The White-Bone Demon

T he road climbed into a high desolate range, all stacked crags and twisting ravines, tigers running in packs and serpents a thousand feet long — bad country, and empty of anything to eat. Tang Sanzang grew faint with hunger in the saddle, no village ahead and no inn behind, so Wukong told him to sit tight and somersaulted off over the peaks to beg a meal somewhere. He left his master out in the open on a wild mountainside, which on this road is the same as leaving fresh meat on a hook. Something on that mountain had been waiting a long time for exactly this. A corpse-fiend, an old white-bone spirit, knew the traveler below was the monk from the Tang court, and knew the rumor every demon on the road knew — that one bite of his flesh buys a life that never ends. The master and his disciples pressed on, and came to a high mountain — peaks and crags piled in layers, ravines coiling round, tigers and wolves moving in packs, deer going in herds. Sanzang grew alarmed and hungry on his horse, for they were halfway up the mountain with no village ahead and no inn behind. Wukong bade him sit and went off to beg food. Now on that mountain dwelt a fiend, who saw the monk and rejoiced, saying, that is the holy monk of the Tang. If someone eats a piece of his flesh, he gains long life and long years. Today he has truly come.

The fiend wanted to walk straight up and grab him, but the monkey was somewhere close and that gave her pause — so she did it by craft instead. She shook herself down into a village girl, lovely past describing, clear brows and white teeth and red lips, a blue clay pot in one hand and a green bottle in the other, and came picking her way along the slope toward the monk as if bringing a meal to her husband in the fields. Sanzang, alone and starving, watched a beautiful young woman approach over the empty mountain carrying what smelled like food, and Pigsy's eyes lit up like lamps. Neither of them thought for one second to ask why a girl would be out in tiger country with a hot lunch. The fiend wished to seize him outright, but feared the disciples nearby were too strong, and so she worked by transformation. She shook her body and changed into a girl with a face like the moon and flowers — brows clear, eyes bright, white teeth, red lips — holding a blue clay pot in her left hand and a green glazed bottle in her right, and came walking down the mountain straight toward Sanzang. Pigsy, seeing how beautiful she was, grew eager, and said she was surely bringing food.

Wukong came back on his cloud with the begged food just in time to look at the girl — and his eyes did the thing the furnace had done to them. Fiery eyes, golden pupils, the gift that pierces any disguise — one glance and he knew the lovely village girl for the corpse-fiend she was. He raised the rod without a word of explanation. Sanzang caught his arm, appalled — a monk does not club down a young woman bringing alms over the mountains, and what kind of pilgrim are you. Wukong tried to tell him what he was looking at. The master heard only that his disciple wanted to murder a kind girl, and would not hear past it. Just then Wukong returned with the begged food, and looked with his fiery eyes and golden pupils, and knew at once the girl was a fiend. He set down the bowl, took out his rod, and made to strike her. Sanzang seized him, crying, what wildness is this — she has done nothing, why would you beat her? Wukong said, master, you do not know — she is no good person; she is a fiend come to deceive you. But the monk would not believe it, and said Wukong's eyes saw demons where there were only people.

“He killed the same monster three times and was punished worse each time, because the only eyes that could see the truth belonged to the one no one would believe.”

He struck anyway, because that is who he is. The rod came down — and the fiend was ready for it. She loosed her true spirit up and out at the last instant by the corpse-liberation trick, leaving behind a dead body that dropped in the dirt looking exactly like a slain village girl. To Sanzang's eyes Wukong had just brained an innocent woman in front of him. The monk went white with horror and dread of the sin on his own head. Wukong only pointed at the smashed pot. Look in it, master. That was no rice. The pot was full of long-tailed maggots crawling, and where the noodles should have been, frogs and warty toads hopping all over the ground. The proof was right there in the dirt. It bought him exactly one reprieve. Wukong struck, and the fiend, seeing the rod come down, used her trick to free her spirit, sending out her true soul and leaving a false corpse lying dead on the ground. Sanzang was terrified and trembled with dread of the deed. Wukong said, master, do not be deceived — look at what she carried. Where there had been fragrant rice was only a pot of long maggots dragging their tails, and where the noodles had been were a few green frogs and warty toads, hopping all over the ground. Then Sanzang half believed him.

The maggots saved his place for the moment. Sanzang, shaken, was ready to send him packing on the spot — I will not have a disciple this savage — and Wukong talked his way back the only way he could, by reminding the monk of everything between them. Guanyin freed me from under the mountain for this, he said; I took your gold band, I swore to guard you to the Buddha, and there is no spell to take this ring off my head, so where would I even go. Sanzang, soft-hearted as ever, let it pass. One more time, he said. Do nothing so cruel again. Wukong swore he would not. He meant it about as much as he ever means anything, which is to say he meant it until the next demon. But Sanzang still said, you wild thing, why do you kill at every step — you have struck down an innocent traveler; go back where you came from, I do not want you as a disciple. Wukong said, master, where would I go? I was pinned at the Mountain of Two Frontiers; the Bodhisattva delivered me, and I took your fillet and swore to guard you to the Western Heaven. There is no loosening spell to take this band from my head — how can you cast me off? Sanzang, having no other course, said, very well, I forgive you this once; do no more violence. Wukong said, I dare not.

