五行山下
Under the Five-Element Mountain
Name: ________________ Date: ________
孙悟空吃了蟠桃，又吃了仙丹，就连太上老君的炼丹炉也烧不死他。他从炉子里跳出来，把天宫打得乱七八糟。天兵天将谁也不是他的对手，玉皇大帝只好派人到西天去请如来佛祖来帮忙。
如来佛祖走到孙悟空面前，问他：“你这只猴子，为什么要大闹天宫？”孙悟空一点也不客气地说：“我是花果山的齐天大圣！玉皇大帝已经坐了那么多年，也该换我坐坐了。俗话说得好：皇帝轮流做，明年到我家！”
如来佛祖笑道：“你有什么本领，口气这么大？”孙悟空得意地说：“我学会了七十二变，还有筋斗云，一个筋斗就是十万八千里。有这样的本领，凭什么不能坐天宫？”
如来佛祖说：“那我跟你打赌。你要是能一个筋斗跳出我这右手的手心，就算你赢，我请玉皇大帝把天宫交给你。要是跳不出去，你就回到人间，再好好修炼几千年，再来跟我说话。”
孙悟空一听，心里暗暗好笑：“这如来真笨！我一个筋斗能翻十万八千里，他的手那么小，怎么会跳不出去？”他连忙问：“你不会骗我吧？”如来佛祖说：“不骗你，不骗你。”说完，伸出了右手。
孙悟空跳上佛祖的手心，喊着“我出去了”，驾起筋斗云就飞了出去。他飞啊飞，耳边只有呼呼的风声。忽然，他看见前面有五根肉红色的大柱子，高高地站在那里。
他想：“这里一定是世界的尽头了。不过，我得留下点什么，回去才好说话。”于是他拔下一根毛，吹了口气，把它变成一支毛笔，在中间那根柱子上写下八个大字：“齐天大圣到此一游”。写完以后，他还不放心，又在第一根柱子下面撒尿，这才满意地往回飞。
他站在如来的手心上，得意地说：“我已经去过世界的尽头，也回来了，你快叫玉皇大帝把天宫交给我吧！”如来佛祖骂道：“你这个尿猴子！你一直在我手里，根本没有离开过。”孙悟空不信：“我还在那里留了字呢！你敢不敢跟我去看看？”如来说：“不用去，你低头看看。”
孙悟空低头一看，只见如来右手的中指上写着八个字：“齐天大圣到此一游”，大拇指下面还有一股猴尿的臭味。原来，那五根肉红色的柱子，正是如来的五根手指！孙悟空大吃一惊：“这不可能！我不信，我再去一次！”
他正要再飞出去，如来佛祖却把手掌一翻，把他从西天门推了出去，又把五根手指变成金、木、水、火、土五座连在一起的大山，叫做五行山，轻轻地就把他压在了下面。
孙悟空还想往外爬，如来佛祖便取出一张纸条，上面写着六个字，叫人把它贴在山上。那座山就再也推不动了。孙悟空只剩下头和两只手还能伸在外面。
如来佛祖又把当地的土地公叫来，对他说：“他饿了，就给他吃铁丸子；渴了，就给他喝铜水。等他吃够了苦，自然会有人来救他。”
就这样，孙悟空被压在大山底下，夏天晒着太阳，冬天吹着冷风，一年又一年，整整等了五百年。当年大闹天宫的齐天大圣，如今却一动也不能动了。
他不知道，有一天，一个从东方来的和尚会经过这座山，前往西天取经。这个和尚，正是他等了五百年的那个人。
Key words
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 烧 | shāo | to cook; to roast; to stew (as in 烧鹅, 红烧) |
| 对手 | duìshǒu | opponent; rival |
| 派 | pài | to send; to dispatch |
| 猴子 | hóuzi | monkey |
| 本领 | bénlǐng | skill; ability |
| 翻 | fān | to turn over; to flip |
| 连忙 | liánmáng | hastily; at once |
| 骗 | piàn | to deceive; to lie to; to cheat; to swindle |
| 根 | gēn | root (math.) |
| 支 | zhī | branch; offshoot (as in 支流) |
| 毛笔 | máobǐ | writing brush |
| 骂 | mà | to scold; to curse; to swear at |
English (for the teacher)
Sun Wukong had eaten the peaches of immortality and then the elixir pills, and even Lord Laozi's elixir furnace couldn't burn him to death. He jumped out of the furnace and smashed the palace of heaven to pieces. None of the heavenly soldiers and generals could beat him, so the Jade Emperor had no choice but to send someone to the Western Heaven to ask the Buddha for help.
