The air was shaking from a long way off. It was autumn and the fields were dry and bare, and an old man by the road was selling fans.
Ahead was the Flaming Mountain, he said. Eight hundred li of fire which not even birds crossed, and there was no way around.
“There is one fan that puts the fire out.” He pointed west toward Jade Cloud Mountain. “The house it belongs to is Princess Iron Fan’s.”
At That Door
Wukong stood still a moment at the name. Princess Iron Fan was the Bull Demon King’s wife, and the Bull Demon King had been his sworn brother five hundred years ago.
And she was Red Boy’s mother. The boy from the twenty-fourth trial, the boy Wukong had sent to Guanyin.
He did not remember that as a bad thing. The child had not died and had been given a good place, the Boy of Good Wealth beside Guanyin.
He knocked, and he opened with the fan. What came back from inside was not about the fan. “Where have you put my son?”
Two Ledgers
Wukong gave her the news of the boy. Beside Guanyin, given a name, doing well, and what he said was true.
The woman did not take it. Or rather, it seemed to have nothing to do with her. “And I cannot see that child.”
One day was written down in two ledgers. In one it said: saved him. In the other it said: took him.
The sword came out first. Wukong did not meet it and only raised the fan again, and she waved the fan once and blew him away.
A Brick From Five Hundred Years Ago
Wukong flew fifty thousand li and came down. Where he landed he met an old man, somebody who knew where that mountain came from.
There had been no fire there once, he said. Five hundred years ago some bricks fell out of the sky, and they came from Laojun’s furnace.
The old man did not know who had kicked that furnace over. Wukong said nothing where he stood. The fire he was trying to pass was a fire he had started.
The Fan on the Third Try
The first fan was a false one, and the more he waved it the higher the fire went. The second he got by wearing the Bull Demon King’s face.
On the third try heaven’s soldiers came. Li Jing and Nezha took the Bull Demon King, and it was then that Princess Iron Fan gave up the fan.
Wukong waved it forty-nine times and the fire went out and rain came. Eight hundred li cooled that day.
Today, Their Ledger Is Still Open
The demon in this chapter is a mother who lost a child. That house owed Wukong nothing, and the debt was on his side.
He had considered the matter well finished. He had saved the boy and sent him somewhere good, so in his own ledger it was closed.
His was the only ledger it was closed in. On the mother’s side it was still open, and so five hundred years later, needing something, he stands at that door.
All he can carry there is his account of that day. Accounts usually arrive late, and the fire on that mountain was his as well.
Getting the fan took three tries. Putting out the fire took forty-nine waves, and what took long was not the fire but that door.