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15 Lotus Cave

Bajie laid down his rake, bowed to the rocks, and began to talk, asking and answering himself: "Master, there are demons! What mountain? Stone Mountain. What cave? Stone Cave. What gate? A gate of iron plates and nails. How deep within? Three layers deep inside..." It turned out that Bajie was using the rocks to stand in for the Tang Monk and the other two, rehearsing his lie. Once he had rehearsed it smoothly, Bajie dragged his rake after him and turned back the way he had come. Wukong, behind his ear, had heard every word clearly; he spread his wings and flew back ahead of Bajie. Wukong resumed his own shape and told the Tang Monk all he had seen and heard, point by point, but the Tang Monk would not believe him. Before long Bajie came trudging back, and for fear of forgetting his lie he kept his head down, muttering it over and over. Wukong shouted, "Bajie! What are you muttering?" Bajie looked up and found himself before his master, and hurried forward to kneel. The Tang Monk raised him to his feet, thanked him for his trouble, and asked whether there were demons in the mountain. Bajie repeated all that Wukong had said before. Wukong stepped forward, seized Bajie by the ear, and as he laid bare every trick of his, raised his hand to strike. Bajie was so frightened that he clung to the Tang Monk and begged for mercy. The Tang Monk said, "When Wukong said you had made up a lie I would not believe it. Now that it proves true, you truly deserve a beating. But we are short of hands just now, so I will let you off this once." Wukong said, "No beating this time. Go and patrol the mountain again. If you lie once more and spoil our business, I will certainly not spare you!" At this Bajie snatched up his rake and ran off up the mountain. Suspicion bred imaginary fears. Bajie was certain that Wukong had transformed himself again and was following him, so everything he saw he took to be Wukong. After seven or eight li a tiger ran across the slope, and he called out at once, "Brother, do not follow me! I shall tell no more lies!" A little further on a gust of mountain wind blew a dead branch in front of him, and he stamped his feet and beat his breast. "Brother! I have told you I dare not lie again; why have you turned yourself into this log to strike me?" Even when a white-necked old crow called out to him a few times, he had to declare his innocence to it. Now the Golden-Horned King, the elder demon of Lotus-Flower Cave, had long since learned that the Tang Monk and his disciples would pass this way. That day he handed the pictures of the four to the Silver-Horned King and ordered him, "Whoever eats the Tang Monk's flesh lives for ever. Go and patrol the mountain, and if you meet them, bring back men and horse together." The Silver-Horned King took the pictures, mustered thirty lesser demons, and went out to patrol the mountain. At the foot of a slope he came face to face with Bajie. "Who are you?" he shouted. Bajie's heart quailed and he said he was only a traveller. One sharp-eyed demon declared that he looked exactly like Bajie in the picture. The Silver-Horned King recognized Bajie too and ordered his demons to seize him. Seeing no way out, Bajie roared, "Insolent demon, mind your manners! Taste your Pig Grandfather's rake!" and swung it at him. The Silver-Horned King would not give ground either; he plied his seven-star sword and fought Bajie twenty rounds with neither gaining the advantage. Bajie fought back in desperation, shaking his ears, spitting froth and bawling as he pressed the attack. When the Silver-Horned King saw that he could not win, he called on the lesser demons to swarm forward together. Bajie could not hold them off; he feinted a stroke with his rake, turned, and fled. He had not gone far when a trailing vine tripped him head over heels. The lesser demons swarmed over him, held him down, clutched his bristles, pulled his ears, dragged his feet and tail, and hauled and carried him off into the cave. When the Golden-Horned King saw that it was Bajie, he said that catching this monk was of no use. The Silver-Horned King said, "Then soak him in the clean-water pool until his bristles come away; salt him, dry him in the sun, and keep him to go with wine on a rainy day." He ordered the lesser demons to throw Bajie into the pool at the back of the cave. The Golden-Horned King said, "Now that Bajie is taken, the Tang Monk cannot be far behind. Go and patrol the mountain once more, and on no account let him slip past." The Silver-Horned King agreed, gathered his lesser demons, and went out of the cave to patrol.

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