Demon

The road west dead-ends at eight hundred li of unbroken fire, and the only thing that can put it out is one banana-leaf fan — held by the wife of the Bull Demon King, who happens to be the mother of a boy Wukong got hauled off to serve the Bodhisattva Guanyin. She is not in a lending mood.

A whole country without a single man, a river that conceives children straight from a cup of water, and two thirsty monks who drink before they ask. The only cure is guarded by an old enemy with a grudge — and that is the easy half of the trouble waiting in the capital.

A child hangs tied in a pine by the road, sobbing for rescue, and the kind monk cannot walk past him. The monkey smells a demon and is overruled. What follows is a fire ordinary water cannot quench, a monkey nearly killed by his own cleverness, and a child too dangerous for anyone but mercy to subdue.

A river so heavy a feather sinks, and a monster wearing nine skulls who has eaten every pilgrim before this one. Two of the travelers can fight in water and one cannot, which turns out to be the whole problem — and the river will not be crossed by winning.

For once the monk begs his own meal instead of sending a disciple — and walks straight into a house of seven smiling women who are not women at all. By the time the monkey finds the trail, the only thing between his master and the cookpot is a pig with no shame and a monkey with too much pride.

A corpse-fiend who wants the holy monk's flesh comes at the pilgrims three times wearing three borrowed faces — a girl, an old woman, an old man. Only one of the travelers can see what is under each disguise, and seeing it is exactly what gets him thrown off the road.