五行山下
Under the Five-Element Mountain
Name: ________________ Date: ________
却说齐天大圣偷吃蟠桃、盗食金丹，又在老君的丹炉里炼了七七四十九日，反倒炼成一双火眼金睛。他一跳出丹炉，便抡起金箍棒，从天宫一路打到灵霄殿外，打得众神七零八落。十万天兵天将束手无策，玉皇大帝无可奈何，只得传旨，派人往西方请来如来佛祖降妖。
如来拦住大圣，问道：“你是何方妖猴，竟敢在此撒野？”大圣毫不畏惧，高声答道：“我乃花果山水帘洞齐天大圣！常言道：‘皇帝轮流做，明年到我家。’只叫玉帝搬出去，将天宫让与我，便罢了；若还不让，定要闹得天上永无宁日！”
如来冷笑道：“你有何本事，敢占天宫？”大圣道：“我学会了七十二变，一个筋斗便是十万八千里，如何坐不得天位？”如来道：“既如此，我与你打赌：你若一个筋斗跳出我这右手掌心，便算你赢，天宫让你；若跳不出去，你还下界为妖，再修炼几千年，却来争吵。”
大圣暗自窃笑：“这如来真是呆傻！我一个筋斗去十万八千里，他那手掌方圆不满一尺，如何跳不出去？”急问道：“你说话可作数？”如来道：“作数，作数！”说罢伸开右手，却似个荷叶大小。
大圣纵身一跳，站在佛祖掌心，叫一声：“我出去也！”一个筋斗翻出去，霎时无影无踪。正飞时，忽见五根肉红柱子，撑着一股青气。他心道：“此间乃尽头路了。我先留下些记号，回去才有话对如来说。”遂拔下一根毫毛，吹了口仙气，变成一支毛笔，在中间柱子上写下一行大字：“齐天大圣到此一游”。写毕，又不庄重，却在第一根柱子下撒尿留念，这才翻转筋斗云，径直飞回原处。
大圣站在如来掌内道：“我已去过天尽头，又回来了，你快去请玉帝让出天宫来！”如来骂道：“你这尿精猴子！你从来不曾离开我的手掌！”大圣不服：“我在那里留了记号，你敢同我去看么？”如来道：“不必去，你自己低头看看。”
大圣睁圆火眼金睛，低头看时，只见佛祖右手中指上写着“齐天大圣到此一游”，大拇指旁边，还有些猴尿的臊气。大圣大惊失色：“我明明写在撑天的柱子上，怎么却在他手指上？我决不信！我再去一趟！”
大圣急纵身又要跳出，佛祖翻转手掌往下一扑，把他从西天门推了出去，将五指化作金、木、水、火、土五座联山，唤作五行山，轻轻把他压住。大圣从山下伸出头来，还要挣扎，如来便从袖中取出一张封条，上有六个金字，命人贴在山顶。那山立时生根合缝，大圣只剩头和两手露在外面，再也挣脱不出。
如来又唤来土地神，吩咐道：“他饥时，给他铁丸子吃；渴时，给他溶化的铜汁喝。待他灾难满日，自然有人救他。”
从此，这猴王渴饮铜汁，饥餐铁丸，风吹日晒，一压便是五百年。他还不知道，五百年后，一位从东土来的和尚要往西天取经，正好路过此山。到那时，这只被压了五百年的猴子，才会重见天日。
Key words
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 盗 | dào | to steal; to rob |
| 反倒 | fǎndào | on the contrary; instead |
| 抡 | lūn | to swing; to wield (with force) |
| 束手无策 | shùshǒu-wúcè | to be at a loss; helpless |
| 无可奈何 | wúkě-nàihé | to have no way out; helpless; resigned |
| 竟 | jìng | unexpectedly; actually (as in 竟然) |
| 畏惧 | wèijù | to fear; to dread |
| 罢了 | bàle | (particle) that's all; only; merely |
| 若 | ruò | if; as if (as in 假若) |
| 何 | hé | what; how; why (as in 如何, 为何) |
| 本事 | běnshi | ability; skill |
| 打赌 | dádǔ | to bet; to make a bet |
English (for the teacher)
Now, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven had stolen the immortal peaches and helped himself to the golden elixir, and when he was smelted for forty-nine days in Lord Laozi's elixir furnace, it only gave him a pair of fiery golden eyes. The moment he leapt out of the furnace, he swung his golden-hooped staff and fought his way across heaven right up to the Hall of Divine Mists, scattering the gods in every direction. A hundred thousand heavenly soldiers and generals were at their wits' end, and the Jade Emperor, helpless, could only issue a decree and send messengers to the West to bring the Buddha to subdue the demon.
