STORY SO FAR: After years of study, Master Subhodi sends Monkey away because of his disobedience. Monkey must now face the world all on his own.
Excited, he leaped up into the sky and lassoed a cloud. Within three blinks of an eye he was floating above the Mountain of Flowers and Fruits. Then he jumped down and somersaulted right in front of his palace. «Dear friends!» he cried, «your Magnificent King has returned!»
He looked around. Everything was in ruins. Even the trees were bare. Several monkeys peeked out cautiously from behind rocks and trees. «It’s he!» they shouted. «Our king is back!»
Thousands of cheering and jumping monkeys ran to Monkey. They hugged him and kissed him from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. «Magnificent King,» said one, «our eyes are worn out from looking for your return. You have been gone so long.»
The monkeys began to weep. «Why are you crying?» asked Monkey. «And why were you hiding when I arrived? What has happened here? »
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«We were attacked by a terrible demon who captured many of our brothers and sisters.»
«How dare he!» Monkey exploded. «Who is this demon? Where does he live?» «He is called the Demon of Havoc. He comes and goes like a hurricane, filling the sky with darkness and roaring.» «He sounds bad,» said Monkey, «but he can’t scare me!» With that he sprang high into the sky and searched for thousands of leagues with his special vision.
Far to the north he spied a mountain covered with a swirling dark mist. «Ah!» cried Monkey. «I see where he lives.» Grabbing hold of a cloud, he darted off to the misty mountain, then jumped down, landing right next to a vast hole in the ground. A dark, stinking wind was billowing out of the pit.
«Demon of Havoc!» Monkey shouted. «I am the Magnificent Monkey King! I’ve come to get my monkeys back!» «Who dares to challenge me?» a furious voice screamed from the hole. Next moment the demon himself leaped out. He was enormous, with bulging cloud-shaped muscles all over his body, even his head. His mouth blew puffs of hot, gale-like winds. His eyes were fireballs. He had a bristling white beard, the hairs of which were icicles. Over his great chest he wore a breastplate marbled with huge hailstones. In each of his great hands he carried a long, sharp sword shaped like a lightning bolt.
«Are you a king?» the demon cried, breaking into thunderous laughter. «You’re not even three feet high. It’s a shame I have to waste my energy killing someone as puny as you.»
«Demon, release my monkeys,» Monkey cried, «or you’ll regret it!»
The demon laughed. «I won’t even need my swords to fight you!» He threw his weapons away. Now the fight began. Though Monkey was small, his fists were like cannonballs. Soon the demon was panting from Monkey’s heavy blows. Desperate, the demon snatched up his lightning bolt swords. Monkey made himself invisible. «Here I am! Here I am!» he cried, leaping here, there, everywhere. The demon struck madly but each time he struck only air. Each blow was accompanied by a tremendous clap of thunder, but the demon was beginning to tire.
Seeing his chance, Monkey plucked a handful of golden hairs from his own leg and blew them into the air. «Alalalatola!» he shouted. At the strange word every hair turned into several hundred tiny monkeys. The tiny monkeys swarmed over the demon, pulling, kicking, even tickling him. They knocked him down and there he stayed.
Now Monkey leaped into the demon’s dark and windy hole. It stank terribly, but Monkey did not care. He plunged down deeper. In a far corner of the cave he found his monkey friends, hundreds of them, tied together like so many trapped crabs. Monkey cut their cords. «Hurry!» he cried. «We’re going home!» The monkeys followed their king out of the hole. The Demon of Havoc was still lying on the ground, and sitting on the demon’s chest were hundreds of tiny monkeys.
«Alalalatola!» shouted Monkey, and instantly the tiny monkeys turned back into hair, which Monkey stuck back onto his leg. The demon was afraid to move. «Never hurt my clan again,» Monkey warned. «Or it will be even worse for you.» «Now, my friends,» he cried to the monkeys, «close your eyes.»
He waved his hands and his tail in a magical pattern, conjuring up a great wind of his own. And in less than a wink, they were all gone.
«We’re going home,» Monkey cried as they flew through the air. «Once there, I have something very important to do.»
(To be continued.)
| Text copyright © 2001 Ji-li Jiang Illustrations copyright © 2001 Hui Hui Su-Kennedy Reprinted by permission of Breakfast Serials, Inc www.breakfastserials.com . |
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