The fiend, hanging unhurt in the air, was only annoyed. She had lost a disguise, not the prize. So she came again, and this time she came old — an eighty-year-old woman bent over a crooked bamboo cane, hobbling down the mountain a step at a time and crying out for her lost daughter, the very girl, she wailed, who had gone to bring food and never come home. It was a good role. Sanzang felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. The girl I just watched you kill had a mother, and here she comes looking. Pigsy, never one to miss a chance to twist the knife, muttered that big brother had done it now, killed the daughter and here was the old woman to answer for it. The fiend in the air gnashed her teeth in anger, but seeing Wukong protect the monk so closely, she shook herself and changed again — into an old woman of eighty years, leaning on a crooked bamboo cane, weeping at every step as she came down the mountain. Pigsy was alarmed and said, master, ill news — that must be the girl's mother, come searching for her. Wukong said, brother, do not talk nonsense. That girl was eighteen, and this one is eighty — how does a woman bear a child at sixty? It is false; let me look at her.

One look told him it was the same fiend wearing a grandmother. He hit her — and again, at the last breath, she slipped her spirit out and left a fake old corpse crumpling in the road, so that to the others Wukong had now murdered a frail old woman on top of her daughter. This time Sanzang did not just scold. Pigsy bent close and poured poison in his ear — the rod is heavy and the hand is cruel, he killed her outright; he is only working this disguise trick to fool your eyes because he is afraid you will say the words. So Sanzang said the words. He bit his lip, made the sign, and chanted the tight-fillet spell, over and over, a full twenty times, while Wukong rolled in the dirt clawing at his own skull, the band biting into bone, his face purple. And when the monk was done he moved to banish him again. Wukong knew her at once for the same fiend, and struck. The fiend again freed her spirit and escaped, leaving a false corpse lying in the road. Sanzang was struck dumb with terror. Pigsy said at his side, his hand is heavy and his rod cruel; he has beaten the woman to death, and only fears you will recite the spell. Sanzang, hearing this, formed the sign and chanted, and recited the spell a full twenty times over. Wukong's head ached so that he rolled on the ground, crying, stop, stop — and pleaded that he had killed only a fiend.

Sanzang relented one more time, but barely — get up, I forgive you once more, do nothing violent again — and Wukong, head still ringing, swore once more he would not dare. He was now in an impossible box and he knew it. Strike the demon and be tortured and nearly thrown out; do not strike the demon and let her carry off the master to be eaten. There was no version of doing his actual job that did not look like savagery to the man he was protecting. He chose the job. He always chooses the job. He kept watch, and waited for the thing on the mountain to come back a third time, because of course it would. The monk, having no other course, said, get up; I forgive you once again, but do no more violence. Wukong said, I dare not. But he knew the fiend had not given up, and would surely come a third time to harm his master, so he kept close watch.

It came as a father. An old white-haired man this time, tottering along telling his beads and leaning on a dragon-headed staff, out searching the mountain for his missing wife and daughter — completing the family the demon had been killing off in installments. The cruelty of the casting was the whole point — now Wukong was meant to have slaughtered a girl, her mother, and at last her grieving old father, a whole household wiped out by one murderous monkey. Sanzang's heart broke for the old man. Pigsy was already halfway through the eulogy for big brother's victims. And Wukong, looking at the old man with his burning eyes, saw the same corpse-fiend looking back for the third time. The fiend, not yet content, shook herself and changed once more — into an old man, white of hair and beard, telling his beads in his hand, leaning on a dragon-headed staff, and came reciting scripture down the mountain, as if searching for his wife and daughter. Pigsy laughed and said, master, good fortune is here — the old man comes to find his people; if he learns we have killed them, he will have us up before the magistrate, and you will pay with your life. Wukong looked with his fiery eyes and knew him for the same fiend.

This time Wukong took no chances with the corpse-liberation trick. Before he struck, he silently called up the local earth-god and the mountain-god of that very range and posted them invisibly in the air, with orders to block her escaping spirit and let her go nowhere. Then he brought the rod down, and with her spirit hemmed in on every side she could not slip away, and the fiend died for real. What dropped in the road was no old man and no false corpse — it fell apart into a heap of bleached white bones, and along the spine ran a line of writing that gave her name — White-Bone Lady. There it was at last, undeniable, the truth lying in the dust with a label on it. Wukong turned to his master, certain that bones could not lie. Wukong, fearing she would escape again, silently called the local earth-god and the mountain spirit of that place, and charged them to stand guard in the air and not let the fiend's spirit get away. Then he raised his rod and struck — and this time the fiend, her spirit blocked on every side, could not free herself, and was killed in truth. There in the road was no corpse but a heap of white bones, and on the spine ran a line of characters that read, White-Bone Lady. Wukong said, master, look — this is the fiend that has been deceiving you, now showing her true form in death.

