“Perhaps he knows about how to cope with sleep insects,” Monkey thought. “I'd better give him a double dose.” He pulled out a hair, made two more sleep insects as before, and threw them into the demon's face to crawl up his nose, one up the left nostril and one up the right. The demon king jumped to his feet, stretched, yawned twice and fell fast asleep, breathing heavily.

Quietly delighted, Monkey then sprang down from the roof and turned back into himself. He produced his cudgel from his ear and waved it till it was the thickness of a duck egg, then with a loud bang broke down the side door, ran into the garden at the back and called out, “Master!”

“Untie me quick, disciple,” the venerable elder said. “Being roped up like this has been agony.”

“Be patient, Master,” said Monkey. “When I've killed the evil spirit I'll come and untie you.” He then hurried back into the hall, lifted his cudgel and was about to strike when he stopped and thought, “No, this is wrong. I ought to release the master before I kill the evil spirit.” He went back into the garden, where he changed his mind again: “No, I'll kill the monster first.” This happened two or three times till finally he came dancing back into the garden, where his master's grief turned to joy at the sight of him.

“You monkey,” he said, “I suppose it's because you're beside yourself with pleasure at seeing me still alive that you're dancing about like that.” Only then did Monkey go up to him, untie him, and help him walk away. The man tied to the other tree then called out, “Please save me too in your great mercy, my lord.”

The venerable elder stopped and said, “Untie him too, Wukong.”

“Who's he?” Monkey asked.

“He was captured and brought here a day before me,” Sanzang replied. “He's a woodcutter. He tells me his mother is very old and he is most worried about her. He is a very dutiful son. You must save him too.”

Doing as he was bid, Monkey untied the other man and took them both out through the back gate, up the scar and across the ravine. “Thank you for rescuing this man and me, worthy disciple,” said Sanzang. “Where are Wuneng and Wujing?”

“Mourning for you over there,” Monkey replied, “Give them a shout.”

Sanzang then shouted at the top of his voice, “Bajie! Bajie!” The idiot, who had been weeping so much that his head was spinning, wiped away the snot and tears to call, “Friar Sand, the master's come back as a ghost. That him calling, isn't it?”

“Idiot,” shouted Monkey, going up to him, “that's no ghost. It's the master himself.”

When Friar Sand looked up and saw who it was he fell to his knees in front of Sanzang and said “Master, you've suffered terribly. How did big brother rescue you?” Monkey then told them everything that had happened.

When Pig heard all this he gnashed his teeth, unable to restrain himself from knocking the tomb mound over with one blow of his rake, digging out the head and smashing it to pulp “Why are you hitting it?” the Tang Priest asked.

“Master,” said Pig, “goodness only knows what kind of wretch he was, but we all mourned for him.”

“It was thanks to him that I'm still alive,” Sanzang replied. “When you disciples attacked their gates and demanded me they took him out to fob you off with. Otherwise they would have killed me. I think we should bury him properly as a mark of our monastic respect.” When the idiot heard his master saying this he buried that bag of flesh and bone that had been beaten to a pulp and piled up a tomb mound over it.

“Master,” said Brother Monkey with a smile, “won't you sit here for a while while I go to wipe them out?” With that he leapt down the cliff, crossed the ravine, went into the cave and took the ropes with which the Tang Priest and the woodcutter had been hound into the hall, where he used them to truss together the arms and legs of the demon king, who was still asleep. He then lifted the demon up with his cudgel onto his shoulder and took him out by the back door.

“You like making things difficult for yourself, brother,” said Pig when he saw him coming from a distance. “Why don't you find another to balance him?”

Monkey then set the demon king down in front of Pig, who raised his rake and was just about to hit him when Monkey said, “Wait a moment. We haven't captured the junior devils in the cave yet.”

“If there are any left,” Pig said, “take me in with you to smash them.”

“Smashing them would be too much trouble,” Monkey replied. “The best thing would be to find some firewood and wipe them out that way.”

When the woodcutter heard this he led Pig to a hollow to the East to find some broken ends of bamboo, pines that had lost their needles, hollow stumps of willows, creepers broken off from their roots, withered artemisia, old reeds, rushes and dead mulberry. They carried a lot of this into the back entrance, where Monkey set it alight and Pig fanned the flames with both ears. Then the Great Sage sprang up, shook himself and put the sleep-insect hairs back on his body. When the junior devils woke up they were all already on fire. Poor things! None of them had the faintest chance of surviving. When the whole cave was burnt right out the disciples went back to see the master.

When Sanzang saw that the senior demon had woken up and was shouting he called, “Disciples, the evil spirit has come round.” Pig went up and killed him with one blow of his rake, whereupon the ogre turned back into his real form as a leopard spirit with a coat patterned like mugwort flowers.

“Leopards with flower-patterned coats can eat tigers,” Monkey observed, “and this one could turn into a human too. Killing him has prevented a lot of serious trouble in future.” The venerable elder could not express his gratitude strongly enough, and he then mounted the saddle. “My home isn't far from here to the Southwest, sirs,” said the woodcutter. “I invite you to come there to meet my mother and accept my kowtows of thanks for saving my life. Then I'll see you gentlemen along your way.”

Sanzang was happy to accept, and instead of riding he walked there with his three disciples and the woodcutter. After they had followed a winding path to the Southwest for a short distance this is what they saw.

Lichen growing across a stone-flagged path,

Wisteria joining across the wicker gate,

Chains of mountains on every side, And a wood full of singing birds.

A dense thicket of pine and bamboo,

Rare and wonderful flowers in profusion.

The place is remote and deep amid the clouds,

A thatched cottage with a bamboo fence.

While they were still some distance away they could make out an old woman leaning on the wicker gate with tears streaming from her eyes, weeping and calling to heaven and earth for her son.

As soon as the woodcutter saw his mother he left the Tang Priest behind as he rushed straight to the gate, knelt down and said, “Mother, I'm back.”

Throwing her arms around him the woman said, “My boy, when you didn't come home for days on end I thought the mountain lord must have caught you and killed you. I've suffered terrible heartache. If you weren't killed why didn't you come back before? Where are your carrying-pole, ropes and axe?”

The woodcutter kowtowed as he replied, “Mother, the mountain lord did capture me and tie me to a tree. I was lucky to escape with my life, thanks to these gentlemen. They are arhats sent by the Tang court in the East to fetch the scriptures from the Western Heaven. This gentleman was captured by the mountain lord and tied to a tree as well. His three disciples have enormous magic powers. They killed the mountain lord with a single blow: he was a leopard with mugwort flower spots who had become a spirit. They burnt all the junior devils to death, untied the senior gentleman and then untied me too. I owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude: but for them your son would certainly be dead. Now that the mountain is completely safe I'll be able to walk around at night without any danger.”