The Great Sage¹ caused havoc² in Heaven and the Jade³ Emperor ordered Heavenly soldiers and generals to punish him. But no one could manage to subdue⁴ him. Then the Lord Lao Zi threw his Diamond Jade bracelet⁵ at the Monkey King, who was then preoccupied⁶ with fighting the God Erlang, and it hit him neatly⁷ on the head. Thus the Great Sage was caught.

The Jade Emperor wanted to execute him but failed to inflict⁸ a single wound on him by sabers, axes, fire and thunder. Then Lord Lao Zi put him into the Eight Trigrams Furnace, which is used for refining elixir⁹, and wanted to burn him to ashes. The furnace was made up of Eight Trigrams-qian, kan, gen, zhen, xun, li, kun and dui-so he squeezed himself into the “Palace of xun,” for xun was the wind, and where there was wind there could be no fire.

All that happened was that the smoke made both his eyes red. After the fire burning forty-nine days, the Lord Lao Zi thought the Great Sage must be ashes so he opened the furnace. At the moment, the Great Sage leapt out of the furnace with his as-you-will cudgel, knocked all soldiers down and left. From then on, he had a pair of fire eyes with golden pupils.


孙猴大闹天宫，玉皇大帝降旨严惩，无奈天兵天将都对付不了他。太上老君献计说他有法对付。在孙猴和二郎神打得难解难分之际，太上老君暗中把金钢琢扔在孙猴的天灵盖上，捉住了孙猴。玉皇想处死孙猴，但任凭刀砍斧劈，火烧雷击，都伤不到孙猴的一根毫毛。太上老君请令，把孙猴扔进炼金丹用的八卦炉，想用猛火把孙猴烧成灰。八卦炉是按天、水、山、震、风、火、地、泽划分的，孙猴知道其中的奥妙，进去后便钻进“巽宫”位置上。巽是风，有风无火，烧不到他，只是烟熏给了他的一双眼睛。孙猴在八卦炉中，烧了七七四十九天，太上老君以为孙猴已化成灰烬，下命令开炉。谁知孙猴手提金箍棒一跃而起，打倒众天将而去。从上，孙猴更炼就一双“火眼金睛”。

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