This is what he saw:

Matted hair

Held in place by a thin gold band;

Eyes flashing

Under a pair of frowning yellow brows;

A pear-shaped nose

With flaring nostrils;

A square-cut mouth

With sharp-pointed teeth.

He wore a coat of chain-mail

Tied with a tasseled raw silk sash;

On his feet were a pair of oxhide boots

And he carried a wolf's-tooth mace.

He looked both like a wild beast and at the same time not;

His face was human and yet not human.

“What kind of monster do you think you are?” shouted Monkey as he brandished his cudgel. “How can you have the effrontery to pose as a Buddha, occupy a mountain and create a false Lesser Thunder Monastery?”

“The only reason you've got the nerve to come rampaging around my magic mountain must be that you don't know my name,” the monster said. “This is the Lesser Western Heaven, and Heaven has given me these fine buildings because I have cultivated my conduct and gained the true achievement. I am called the Yellow-browed Buddha, though in their ignorance the people around here call me King Yellow Brow or Lord Yellow Brow. I've known about your journey to the West for a very long time now and I have some magic powers, which was why I could create those illusions to lure your master in so that you and I could have a trial of strength. If you can beat me I'll spare your master and his disciples and allow you to fulfil your true achievement. But if you can't I'll kill the lot of you and go myself to see the Tathagata Buddha, fetch the scriptures and take them to China.”

“You talk too much, evil spirit,” said Monkey with a laugh. “If you want a trial of strength try this from my cudgel.” With great pleasure the demon king parried it and a fine fight ensued:

A pair of cudgels,

Each quite different.

To start with what they looked like,

One was a short and flexible Buddha weapon,

The other was hard from the stores of the sea.

Both of them could be changed at will,

And today they met in a struggle for mastery.

The soft wolf's-tooth mace was adorned with brocade,

The hard gold-banded cudgel had dragon patterns.

They could both be admirably big or small,

Any length you liked and always just right.

Monkey and monster were evenly matched:

This fight between them was the real thing.

The monkey tamed by faith was now the mind-ape;

The evil monster had offended Heaven with deception.

In his anger and loathing neither showed mercy;

Both had their ways of being savagely vicious.

One struck to the head, never easing the pressure;

The other hit at the face and could not be fought off.

The sun went dark behind the clouds they made;

They breathed out mists that hid the towering crags.

Cudgel met cudgel as the rivals fought,

Both forgetting life and death for the Tang priest's sake.

The two of them fought fifty rounds without either emerging as victor. By the monastery gate there was much beating of drums and gongs as the evil spirits shouted their war-cries and waved their flags. Facing them were the heavenly soldiers of the Twenty-eight Constellations and the holy hosts of the Five Protectors, who were all armed and shouting as they surrounded the demon king. The demons outside the monastery gate were too frightened to beat their drums, and their hands were shaking so badly that they could not strike their gongs.

The old demon king was not at all afraid. He held all the enemy troops at bay with his mace in one hand while with the other he undid an old white cotton pouch that was round his waist as a sash; this he threw into the air. With a loud swish it caught the Great Sage Monkey, the Twenty-eight Constellations and the Protectors of the Four Quarters and the Centre; he then slung them over his shoulder and carried them back inside. All the little demons returned in triumph. The demon king told his underlings to fetch forty or fifty hempen ropes, opened the bag, and took his prisoners out one at a time to be tied up, Each of them felt that his bones had turned soft. Their muscles were numb and their skin hung loosely on them. Once tied up they were all carried out to the back and flung on the ground indiscriminately. The demon king then ordered a banquet and the devils drank from dawn till dusk before it broke up and they all went off to sleep.

In the middle of the night, as the Great Sage Monkey lay there tied up with all the gods, he heard the sound of weeping. Listening more carefully he recognized the voice of Sanzang, who was saying as he sobbed, “Wukong,”

“I wish I had heeded the warning you gave:

From this disaster we could have steered clear.

While you're being tortured in cymbals of gold,

Nobody knows I'm a prisoner here.”

“Bitter the fate that afflicts us all four;

All our achievements have now come to naught.

How can we be saved from this awful impasse

To go to the West and then home as we ought?”

When Monkey heard this he felt sorry for his master. “Although ignoring my advice was what caused this disaster,” he thought, “at least you're remembering me in your troubles. I'd better save them all and let them get away while it's night, the demons are all asleep and nobody's on guard.”

The splendid Great Sage used escaping magic to make himself so small that he slipped out of his bonds, went up to the Tang Priest and said, “Master.”

“Why are you here?” Sanzang asked, recognizing his voice. Monkey told him very quietly what had happened, to his great delight.

“Please rescue me as soon as you can,” Sanzang said. “From now on I'll do whatever you say and not be so stubborn.”

Only then did Monkey start moving, first releasing the master, Pig and Friar Sand, then the Twenty-eight Constellations; and the Protectors of the Four Quarters and the Centre, all of whom he untied one by one. Next he brought the horse over and told his master to carry on ahead as quickly as possible. Once they were outside Monkey realized that he did not know where the luggage was and went back to look for it.

“You seem to think that things matter more than people,” said the Metal Dragon of Gullet. “It ought to be enough that we've rescued your master. Why do you want to look for the luggage?”

“Of course people are important,” Monkey said, “but things are even more important. In the luggage there's our passport, the brocade cassock and the golden begging bowl. They're all great treasures of the Buddhist faith, and we must have them.”

“You go back and look for them, brother,” said Pig, “while we start out. We'll wait for you later.” Watch how the stars crowd round the Tang Priest and all use their magic powers at once to take him out of the enclosure with a breath of wind as they hurry along the main road down the slope till they reach level ground and rest.

At about the third watch the Great Sage Monkey crept slowly and stealthily back inside to find gate inside gate all very tightly closed. When he climbed up to the upper story of a building to take a look he saw that the windows were all fastened too. He was on the point of going down again but dared not move for fear of the window-frames making a noise. He therefore made a hand-spell, shook himself and turned into a mouse immortal, or what is more commonly known as a bat. Do you know what he looked like?

His head was pointed like a rat's,

His eyes like a rat's did spark.

He emerged at twilight on his wings,

To sleep by day in the dark.

He hid away among the tiles;