红孩儿號山火雲洞 · 31
Leaf 31 of the pilgrimage · 圣婴大王 The Holy Infant King
Red Boy 红孩儿
In Journey to the West 西遊記 (c. 1592) · a demon on the road west · nicknamed 圣婴大王 “The Holy Infant King”
Small enough to be tied to a tree and left for charity, he is the demon who beats Wukong with smoke, and he is taken by being asked to sit down on blades.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 40
Tied to the Tree-Top, Crying Out
樹上啼兒A boy of seven, bound to a tree-top, called down that his father had been robbed and killed and that he had hung there three days.
- ch. 40
Weighing a Thousand Catties
重身試力He was carried off the tree onto the monkey's back and then made himself weigh a thousand catties, to see which of them would put him down first.
- ch. 40
The Whirlwind That Took the Monk
旋風攝僧While they were still on the road with the child a whirlwind came up it, and when Wukong and Sha turned there was no monk in the dust.
- ch. 41
Fire from Five Chariots
火乘五車He fought from five chariots disposed by the five phases, put out the fire-pointed spear, and blew a fire the dragon kings' rain only fed — it burned the worse for water.
- ch. 41
Beating the Monkey with Smoke
煙敗心猿Fire the monkey could bear; smoke he could not, because of what he had crouched through in Laojun's furnace. He went off the hill into the river, and the cold water very nearly finished him.
- ch. 41
Baiting the Pig
假扮觀音He sent a false Guanyin sitting in mid-air to meet the pig coming for help, and brought 猪八戒 back to the cave inside a hide bag.
- ch. 41
The Father Who Was Not His
假父承孫Wukong answered the boy's call for a father by becoming the Bull King, his own reported sire, and held the trick until the son began asking him about himself.
- ch. 42
Sitting on the Blade Lotus
刀坐蓮臺Guanyin threw the thirty-six blades of the heaven-staff into the air and they grew a lotus seat; the boy sat down on it delighted, and the blades came up through him.
- ch. 42
Five Rings and the Vial Water
五箍加身Five rings closed — head, both hands, both feet — with a spell he could not hear without obeying, and the vial water put out the last of the fire.
結局 The ending
He is recruited rather than killed, and made the Wealth-Virtue Boy who goes in front of Guanyin at Putuo. The bill arrives in chapters 59 to 61: the Bull King and Princess Iron Fan, the book's one demon household with a marriage in it, treat the adoption as the theft of their son, and say so at length before fighting the monkey over a fan.
The book itself: why the monkey was pinned, which translation — The 500 years · The translations · The 81 trials