Bailongma

Ao Lie was the third prince of the dragon king of the Western Sea and lived in its crystal palace. He was fierce by nature and much loved, and a bright pearl was kept in the palace whose light filled the hall and had long been its treasure.

One night Ao Lie failed in his watch and the pearl in the hall was burned by a fire he set. The dragon king in fury submitted a memorial to heaven charging him with defiance and arson and asking for severe judgement.

Heaven judged him and the sentence was death. He was bound before the Western Sea palace to await the order, and everyone in the palace knew of it, and none dared plead for him.

When Guanyin, charged to seek a pilgrim in the east, passed the Western Sea and learned of Ao Lie’s condemnation, she pitied him — he had broken the law but had not meant evil — and entered the palace to petition the Jade Emperor for clemency.

The Jade Emperor consented, commuting Ao Lie’s death sentence and ordering him to redeem himself by hiding in the water of Eagle Grief Stream on Coiled Snake Mountain, waiting for the pilgrim to pass and helping him west to expiate his fault.

Ao Lie received the order and gave thanks, and thereafter lay hidden at the bottom of Eagle Grief Stream for years. The water was clear and green, cloud and mist hung about the hills, no traveller passed, and Ao Lie lay in wait day and night and never showed himself.

When Tang Sanzang came west to Coiled Snake Mountain, the white horse under him caught the dragon scent in the stream, started and would not go on; Ao Lie broke the water at that moment, swallowed the horse with saddle and bridle together, and sank out of sight again.

Failing to find the horse, Sun Wukong went into the stream in anger to search, and fought Ao Lie in the water several passes; knowing he could not match him, Ao Lie avoided the fight and went down into the deep pool and would not come up again.

With nothing else to try, Wukong was about to ride his cloud up to report when Guanyin appeared beside the stream and explained that Ao Lie was under sentence and waiting by order, not an ordinary wicked dragon.

Guanyin came to the pool herself and called Ao Lie out, took away his scales, claws and horns and drew out the bright pearl hidden beneath his throat, and at her word he took on the coat of a white horse.

Guanyin dipped a willow sprig in the sweet dew of her vase and brushed it over the horse, and from then it was white as snow from head to foot, its build and bearing exactly suited to carry Tang Sanzang.

From then on Ao Lie went west as a white horse bearing Tang Sanzang, obedient to bridle and bit, seldom speaking, carrying the scriptures and the baggage, fording water and climbing hills without slackening.

When the Yellow Robe Monster made trouble in the kingdom of Baoxiang, turned Tang Sanzang into a tiger and shut him in the palace, and the party was scattered, Ao Lie resumed his dragon shape at midnight, slipped into the palace and wounded the monster; unable to master him, he was beaten and withdrew in pain.

After Bajie went to Mount Huaguo to fetch Wukong back and the Yellow Robe Monster was subdued together, Tang Sanzang was freed and made human again; Ao Lie, once healed, took the white horse shape and went west with the party, no less willing for that engagement.

Through the Women’s Country, the Flaming Mountains, Lion Camel Ridge and every other danger, Ao Lie carried the party through mountain and river and was never away from them a single day.

When the pilgrims reached Vulture Peak and saw Rulai receive the scriptures and grant their offices, Ao Lie was invested too, as a Dragon-Horse of the Eight Classes, and set to coil about the ornamental pillar at the foot of Vulture Peak, guarding it from then on and never returning to the water palace as a dragon.