Clean-cut pinnacles blocking the light,

Towering and grotesque-shaped rocks.

The fragrance of rate and wonderful flowers,

The beauty of red apricots and green peaches.

The ancient trees in front of the precipice,

Forty spans round, and with bark scarred by frost and rain;

The azure pines standing outside the gates,

Two thousand feet of green blue reaching up to the sky.

Pairs of wild cranes

That dance in the breeze at the mouth of the cave;

Mountain birds in couples

Chirping by day at the ends of the branches.

Clumps of yellow creepers like ropes,

Rows of misty willows with leaves like hanging gold.

Water fills the pools that are square;

All over the mountain are caves that are deep.

In the pools that are square

Dragons lie hidden with scales unchanged.

In the mountain's deep caves

Dwell ogres that long have been eaters of humans.

This can be matched with the lands of immortals,

A den where the winds and the vapors are stored.

When Monkey saw this he took two or three paces forward, sprang towards the gates and saw that they were shut tight. Above them was a horizontal stone tablet on which was written in large letters

LINKED RING CAVE:

BROKEN RIDGE:

HIDDEN MISTS MOUNTAIN.

“Strike, Pig,” said Monkey. “This is where the evil spirit lives. The master must be here.”

At this the idiot turned vicious, raised his rake, and brought it down on the gates with all his strength, smashing a big hole in them and shouting, “Ogre, send my master out at once if you don't want me to smash your gates down and finish the lot of you off.” At this the junior devils on the gates rushed back inside to report, “Disaster, Your Majesty.”

“What disaster?” the senior demon asked.

“Someone's smashed a hole in the front gates and is yelling that he wants his master,” the junior devils replied.

“I wonder which one's come looking for him,” said the demon king in a state of great alarm.

“Don't be frightened,” said the commander of the vanguard. “Let me go out and take a look.” He hurried straight to the front gates, twisted his head to one side and craned to look through the hole that had been smashed in them. He saw someone with a long snout and big ears.

“Don't worry, Your Majesty,” he turned round and shouted at the top of his voice, “it's Zhu Bajie. He's not up to much and he won't dare try any nonsense on us. If he does we can open the gates and drag him inside to put in the steamer too. The only one to worry about is that hairy-cheeked monk with a face like a thunder god.”

“Brother,” said Pig when he heard this from outside, “he's not scared of me but he is of you. The master's definitely inside. Come here quick.”

“Evil damned beast,” said Monkey abusively. “Your grandfather Monkey is here. Send my master out and I'll spare your life.”

“This is terrible, Your Majesty,” the commander of the vanguard reported. “Sun the Novice is here looking for him too.” At this the demon king started complaining, “It's all because of your 'petal-dividing' or whatever you called it. You've brought disaster on us. How is this going to end?”

“Don't worry, Your Majesty,” the commander of the vanguard replied, “and don't start grumbling yet. That Sun the Novice is a monkey of great breadth of spirit. Although he has such tremendous magical power he's partial to flattery. We'll take an imitation human head out to fool him with, say a few flattering things to him and tell him we've eaten his master already. If we can take him in, the Tang Priest will be ours to enjoy. If we can't we'll have to think again.”

“But where are we to get an imitation human head?” the demon king asked.

“I'll see if I can make one,” the commander of the vanguard replied.

The splendid ogre then cut a piece of willow root with an axe of pure steel into the shape of a human head, spurted some human blood on it from his mouth to make it all sticky, and told a junior devil to take it to the gates on a lacquer tray, calling, “My Lord Great Sage, please overcome your anger and allow me to address you.”

Brother Monkey really was partial to being flattered, and when he heard himself being addressed as “My Lord Great Sage” he grabbed hold of Pig and said, “Don't hit him. Let's hear what he has to say.”

To this the junior devil with the tray replied, “When my king took your master into the cave the junior devils were naughty and behaved very badly. They gobbled and gnawed and grabbed and bit, and ate the whole of your master up except his head, which I have here.”

“If you've eaten him up, that's that,” Monkey replied. “Bring the head out and let me see whether it's real or false.” The junior devil threw the head out through the hole in the gates, a sight that started Pig howling and saying, “This is terrible. The master went in looking one way and he's come out looking like this.”

“Idiot,” said Monkey, “have a look and find out if it's real before you start crying.”

“You're shameless,” said Pig, “how could there ever be such a thing as a fake human head?”

'This one's a fake,” Brother Monkey replied.

“How can you tell?” Pig asked. “When you throw a real human head it lands quietly,” Monkey explained, “but when you throw a fake it makes a loud noise like a pair of wooden clappers. If you don't believe me, I'll throw it for you. Listen!” He picked the head up and threw it against a rock, where it gave a hollow ring.

“It was loud, brother,” said Friar Sand.

“That means it's a fake,” said Monkey. “I'll make it turn back into its real self to show you.” Producing his gold-banded cudgel in a flash he hit the head open. When Pig looked he saw that it was a piece of willow root. This was too much for the idiot, who started talking abusively.

“I'll get you, you hairy lot,” he said, “you may have hidden my master in your cave and fooled your ancestor Pig with a piece of willow root, but don't imagine that my master is just a willow-tree spirit in disguise.”

The junior devil who was holding the tray was thrown into such a panic by this that he ran shaking with fear back to report, “It's terrible, terrible, terrible.”

“What's so terribly terrible then?' the senior demon asked.

“Zhu Bajie and Friar Sand were taken in, but Monkey's like an antique dealer-he really knows his stuff,” the junior demon replied. “He could tell it was an imitation head. If only we could give him a real human head he might go away.”

“But how are we to get one?” the senior demon wondered, then continued, “Fetch a human head we haven't eaten yet from the flaying shed.” The devils then went to the shed and choose a fresh head, after which they gnawed all the skin off it till it was quite smooth and carried it out on a tray.

“My lord Great Sage,” the messenger said, “I am afraid it was a fake head last time. But this really is Lord Tang's head. Our king had kept it so as to bring good fortune to our cave, but now he's making a special offering of it.” He then threw the head out through the hole in the gates, it landed with a thud and rolled on the ground, gory with blood.

Seeing that this human head was a real one Monkey could not help starting to wail, in which he was joined by Pig and Friar Sand.

“Stop crying, brother,” said Pig, holding back his tears. “This is very hot weather, and the head will soon become putrid. I'm going to fetch and bury it while it's still fresh. We can cry for him afterwards.”

“You're right,” said Monkey, and the idiot cradled the head against his chest, not caring about the filth, as he hurried up the cliff till he found a South-facing spot where the winds and the natural forces were gathered. Here he hacked out a hole with his rake, buried the head, and piled a grave-mound over it. Only then did he say to Friar Sand, “You and big brother weep over him while I look for some offerings.”