“Friar Sand,” said Pig with a grin, “you keep guard here. I'm going up to join in the fight. I'm not going to let Monkey keep all the credit for beating the monster to himself. He won't be the first to be given a drink.”

The splendid idiot leapt up on his cloud and joined in the fight, taking a swing with his rake. The monster fended this off with another spear. The two spears were like flying snakes or flashes of lightning. Pig was full of admiration.

“This evil spirit is a real expert with the spears. This isn't 'behind the mountain' spearplay; it's 'tangled thread' spearplay. It's not Ma Family style. It's what's called soft-shaft style.”

“Don't talk such nonsense, idiot,” said Monkey. “There's no such thing as soft-shaft style.”

“Just look,” Pig replied. “He's parrying us with the blades. You can't see the shafts. I don't know where he's hiding them.”

“All right then,” said Monkey, “perhaps there is a soft-shaft style. But this monster can't talk. I suppose it's not yet humanized: it's still got a lot of the negative about it. Tomorrow morning, when the positive is dominant, it's bound to run away. When it does we've got to catch up with it and not let it go.”

“Yes, yes,” said Pig.

When the fight had gone on for a long time the East grew light. The monster didn't dare fight any longer, so it turned and fled, with Monkey and Pig both after it. Suddenly they smelled the putrid and overwhelming stench of Runny Persimmon Lane on Mount Seven Perfections.

“Some family must be emptying its cesspit,” said Pig. “Phew! What a horrible stink!”

Holding his nose, Brother Monkey said, “After the demon, after the demon!” The monster went over the mountain and turned back into himself: a giant red-scaled python. Just look at it:

Eyes shooting stars,

Nostrils gushing clouds,

Teeth like close-set blades of steel,

Curving claws like golden hooks.

On its head a horn of flesh

Like a thousand pieces of agate;

Its body clad in scales of red

Like countless patches of rouge.

When coiled on the ground it might seem a brocade quilt;

When flying it could be mistaken for a rainbow.

From where it sleeps a stench rises to the heavens,

And in movement its body is wreathed in red clouds.

Is it big?

A man could not be seen from one side to the other.

Is it long?

It can span a mountain from North to South.

“So it's a long snake,” Pig said. “If it's a man-eater it could gobble up five hundred for a meal and still not be full.”

“Its soft-shafted spears are its forked tongue,” said Monkey. “It's exhausted by the chase. Attack it from behind.” Pig leapt up and went for it, hitting it with his rake. The monster dived into a cave, but still left seven or eight feet of tail sticking outside.

Pig threw down his rake, grabbed it and shouted, “Hold on, hold on!” He pulled with all his strength, but could not move it an inch.

“Idiot,” laughed Monkey, “let it go in. We'll find a way of dealing with it. Don't pull so wildly at the snake.” When Pig let go the monster contracted itself and burrowed inside.

“But we had half of it before I let go,” he grumbled. “Now it's shrunk and gone inside we're never going to get it out. We've lost the snake, haven't we?”

“The wretched creature is enormous and the cave is very narrow,” Monkey replied. “It won't possibly be able to turn round in there. It definitely went straight inside, so the cave must have an exit at the other end for it to get out through. Hurry round and block the back door while I attack at the front.”

The idiot shot round to the other side of the mountain, where there was indeed another hole that he blocked with his foot. But he had not steadied himself when Monkey thrust his cudgel in at the front of the cave, hurting the monster so much that it wriggled out through the back. Pig was not ready, and when a flick of the snake's tail knocked him over he could not get back up: he lay on the ground in agony. Seeing that the cave was now empty Monkey rushed round to the other side, cudgel in hand, to catch the monster. Monkey's shouts made Pig feel so ashamed that he pulled himself to his feet despite the pain and started lashing out wildly with his rake.

At the sight of this Monkey said with a laugh, “What do you think you're hitting? The monster's got away.”

“I'm 'beating the grass to flush out the snake.'”

“Cretin!” said Monkey, “After it!”

The two of them crossed a ravine, where they saw the monster coiled up, its head held high and its enormous mouth gaping wide. It was about to devour Pig, who fled in terror. Monkey, however, went straight on towards it and was swallowed in a single gulp.

“Brother,” wailed Pig, stamping his feet and beating his chest, “you've been destroyed.”

“Don't fret, Pig,” called Monkey from inside the monster's belly, which he was poking around with his cudgel. “I'll make it into a bridge. Watch!” As he spoke the monster arched its back just like a rainbow-shaped bridge.

“It looks like a bridge all right,” Pig shouted, “but nobody would ever dare cross it.”

“Then I'll make it turn into a boat,” said Monkey. “Watch!” He pushed out the skin of the monster's belly with his cudgel, and with the skin against the ground and its head uplifted it did look like a river boat.

“It may look like a boat,” said Pig, “but without a mast or sail it wouldn't sail very well in the wind.”

“Get out of the way then,” said Monkey, “and I'll make it sail for you.” He then jabbed his cudgel out as hard as he could through the monster's spine from the inside and made it stand some sixty or seventy feet high, just like a mast. Struggling for its life and in great pain the monster shot forward faster than the wind, going down the mountain and back the way it had come for over seven miles until it collapsed motionless in the dust. It was dead.

When Pig caught up with the monster he raised his rake and struck wildly at it. Monkey made a big hole in the monster's side, crawled out and said, “Idiot! It's dead and that's that. Why go on hitting it?”

“Brother,” Pig replied, “don't you realize that all my life I've loved killing dead snakes?” Only then did he put his rake away, grab the snake's tail and start pulling it backwards.

Meanwhile back at Tuoluo Village old Mr. Li and the others were saying to the Tang Priest, “Your two disciples have been gone all night, and they're not back yet. They must be dead.”

“I'm sure that there can be no problem,” Sanzang replied. “Let's go and look.” A moment later Monkey and Pig appeared, chanting as they dragged an enormous python behind them. Only then did everyone feel happy.

All the people in the village, young and old, male and female, knelt down and bowed to Sanzang, saying, “Good sirs, this is the evil spirit that has been doing so much damage. Now that you have used your powers to behead the demon and rid us of this evil we will be able to live in peace again.” Everyone was very grateful, and all the families invited them to meals as expressions of their gratitude, keeping master and disciples there for six or seven days, and only letting them go when they implored to be allowed to leave. As they would not accept money or any other gifts the villagers loaded parched grain and fruit on horses and mules hung with red rosettes and caparisoned with flags of many colours to see them on their way. From the five hundred households in the village some seven or eight hundred people set out with them.

On the journey they were all very cheerful, but before they reached Runny Persimmon Lane on Mount Seven Perfections Sanzang smelled the terrible stench and could see that their way was blocked.

“Wukong,” he said to Monkey, “how are we going to get through?”