This eight-chapter volume is an original condensed retelling based on Wu Cheng'en's public-domain classic, not the complete original text or a line-by-line translation.

For eight hundred li, the Flaming Mountain hurled fire into the sky. Not even a body of bronze and iron could approach it. The people said that only Princess Iron Fan's plantain fan could extinguish the blaze. Wukong went to her cave to borrow it, but she hated him because her son Red Boy had been taken as Guanyin's disciple. With one sweep, she blew him fifty thousand li away.

Wukong returned with a Wind-Settling Pill and forced his way inside the princess's stomach until she surrendered her fan. But it was a counterfeit: the more he waved it, the higher the flames rose. He then sought her husband, the Bull Demon King, who was attending a feast and refused to help. Wukong took the bull's appearance and tricked the princess out of the true fan. The Bull Demon King answered by transforming into Bajie and stealing it back.

Their contest became more than a trial of strength. Wukong became the bull; the bull became Bajie. They changed into birds, beasts, giants, and insects. Each could become somebody else, yet neither wished to imagine another person's grief. Only when Nezha, celestial soldiers, and many gods surrounded him did the Bull Demon King finally lower his weapon.

Princess Iron Fan surrendered the plantain fan. Wukong swept it forty-nine times. At the first sweep, the flames bowed. At the second, cool wind passed through the valleys. As he continued, clouds gathered and rain fell on the blackened earth. The people cheered beneath the downpour and brought cakes from the new harvest to farewell the pilgrims.

Eating as he walked, Bajie said, “Brother Monkey, if I'd known we needed so many battles, I would have suggested polite conversation at the start.”

“I politely asked to borrow it,” Wukong replied, laughing. “She answered by sending me fifty thousand li away.”

Wujing quietly added, “Before speaking, it also helps to remember why the other person is angry.”

For a moment they were silent. Then they all laughed. Beyond the mountain, the rain-washed road shone like a new line written across the world.