三打白骨精

The Tang Priest (San zang) and his three disciples¹ were on their way to the Western Heaven to obtain Buddhist² scriptures³. One day they were traveling in a high mountain. When Monkey (Wukong) saw it was cloudy and misting in the valley, he knew this mountain was bound to harbor fiends. He drew a magic circle with his cudgel（棍棒） on the ground to protect his master. He told Pig and Friar Sand to protect the Tang Priest and for the three of them not to leave the circle. He then went to have a look at the mountain and pick some fruit to bring back to eat. 

 

This mountain did indeed have a corpse⁴ fiend called Lady White Bone, who had been here for a thousand years. It had heard that anyone who ate a piece of the Tand Priest's flesh will live forever, so it tried three times to capture him. The first time it changed itself into a young, beautiful girl holding a basket of food. With her charming smile, she almost succeeded in talking the master and his two disciples into coming out of the circle. Just at the last moment, Monkey came. Monkey came. Realizing that she was an evil spirit, he raised his cudgel and hit her. The fiend changed into a gust⁵ of smoke and fled. The second time the fiend turned itself into an old woman, who walked towards them leaning on a stick with a crooked⁶ handle. Monkey recognized it and struck it again. Like the first time, the fiend fled. 

 

The third time it turned itself into an old man, sitting before a hut waiting for the Tang Priest to come. Monkey saw through the fiend's disguise, raised his cudgel and struck it down. The fiend this time left a piece of cloth from the cloud, saying: "If you're as kind as a Buddha⁷, how can you kill? Keep Wukong with you and no scriptures will you get." Sanzang believed the writing. He blamed Wukong for killing⁸ three people one after another, and forced him to leave. Without Monkey, Lady White Bone captured the Tang Priest easily and invited its mother to eat Sanzang's flesh together with it. But, Wukong came just in time to save him. He killed the old fiend on the way to its daughters', impersonated it, then got into the cave and saved the Tang Priest. 

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