;

His indigo-blue feet

Were like a pair of logs.

The pale yellow robe that was flung across him

Was grander than a brocade cassock.

The sword in his hand

Gleamed and flashed;

The rock on which he slept

Was exquisite, smooth and flawless.

As a little fiend he had marshaled ant formations,

When a senior demon he had sat in the wasps' headquarters.

At the sight of his awe-inspiring might

All would shout out,

Calling him master.

He had created three men drinking in the moonlight,

And had magicked out of the wind cups of refreshing tea.

Consider his tremendous supernatural powers—

In the wink of an eyelid

He could be at the ends of the earth.

In wild forests he could sing like a bird;

Deep in the bush he would stay with snakes and tigers.

When an Immortal farms the land it bears white jade;

When a Taoist master tends the fire he produces elixir.

Although this little cave-mouth

Did not lead to the Avichi Hell,

Yet this ferocious monster

Was a bull-headed demon.

 

Sanzang was so terrified at the sight of him that he shrank back, his whole body numb with terror. No sooner had he turned to go than the monster, whose powers really were tremendous, opened a fiendish eye with a golden pupil and shouted, “Who is that outside the door, little ones?”

A junior devil poked his head out to look, saw a shaven-headed priest, and ran in to report, “A monk, Your Majesty. He has a large face and a round head, and his ears hang down to his shoulders. His flesh looks most tender and his skin extremely delicate. He's a very promising monk.”

The monster cackled and said, “This is what they call 'a fly landing on a snake's head, or food and clothing presenting themselves to you'. Go and catch him for me, lads, and bring him back here. I'll reward you well.” The junior demons rushed out after Sanzang like a swarm of bees; and Sanzang, in his alarm, started to run so fast he seemed to fly. But he was so terrified that his legs were soon like numb jelly, and on top of this the path was very uneven and it was twilight in the deep forest. He could not move fast enough, and the junior demons picked him up and carried him back.

 

A dragon in shallows falls victim to shrimps;

A tiger on the plain can be put upon by dogs.

Although good deeds always run into trouble,

The Tang Priest on his Westward journey has been most unlucky.

 

The junior devils carried the Tang Priest as far as the bamboo curtain and put him down outside it as they announced with great delight, “We've brought the monk back, Your Majesty.” The old demon stole a look and saw that Sanzang, who was holding his head high with dignity, must be a fine monk.

“So fine a monk,” he thought, “must be a superior person, so I mustn't treat him as a nobody. If I don't overawe him he won't submit to me.” Like a fox pretending to be as awe-inspiring as a tiger, he made his red whiskers bristle, his bloody hair stand on end, and his eyeballs bulge in a glare. “Bring that monk in,” he roared.

“Yes sir,” the other fiends shouted in chorus, pushing Sanzang inside. As the saying goes, “You have to bow your head under low eaves,” and Sanzang was obliged to put his hands together and greet him.

“Where do you live, monk?” the monster asked. “Where have you come from, and where are you going? Tell me at once.”

“I am a priest from the Tang country, and I am going to the West on the command of His Majesty the Tang Emperor to ask for holy scriptures. As I was passing your distinguished mountain, I came over to visit the holy men of this pagoda. I did not realize that I would disturb Your Excellency, and I beg you to forgive me. When I return East with the scriptures from the West I shall see to it that your fame will be eternally celebrated.”

“I thought you must be someone from a superior country,” said the fiend, bellowing with laughter, “and as that's who you are, I'm going to eat you up. It was splendid of you to come, splendid—otherwise we might have let you slip. You were fated to be the food in my mouth, so of course you came rushing here. We'll never let you go; and you'll never escape.” Then he ordered the junior demons to tie him up. They rushed upon him and bound him tight to a soul-fixing stake.

Holding his sword in his hands, the old fiend asked, “How many of you are there altogether? You wouldn't have the guts to go to the Western Heaven all by yourself.” Eyeing the sword in his hand, Sanzang had to answer truthfully.

“I have two disciples, Your Majesty,” he said, “called Pig and Friar Sand. They have both gone begging for food outside the pine forest. Apart from them there is a load of baggage and a white horse that I left in the wood.”

“More luck!” said the fiend. “Two disciples as well makes three of you, four counting the horse, which is enough for a meal.”

“We'll go and get 'em,” the junior fiends said.

“No,” the old monster said, “don't go. Lock the front gate. As they've gone begging for food they'll have to find their master for him to eat it, and when they can't find him they're bound to come searching for him here. As the saying goes, 'it's easiest to do business at home.' Just wait and we'll catch them all in good time.” The junior demons shut the front gate.

We will leave the unlucky Sanzang and return to Friar Sand, who was now three or four miles outside the forest in his search for Pig but had not yet seen any village. As he stood on a hillock looking around him, he heard a voice in the undergrowth; and sweeping the tall grass aside with his staff, he discovered the idiot talking in his sleep. Pig woke up when Friar Sand twisted his ear. “You idiot,” said Friar Sand, “who said you could sleep here instead of begging for food as our master told you?”

