Sun Wukong and Rulai

Sun Wukong broke out of the eight-trigram furnace and fought his way to the doors of the Hall of Universal Brightness, and the Jade Emperor sent to the western heaven for Rulai to stop the fighting before the Numinous Empyrean Hall. Rulai asked Wukong on what ground he would take the heavens, and made a wager with him: if one somersault could carry him out of the palm, he would ask the Jade Emperor to give heaven up.

Wukong rode his cloud, saw five flesh-red pillars, wrote “the Great Sage Equal to Heaven was here” on the middle one and left a puddle of monkey water besides, and turning back found that the pillars had been Rulai’s fingers.

Rulai turned his hand into Five Elements Mountain, pinned Wukong in a stone box and set a six-word paper seal on it. Five hundred years later Tang Sanzang peeled the seal away and released him for the road west; and when master and disciples reached Vulture Peak, Rulai invested Wukong as the Victorious Fighting Buddha by the merit of the pilgrimage, and the golden band vanished from his head.