The Devil's Lair
The Monkey King Sun Wu Kong stood before the mighty entrance of the Devil-King's lair. He had taken Sun Wu Kong's kin and had to be put in his place. This could not be forgiven. As the Monkey King entered the underground chamber, the servants of the Devil-King trembled. Sun Wu Kong's terrible rage and battle prowess was well known. They didn't know if even their own King could defeat him.
"Hey!" bellowed the stone ape, "Give me back my kids!!" evidently he wanted to try negotiation first.
Stammering, the Devil-King responded, "Wait don't you want to fight me?" He had not expected the legendary Sun Wu Kong to reason before using his brawn.
"Of course, but I'm trying to control myself so they don't have to see your sorry state after I'm done with you."
The Devil-King didn't even know how to react. He just stared in disbelief. "How could he be so casual about this?" He thought.
"So that's how it's going to be!" Sun Wu Kong Yelled. He leapt forward and attacked with his golden staff and grew several times his original size to match the Devil-King. Their battle shook the cave and the underlings fled in terror as stalactites fell from the ceiling. (They had been recently installed because the Devil-King didn't think his lair was ominous enough).
Eventually, the Monkey King grew tired of the battle and bit and spit out some of his hairs. This transformed each of them to another Sun Wu Kong. It was like hundreds of angry wasps had swarmed the Devil-King no matter what he did, the many clones were always getting into his armor and ripping and tearing at him underneath it.
This dragged on until the Devil-King submitted and fled into the night. Sun Wu Kong then claimed victory as he grabbed his children and set fire to the rest of the lair.
Author's Note: This is a retelling of the Devil-King by R Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens. I decided to keep the main plot points and tried to just add more characterization and personality to Sun Wu Kong and the Devil-King. They mostly just get on with the fight and Sun Wu Kong is a lot more argumentative and the Devil King belittles him because he is small in his normal form. This story is more streamlined, but I do think I lost a lot of detail such as the somersaulting in order to fly and the fact the lair is called the Cave of Kidneys.
Bibliography: Devil-King by R Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens
Hello Zeeshawn. I really enjoyed reading your post because I also read this story. I think you did a great job with rewriting the story and making it your own. I am also impressed on how well you re-wrote this story because I personally struggled to understand this story or how to rewrite it. I overall think you did a great job and were very creative.
ReplyDeleteHi Zeeshawn, I loved your retelling of this story! You did a great job and really made me want to read the original Devil-King story to see where your story came from.I like the element of dialogue you had, it made the story flow very well.
ReplyDeleteHi there Zeeshawn! I enjoyed your story. I have to read the actual version before so I had nothing to compare it to so I enjoyed you adding more to your characterizations. Thank you for being very descriptive in your author's note as it helped me understand what you changed and kept the same. I appreciated you being honest about what you lost, but enjoyed knowing the small details such as the cave's name even after the fact.
ReplyDeleteHey Zeeshawn! I thought you did a great job writing this story. I did not read the original version, but after reading your take on it, I want to go give it a read. I really liked how you incorporated personality into the characters because it made the story very interesting. I thought your version of the story was very unique and well-done. Great Job!
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