The Buddha walked up to Sun Wukong and asked him: "You monkey, why are you wreaking havoc in heaven?" Sun Wukong said, without the least bit of politeness: "I am the Great Sage Equal to Heaven from Flower Fruit Mountain! The Jade Emperor has sat on that throne for so many years, it's time I had a turn. As the saying goes: emperors take turns, and next year it's my house!"
The Buddha laughed: "What skills do you have, to talk so big?" Sun Wukong said smugly: "I've mastered the seventy-two transformations, and I have my Somersault Cloud: one somersault takes me a hundred and eight thousand li. With skills like that, why shouldn't I sit on the throne of heaven?"
The Buddha said: "Then let's make a bet, you and I. If you can jump out of the palm of this right hand of mine in one somersault, you win, and I'll ask the Jade Emperor to hand heaven over to you. If you can't jump out, you go back down to the world of men, practise for a few thousand more years, and then come and talk to me."
When Sun Wukong heard this, he laughed to himself: "This Buddha is such a fool! One somersault takes me a hundred and eight thousand li, and his hand is that small. How could I not jump out of it?" He quickly asked: "You're not tricking me, are you?" The Buddha said: "I'm not tricking you, I'm not tricking you." With that, he held out his right hand.
Sun Wukong jumped onto the Buddha's palm, shouted "I'm out of here!" and flew off on his Somersault Cloud. He flew and flew, and all he could hear was the wind whooshing past his ears. Suddenly he saw five huge flesh-pink pillars ahead of him, standing high in the air.
He thought: "This must be the end of the world. But I'd better leave something behind, so I have proof when I get back." So he pulled out one of his hairs, blew on it, turned it into a writing brush, and wrote eight big characters on the middle pillar: "The Great Sage Equal to Heaven was here." When he had finished writing, he still wasn't satisfied, so he peed at the foot of the first pillar, and only then did he fly back, very pleased with himself.
He stood in the Buddha's palm and said smugly: "I've been to the end of the world and come back again, so hurry up and tell the Jade Emperor to hand heaven over to me!" The Buddha scolded him: "You pee-soaked monkey! You've been in my hand the whole time and never left it at all." Sun Wukong didn't believe it: "I even left my name there! Do you dare come and look with me?" The Buddha said: "No need to go. Look down."
Sun Wukong looked down, and there on the middle finger of the Buddha's right hand were eight characters: "The Great Sage Equal to Heaven was here," and at the base of the thumb was a whiff of monkey pee. So the five flesh-pink pillars were the Buddha's five fingers all along! Sun Wukong was stunned: "That's impossible! I don't believe it, I'm going again!"
Just as he was about to fly off again, the Buddha turned his hand over and pushed him out through the West Gate of Heaven, then turned his five fingers into five mountains joined together, metal, wood, water, fire and earth, called the Five-Element Mountain, and pressed him underneath without any effort at all.
Sun Wukong still tried to crawl out, so the Buddha took out a strip of paper with six characters written on it and had someone stick it on the mountain. After that, the mountain could never be pushed again. Only Sun Wukong's head and two hands still stuck out.
The Buddha also called the local earth god and told him: "When he's hungry, give him iron pellets to eat; when he's thirsty, give him melted copper to drink. When he has suffered enough, someone will naturally come to save him."
And so Sun Wukong lay pinned under the mountain, baking in the sun in summer and blown by cold winds in winter, year after year, for a full five hundred years. The Great Sage who once wrecked the palace of heaven now couldn't even move.
He didn't know that one day a monk from the east would pass this mountain on his way to the West to fetch the scriptures. That monk would be the very one he had been waiting five hundred years for.