The bones were not enough. Sanzang did waver, looking at the skeleton with its name — and Pigsy, who could not let a true thing stand, leaned in and finished his work. Do not be fooled, brother says it is a corpse-fiend, but his hand is heavy and his rod is cruel; he beat a living person to death, and conjured these bones with a trick to cover his own eyes once you started to doubt him. It was a lie flatly contradicted by the labeled skeleton in front of them, and Sanzang believed it, because he wanted to. He turned on Wukong with a coldness past all the scolding before it. This was no longer a monk too gentle to bear violence. This was a master who had decided. Sanzang was half-convinced, but Pigsy, beside him, said again, master, do not believe him — he has truly killed people, and only fears your spell, so he changes the bodies into bones by magic to deceive your eyes. Sanzang, his ear bent by these false words, believed it, and grew hard. He said, this wild ape grows worse and worse — how can such a one be a disciple of the gate of emptiness?

Sanzang made it final. He called for paper and brush there on the mountain and wrote out a letter of dismissal, a formal severing, and pressed it into Wukong's hand. Monkey, he said, take this as proof — I will not have you for a disciple any longer. If I ever so much as see you again, may I sink into the deepest hell. It was the harshest thing the gentle monk had ever said, an oath sworn on his own damnation, and he meant it. The strongest creature in creation, who had wrecked heaven and could not be killed by fire or thunder, stood on a wild mountain holding a slip of paper that fired him for the crime of being right. Sanzang would not relent, and called for paper and brush. With water from the stream he ground the ink, and wrote out a letter of dismissal, and handing it to Wukong said, monkey, take this as proof — I will no longer have you as my disciple. If ever I see you again, may I fall into the Avīci Hell. Wukong took the letter and said, master, you need not swear such an oath, and made ready to go.

Wukong did not rage and did not fight the band on his head. He grieved. Master, he said, I followed you this whole long way, and the Bodhisattva herself set me to it — and now it ends half-finished, with nothing accomplished. Let me bow to you once before I go, and I will leave with an easier heart. Sanzang turned away and would not take the bow. So Wukong plucked three hairs from the back of his head, breathed on them, called change, and turned them into three more of himself, and the four monkeys ringed the master on every side and bowed together — so that whichever way the monk twisted to avoid it, a Wukong was kneeling there in front of him, and he had to receive the farewell whether he would or not. The most powerful being on the road, dismissed, used the last of his magic only to make a man accept a goodbye. Wukong said, master, I have followed you all this way, and was charged by the Bodhisattva to do so; now it ends half-done, with no merit gained. Let me bow to you once, and I can go with my heart at ease. But Sanzang turned aside and would not face him, saying, I am a good monk; I will not take the bow of a wicked one like you. Then Wukong plucked three hairs from behind his head, blew on them, called change, and made three more Wukongs; with himself, four in all, they surrounded the master on four sides and bowed, so that turn as he might, the monk could not escape, and had to receive their parting bow.

Then he went. He pressed his last instructions on Sandy — guard the master, and if a demon ever takes him, tell it your eldest brother is Sun Wukong the Great Sage, and the name alone will save you — gave the white horse a parting look, and somersaulted up and away east, back over the mountains to Flower-Fruit Mountain and the Water-Curtain Cave and the monkeys who had never once asked him to prove he was good. Going home he heard the sound of the ocean tide far below and it stopped him cold in the air — the sound set him thinking of his master, and he hung there a long while, the tears running, before he could make himself fly on. He had killed the same monster three times to keep the man alive, and for seeing the one truth no one else on that mountain would look at, he was the one sent away. Wukong charged Sandy, saying, you are a good man; take care to watch against Pigsy's foolish words, and on the road, if you meet any harm, you have only to say that I, Sun Wukong, am your eldest disciple-brother, and the fiends will not dare to wrong our master. Then he took his leave, summoned his somersault cloud, and went straight back to the Water-Curtain Cave on Flower-Fruit Mountain. Flying alone, he heard the sound of the water below, and it grieved him so that he stopped his cloud and stood a long while in sorrow before he could go on.

三打 The original Chinese · honored as an artifact

屍魔三戲唐三藏　聖僧恨逐美猴王

Opening lines, classical Chinese · Journey to the West 西遊記 · Wu Cheng'en (attrib.)