The Buddha stopped the Great Sage and asked: "Where are you from, demon monkey, that you dare to run riot here?" The Great Sage, not the least bit afraid, answered in a loud voice: "I am the Great Sage Equal to Heaven of Water Curtain Cave on Flower Fruit Mountain! As the saying goes: 'Emperors take turns; next year it's my house.' Just tell the Jade Emperor to move out and hand heaven over to me, and that will be the end of it; if he won't, I'll make sure heaven never knows a day of peace!"
The Buddha gave a cold laugh: "What abilities do you have, to dare to seize heaven?" The Great Sage said: "I've mastered the seventy-two transformations, and one somersault takes me a hundred and eight thousand li. Why shouldn't I sit on heaven's throne?" The Buddha said: "In that case, let's make a wager: if you can somersault out of the palm of this right hand of mine, you win and heaven is yours; if you can't jump out, you go back down to the world below as a demon, cultivate yourself for a few thousand more years, and then come and argue."
The Great Sage snickered to himself: "What a fool this Buddha is! One somersault takes me a hundred and eight thousand li, and that palm of his isn't even a foot across. How could I fail to jump out?" He asked quickly: "Will you keep your word?" The Buddha said: "I will, I will!" With that he opened his right hand, which looked about the size of a lotus leaf.
The Great Sage leapt up, landed in the Buddha's palm, and shouted: "I'm off!" With one somersault he was off, and in an instant he vanished without a trace. As he flew, he suddenly saw five flesh-pink pillars holding up a column of blue-green mist. He thought to himself: "This must be the end of the road. First I'll leave a mark here, so I'll have something to say to the Buddha when I get back." So he pulled out a fine hair, blew his magic breath on it, turned it into a writing brush, and wrote a line of big characters on the middle pillar: "The Great Sage Equal to Heaven was here." When he had finished, with no dignity at all, he peed at the foot of the first pillar as a souvenir, then turned his Somersault Cloud around and flew straight back to where he had started.
Standing in the Buddha's palm, the Great Sage said: "I've been to the end of heaven and come back again. Hurry up and ask the Jade Emperor to give up heaven!" The Buddha scolded him: "You pee-soaked monkey! You never once left my hand!" The Great Sage wasn't having it: "I left my mark there. Do you dare come and look with me?" The Buddha said: "No need to go. Just look down."
The Great Sage opened wide his fiery golden eyes and looked down, and there on the middle finger of the Buddha's right hand was written "The Great Sage Equal to Heaven was here", and beside the thumb hung a whiff of monkey pee. The Great Sage went pale with shock: "I clearly wrote it on a pillar holding up the sky, so how did it end up on his finger? I'll never believe it! I'll go once more!"
The Great Sage sprang up to leap out again, but the Buddha turned his palm over and swept down, pushed him out through the Western Gate of Heaven, turned his five fingers into five linked mountains of metal, wood, water, fire and earth, named the Five-Element Mountain, and pinned him under it with the lightest touch. The Great Sage poked his head out from under the mountain and still tried to struggle, so the Buddha took a seal from his sleeve, with six golden characters on it, and had it stuck on the mountaintop. At once the mountain took root and its cracks closed up; only the Great Sage's head and two hands still stuck out, and he could never break free.
The Buddha also summoned the local earth god and instructed him: "When he is hungry, give him iron pellets to eat; when he is thirsty, give him melted copper to drink. When his days of punishment are over, someone will naturally come to save him."
From then on, the Monkey King drank copper when thirsty and ate iron when hungry, through wind and sun, and his time under the mountain stretched to five hundred years. He did not yet know that five hundred years later, a monk from the eastern lands would set out for the West to fetch the scriptures, and would pass right by this mountain. Only then would the monkey who had lain pinned there for five hundred years see the light of day again.