Free The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 2 by Unknown

and to receive him inside the cave. The Great Sage took a seat in the middle as the various fiends all lined up before him to pay homage. “Father Great Sage,” they said, “we heard recently that you had regained your life so that you could protect the Tang Monk on his journey to the Western Heaven to acquire scriptures. Why are you not heading toward the West? Why do you come back to this mountain?”
    “Little ones,” said the Great Sage, “you have no idea that the Tang Monk is wholly ignorant of who is worthy and who is foolish. For his sake, I caught fiends and overcame demons throughout the journey, using all my abilities. Several times I slew a monster, but, accusing me of doing evil and violence, he disowned me as his disciple and banished me back here. He even wrote me a formal letter of banishment as proof that he would never want to use me again.”
    Clapping their hands and roaring with laughter, the monkeys said, “Lucky! Lucky! What do you want to be a monk for? Come home and you can lead us to have a few years’ fun. Quick! Let’s bring out the coconut wine for the reception of Father.” “Let’s not drink wine just yet,” said the Great Sage. “Let me ask you, how often do those hunters come to our mountain?” “Great Sage,” said Ma and Liu, “there’s no telling of time. They are here every day to make trouble.” The Great Sage asked, “Why aren’t they here today?” Ma and Liu replied, “Just wait and you’ll see them come.”
    The Great Sage gave this order: “Little ones, go up to the mountain and bring me the rocks that have been burned to small pieces. Pile them up around here in piles of thirty or sixty pieces. I have use for them.” Those little monkeys were like a cloud of bees; they swarmed all over the mountain and brought back the rock pieces and piled them together. When the Great Sage saw that, he said, “Little ones, go hide in the cave. Let old Monkey exercise his magic.” Our Great Sage went straight up to the peak to look around, and he saw over a thousand men and horses approaching from the southern half of the mountain. Beating drums and striking gongs, they were holding spears and swords, leading hawks and hounds. When the Monkey King stared carefully at them, they appeared to be most ferocious indeed. Dear men! Truly fierce! He saw
        
Fox skins covered their heads and backs;
        
Silk brocades wrapped around their torsos;
        
Quivers full of wolf-teeth arrows;
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And carved bows hung on their thighs.
        
The men seemed mountain-prowling tigers;
        
The horses, like brook-leaping dragons.
        
The whole group of men led their hounds,
        
As hawks perched on all their shoulders.
        
They hauled fire cannons
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in baskets.
        
They had also eagles most fierce,
        
And hundreds of poles with birdlimes,
        
And thousands of forks to catch rabbits;
        
Dragnets like those used by bullheads,
        
And lassos tossed by King Yama.
        
They yelled and shrieked altogether,
        
Causing confusion far and near.
    When the Great Sage saw those men swarming up his mountain, he became terribly angry. Making the magic sign with his fingers and reciting a spell, he drew in a breath facing the southwest and blew it out. At once a violent wind arose. Marvelous wind!
        
It threw up dust and scattered dirt;
        
It toppled trees and cut down forests.
        
The ocean waves rose like mountains;
        
They crashed fold upon fold on the shore.
        
The cosmos grew dim and darkened;
        
The sun and the moon lost their light.
        
The pine trees, once shaken, roared like tigers;
        
The bamboos, hit abruptly, sang like dragons.
        
All Heaven’s pores let loose their angry breaths
        
As rocks and sand flew, hurting one and all.
    The Great Sage called up this mighty wind that blew up and scattered those rock pieces