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04 Five Elements Mountain

Erlang reached the stream and found Wukong gone. "This macaque must have turned himself into a fish or a shrimp and gone into the water," he thought. "I'll change too and catch him." So he became a fish eagle and circled low over the water. Wukong, swimming with the current, caught sight of the fish eagle. "That bird is surely Erlang, waiting for me up there," he thought, and whipped around in a splash of water and fled. Erlang saw him. "Why did that fish turn back the moment it saw me? It must be the monkey." He darted after it and snapped with his beak. Wukong swiftly became a water snake, swam ashore and slipped into the grass. Erlang turned into a grey crane and stretched out his long, iron-pincer beak to snap up the snake. The snake gave a hop and turned into a bustard, posing dull-witted and foolish on a sandbar. Erlang saw it plainly, resumed his true form, drew his slingshot to the full, and sent Wukong staggering with a single shot. Wukong rolled down the cliff, flattened himself on the ground, and turned into an earth-god shrine: his mouth became the gate, his teeth the door leaves, his eyes the lattice windows. Only his tail was awkward to dispose of, so he simply stood it up behind as a flagpole. Erlang came to the foot of the cliff and saw the little shrine. "Since when does a shrine have a flagpole behind it?" he laughed. "This is the monkey's trickery. First I'll smash the lattice windows, then kick in the doors!" Wukong heard him and thought in alarm, "Cruel, cruel! If he knocks out my teeth and smashes my eyes, what will become of me?" With one great leap he flipped into the air and vanished again. Unable to find him, Erlang rose into the air on a cloud and came upon Heavenly King Li and Nezha. Li was holding aloft the demon-revealing mirror; he swept it in all directions and laughed, "Hurry, True Lord — that ape has run off to your Guanjiangkou!" At this Erlang gave chase at once. Meanwhile Wukong reached Guanjiangkou, took on Erlang's likeness, and walked straight into the temple. The ghost attendants, seeing their Lord Erlang, kowtowed to welcome him. Wukong sat down in the middle and began going over the offerings: a petition from one Zhao Jia asking for a son, a vow from Qian Bing praying to be cured of illness, and so on. He was still checking when Erlang burst through the door. "How is it there are two Lord Erlangs?" the ghost attendants wondered. Wukong resumed his true shape and grinned, "Erlang — this temple of yours now belongs to the Sun family!" Erlang flew into a fury and hacked at him with his blade; Wukong answered with his staff. Shouting and brawling, the two of them fought their way out of the temple gate. Still fighting as they went, they drifted through midair back to Flower-Fruit Mountain, where the Six Brothers of Meishan had long been waiting and threw themselves forward as one. The Jade Emperor, waiting in Heaven with growing impatience, went with his immortal ministers to the Southern Gate of Heaven to watch the battle. They saw the gods spread a net of heaven and earth and hedge Wukong in at its centre, locked in a fight neither side could break off.

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