en-Mother went to the Lord of the Heavens to
complain. Shortly afterward Laotzse also came to him to tell about the
theft of the pills of life. And the Bare-Foot God came along and
reported that he had been deceived by the Great Saint Who Is Heaven's
Equal; and from the Great Saint's palace the servants came running and
said that the Saint had disappeared and was nowhere to be found. Then
the Lord of the Heavens was frightened, and said: "This whole mess is
undoubtedly the work of that devilish ape!"

Now the whole host of Heaven, together with all the star-gods, the
time-gods and the mountain-gods was called out in order to catch the
ape. Li Dsing once more was its commander-in-chief. He invested the
entire Mountain, and spread out the sky-net and the earth-net, so that
no one could escape. Then he sent his bravest heroes into battle.
Courageously the ape withstood all attacks from early morn till
sundown. But by that time his most faithful followers had been
captured. That was too much for him. He pulled out a hair and turned
it into thousands of Ape-Kings, who all hewed about them with
golden-clamped iron rods. The heavenly host was vanquished, and the
ape withdrew to his cave to rest.

Now it happened that Guan Yin had also gone to the peach banquet in
the garden, and had found out what Sun Wu Kung had done. When she went
to visit the Lord of the Heavens, Li Dsing was just coming in, to
report the great defeat which he had suffered on the Mountain of
Flowers and Fruits. Then Guan Yin said to the Lord of the Heavens: "I
can recommend a hero to you who will surely get the better of the ape.
It is your grandson Yang Oerlang. He has conquered all the beast and
bird spirits, and overthrown the elves in the grass and the brush. He
knows what has to be done to get the better of such devils."

So Yang Oerlang was brought in, and Li Dsing led him to his camp. Li
Dsing asked Yang Oerlang how he would go about getting the better of
the ape.

Yang Oerlang laughed and said: "I think I will have to go him one
better when it comes to changing shapes. It would be best for you to
take away the sky-net so that our combat is not disturbed." Then he
requested Li Dsing to post himself in the upper air with the magic
spirit mirror in his hand, so that when the ape made himself
invisible, he might be found again by means of the mirror. When all
this had been arranged, Yang Oerlang went out in front of the cave
with his spirits to giv