Pig, waking up with a start, asked, “What's the time, brother?”

“Get up at once,” replied Friar Sand. “The master told us two to find somewhere to stay whether we can beg any food or not.”

Holding his begging bowl and his rake, the drowsy Pig headed straight back with Friar Sand, and when they looked for their master in the wood they could not see him. “It's all because you didn't come back from begging for food, you idiot,” said Friar Sand indignantly. “Master must have been carried off by an evil spirit.”

“Don't talk nonsense, brother,” replied a grinning Pig. “This forest is a very proper sort of place and couldn't possibly have any evil spirits in it. I expect the old monk got bored sitting here and went off somewhere to look around. Let's go and find him.” They took the horse's bridle, picked up the shoulder-pole with the luggage, collected Sanzang's hat and staff, and left the pine wood in search of their master.

But Sanzang was not fated to die this time. When the two had been looking for him without success for a while, they saw a shimmering golden light due South of them. “Blessed indeed are the blessed, brother;” said Pig. “Look where the master must be staying. That light is coming from a pagoda, and they would be bound to look after him well. I expect they've laid on a meal and are making him stay to eat it. Let's get a move on and have some of it ourselves.”

“It certainly can't be anything sinister,” replied Friar Sand. “We must go and have a look.”

As the pair of them arrived at the gates they found them closed. Above the gates they saw a horizontal tablet of white jade on which were carved the words MOON WATERS CAVE, BOWL MOUNTAIN.

“Brother,” said Friar Sand, “this is no temple. It's an evil spirit's cave. If our master is in there we'll never see him.”

“Never fear,” replied Pig. “Tether the horse and mind the luggage while I ask for news of him.” With that the idiot raised his rake and shouted at the top of his voice. “Open up, open up.” The junior devil who was on gate duty opened the gates, and at the sight of the pair of them he rushed inside to report, “Your Majesty, we're in business.”

“What sort of business?” the old monster asked.

“There are two monks outside the gates,” the junior demon replied. “One has a long snout and big ears and the other looks down on his luck, and they are shouting at us to open up.”

“That means Pig and Friar Sand have come looking for him,” said the old monster. “Ha! They were bound to. What brought them here? They look stupid, but I'd better treat them with respect.” He called for his armor to be put on him, and when the junior demons had brought it and fastened it on, he took his sword in his hand and marched straight out of the cave.

When Pig and Friar Sand, who were waiting outside, saw the ferocious demon come out this is what he looked like:

 

A blue face, a red beard, and scarlet hair blowing free;

Golden armor dazzling bright.

Around his waist was a belt of cowries,

And his armor was strapped to his chest with cloud-walking cords.

As he stood before the mountain the wind roared;

Mighty were the waves when he roamed across the seas.

A pair of indigo, muscled hands

Held a soul-chasing, life-snatching sword.

If you want to know this creature's name,

Address him as Yellow Robe.

 

As the old monster Yellow Robe came out through the gates he asked, “Where are you monks from, and why are you yelling at my gates?”

“Don't you recognize me, son?” said Pig. “I'm your father. I've been sent by the Great Tang on a mission to the Western Heaven. My master is Sanzang, the Emperor's younger brother. If he's here, send him out at once and save me the trouble of having to smash my way in with this rake.”

“Yes indeed,” laughed the monster, “there is a Tang Priest in my place. I haven't showed him any discourtesy, and I've laid on a meal of human flesh dumplings for him. Why don't you two come in and have some?”

The idiot would have gone in quite trustingly if Friar Sand had not held him back and said, “He's luring you in, brother. Besides, when have you ever eaten human flesh?” The idiot saw the light as last, and he struck at the evil monster's face with his rake. The monster sidestepped and parried with his steel sword. They both showed their magic powers as they leapt up on clouds to continue the fight in mid-air. Friar Sand abandoned the baggage and the white horse and rushed to Pig's aid. It was a fine battle up in the clouds between the two wolfish monks and the evil monster:

 

When the staff was raised it was met by the sword;

The same sword parried the rake's blow.

One devil general displaying his prowess,

A pair of monkish gods revealing their transformations.

The nine-pronged rake was quite magnificent;

The demon-submitting staff was truly terrifying.

They came from before and behind, from left and right,

But Yellow Robe was calm and unafraid.

See how his blade of tempered steel shines like silver;

Great indeed were his magical powers.

Their fighting filled the sky

With mists and clouds;

Amid the mountains

Cliffs crashed and fell.

One was fighting for fame

So how could he stop?

The others, fighting for their master,

Were completely unafraid.

 

The three of them fought dozens of rounds in mid-air without issue. They were all fighting for their very lives, and nothing could have kept them apart.

If you don't know how they saved the Tang Priest, listen to the explanation in the next installment.