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The Red Boy knelt and kowtowed to him, saying, “Your Majesty, your son pays obeisance.”
“No need for that,” said Monkey. After making four sets of kowtows the demon king stood below his father.
“What have you asked me here for, boy?” Monkey asked.
“Your stupid son,” said the demon with a bow, “caught someone yesterday-a priest from the Great Tang in the East. I've often heard tell that he is someone who has cultivated his conduct for ten lives, and that if you eat a piece of his flesh you'll live as long as an immortal from Penglai or Yingzhou. I did not dare to eat him by myself, which is why I asked Your Majesty to share the Tang Priest's flesh and extend your life by a thousand ages.”
At this Monkey looked shocked and asked, “Which Tang Priest, my boy?”
“The one going to fetch scriptures in the Western Heaven,” the demon king replied.
“But isn't he the master of Sun the Novice?” Monkey asked.
“Yes,” said the demon king.
Monkey waved his hand, shook his head and said, “Don't start trouble with him. Pick a fight with anyone else you like, but not with him. My dear boy, don't you know what sort of person he is? That ape has vast magic powers and can do all sorts of transformations. When he made havoc in Heaven the Jade Emperor sent a hundred thousand Heavenly soldiers to spread out Heaven-and-earth nets, but they could not catch him. How could you have the nerve to eat his master? Send the priest out his moment, and don't start trouble with that monkey. If he heard that you'd eaten his master he wouldn't even need to fight you. He'd just have to poke a hole in the mountainside with that gold-banded cudgel of his to bring the whole mountain tumbling down. Then where would you be able to live, my boy, and who would there be to support me in my old age?”
“What things to say, Your Majesty,” said the demon king. “You're bolstering him and making me look small. That Monkey and a couple of his fellow disciples were crossing my mountains when I did a transformation and carried his master off. He and Pig traced me to the gates here and talked some nonsense about kinship. I got into such a raging fury that we fought a few rounds. That was all there was to it. He wasn't anything very special. Then Pig came charging in so I breathed out my True Samadhi Fire and routed him. Monkey was so desperate that he went to ask the dragon kings of the four seas for rain, but they couldn't put out my True Samadhi Fire. I burnt him so badly that he passed out, then sent Pig off in a great hurry to ask the Bodhisattva Guanyin of the Southern Seas to come. I turned myself into a Guanyin and tricked Pig into coming here: he's now hanging up in the As-You-Will bag, and I'm going to steam him as a treat for all the underlings. That Monkey was back shouting at our gates again this morning. I ordered his arrest, and it threw him into such a panic that he dropped his bundle and fled. It was only then that I invited Your Majesty over to see what the Tang Priest looked like in life before we have him steamed for you to eat and become immortal.”
“My dear boy,” laughed Monkey, “you're only aware of how you beat him with your True Samadhi Fire. What you forget is that he can do seventy-two transformations.”
“No matter what he turns himself into I can always spot him,” said the demon king, “and I'm sure he won't dare try another attack here.”
“My son,” said Monkey, “you may be able to recognize him sometimes, but he won't turn into something big like a wolf, an orangutan or an elephant. If he did he wouldn't be able to get inside the cave. You'd find it hard to recognize him if he turned into something small.”
“No matter how small he made himself we have four or five little devils on every door. He'll never be able to get in.”
“You don't realize that he can turn himself into a fly, or a mosquito, or a flea, or a bee, or a butterfly, or the tiniest of insects. He could even make himself look just like me. You wouldn't possibly be able to tell.”
“Don't worry,” said the demon king. “Even if he had guts of iron and a bronze heart he'd never dare come anywhere near here.”
“In that case, dear son,” said Monkey, “what powers do you have that make you more than a match for him, so that you could invite me here today to eat the flesh of the Tang Priest? All the same, I don't think I'll have any today.”
“Why not?” the demon king said.
“I'm getting old,” said Monkey, “and your mother keeps nagging at me to do some good works. The only good deed I'm interested in is eating vegetarian food.”
“Your Majesty,” said the demon king, “is this permanent or just for a month?”
“Neither,” said Monkey. “It's called 'thunder vegetarianism'. You do it for four days each month.”
“Which four?” the demon asked.
“The three days each month with Xin in their names, and the sixth day too. Today is the day Xin You, so that means I ought to be on vegetarian food. Besides, You days are not good for having visitors. But tomorrow I could be back to scrub, wash and steam him myself, and enjoy him with you, my boy.”
This all made the demon king think, “My father usually lives on human flesh, and he's already lived to be over a thousand. How come he's now thinking about a vegetarian diet? When you consider all the evil things he's done, three or four days of vegetarian food a month could never make up for them. There's something wrong here. It's very suspicious.” He withdrew and went out through the i
“Halfway here,” the little devils replied.
“I thought you were quick,” said the demon king. “Didn't you go to his place?”
“No,” said the little devils, “we didn't.”
“This is bad,” said the demon king. “I've been fooled. It's not His Senior Majesty.”
The little devils all knelt before him and asked, “Your Majesty, can't you recognize your own father?”
“He looks and moves just like my father,” said the demon king, “but what he says doesn't fit. I'm afraid I've been taken in and beaten by one of his transformations. I want you all to be very careful. The swordsmen among you must draw your swords, the spearmen sharpen your spears, and those of you who can use staves and ropes get ready to do so. I'm going to question him again and watch what he says. If he really is His Senior Majesty then it doesn't matter whether we have the feast today, tomorrow or in a month's time. But if what he says is wrong, then the moment I give a hum you're all to attack at once.”
When the little devils had all been given their orders the demon king turned on his heels, went back inside and bowed to Monkey, who said, “No need for all that formality within the family, my boy. Don't bow. Just say whatever it is you have to say.”
The demon king prostrated himself before Monkey and replied, “Your foolish son actually invited you for two reasons. One was to present you with Tang Priest meat, and the other was to ask you something. When I was out for a spin on my auspicious light the other day I went right up to the ninth level of clouds and bumped into the Taoist Master Zhang Daoling.”
“Do you mean Zhang Daoling the Taoist pope?” Monkey asked.
“Yes,” the demon king replied. “What did he say to you?” Monkey asked.
“Seeing that your son is complete in all his organs and that the spacing between my forehead, nose and chin is auspiciously even,” the demon king replied, “he asked me the hour, day, month and year of my birth. Your child is too young to remember all that properly. Master Zhang is a brilliant astrologer, and he offered to cast my horoscope. That is what I wanted to inquire about, Your Majesty, so that I can ask him to cast my horoscope next time I meet him.”
This made Monkey chuckle to himself: “What a magnificent demon. I've captured quite a few since I became a Buddhist and started escorting the Tang Priest on this journey, but none of them was as sharp as this one. He's asking me all trivial family details, and I'll just have to fake up my answers. How could I possibly know when he was born?” The splendid Monkey King was extremely crafty.