Yue Huang ordered that the prisoner be handed over, and in the sight of all he was shut up in Lao Chuen’s alchemical furnace, which for forty-nine days was heated white-hot.  But at an unguarded moment Sun lifted the lid, emerged in a rage, seized his magic staff, and threatened to destroy Heaven and exterminate its inhabitants.  Yue Huang, at the end of his resources, summoned Buddha, who came and addressed Sun as follows:  “Why do you wish to possess yourself of the Kingdom of the Heavens?”

“Have I not power enough to be the God of Heaven?” was the arrogant reply.

“What qualifications have you?” asked Buddha.  “Enumerate them.”

“My qualifications are innumerable,” replied Sun.  “I am invulnerable, I am immortal, I can change myself into seventy-two different forms, I can ride on the clouds of Heaven and pass through the air at will, with one leap I can traverse a hundred and eight thousand li.”

“Well,” replied Buddha, “have a match with me; I wager that in one leap you cannot even jump out of the palm of my hand.  If you succeed I will bestow upon you the sovereignty of Heaven.”

Broad-jump Competition

Sun rose into space, flew like lightning in the great vastness, and reached the confines of Heaven, opposite the five great red pillars which are the boundaries of the created universe.  On one of them he wrote his name, as irrefutable evidence that he could reach this extreme limit; this done, he returned triumphant to demand of Buddha the coveted inheritance.

“But, wretch,” said Buddha, “you never went out of my hand!”

“How is that?” rejoined Sun.  “I went as far as the pillars of Heaven, and even took the precaution of writing my name on one of them as proof in case of need.”

“Look then at the words you have written,” said Buddha, lifting a finger on which Sun read with stupefaction his name as he had inscribed it.

Buddha then seized Sun, transported him out of Heaven, and changed his five fingers into the five elements, metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, which instantly formed five high mountains contiguous to each other.  The mountains were called Wu Hsing Shan, and Buddha shut Sun up in them.

Conditions of Release

Thus subdued, Sun would not have been able to get out of his stone prison but for the intercession of Kuan Yin P’u-sa, who obtained his release on his solemn promise that he would serve as guide, philosopher, and friend to Hsuean Chuang, the priest who was to undertake the difficult journey of 108,000 li to the Western Heaven.  This promise, on the whole, he fulfilled in the service of Hsuean Chuang during the fourteen years of the long journey.  Now faithful, now restive and undisciplined, he was always the one to triumph in the end over the eighty-one fantastical tribulations which beset them as they journeyed.