Episode 6F – The King of Destructia – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 6F Show Notes

Source: Chinese Mythology

This week on MYTH, we’ll at last reach the border with India, though the poor monks still have the last leg of the journey ahead of them. This is the sixth episode on the epic tale of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. If you haven’t heard the first five parts, I’d recommend going back and listening. The first episode provides a lot of back story on the Monkey King and on the chinese cosmology, the second tells how this whole quest thing got started, the third tells Sanzang got tricked into banishing Monkey from the party, the fourth tells how Sanzang ended up hanging from a tree surrounded by bandits and Monkey decided to join back up, and the fifth tells about Sanzang being totally cool with being kidnapped as long as no beautiful women try to fuck him. To summarize, Monkey was trapped by Buddha and could only be released if he served the monk Sanzang on his journey to the west to retrieve the magic sutras from India. Along the way, getting into a stupid amount of trouble and getting out mostly through literal deus ex machina, they acquire two more disciples: Ogre and Piggy. Monkey managed to become even more immortal, but it didn’t help him against a scheming demon that convinced the kind of dumb monk that Monkey had killed a few people for shits and giggles. Given how many demons have shown up already, you’d think he’d be more open to the idea. After some sitcom antics, Sanzang figures out he’s been tricked and they all become one big happy party again just long enough for Sanzang to nearly get his dick sucked by a scorpion demon. Monkey gets the gods of the stars to burn her to dust (which seems harsh sense it looks like the poor demon lady really did just want to give the priest mind-blowing sex, but that’s mythology for you). Not long after, Monkey forgets how much trouble Sanzang gets into on his own and goes scouting. The monk s promptly kidnapped by bandits and strung up in a tree. Monkey murders all of the bandits, and Sanzang gets all pissy about it. They find an imposter Buddha who manages to trap a significant fraction of the Chinese gods in a bag, but Monkey eventually finds the right god for the job. Sanzang again gets super pissed that somebody want a piece of the holy D, and they find a castle with a sick king. Monkey plays doctor, and gets sent after a wife kidnapping demon to fix the king. He fucks up the rescue mission and runs away. He saves the monk, only to lose him again, this time to a harem of slutty girl demons. In this episode, you’ll learn that a woman’s reaction to fighting is to get naked, that the strongest negotiating position is inside your opponent’s stomach, and that the original formula for viagra involved the beating hearts of a thousand young boys. Then, in Gods and Monsters, it’s subtly named Mongolian Death Worm, which may or may not have sprung from the pages of Dune. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 6F, “The King of Destructia“. As always, this episode is not safe for work.

Monkey turns into a fly and goes spying on the sexy female demons that took Sanzang. He sees the spirits bathing naked in a hot spring. “I could kill them all right now in a surprise attack, but it feels wrong to hit a woman, even though I’ve already done that several times on this trip, so I’ll try something else.”
He turns into an eagle, flies over to the pool, and swoops down. When he rises back into the air, seven sets of clothes are dangling from his talons. If no one has made a porn parody of this scene yet, someone needs to get on it already! Rule 34 and all that.
Monkey returns and tells the others. All Piggy hears is nekkid ladies, so he runs off with his rake aloft in what is definitely an erection metaphor to see some ass and titties. When they see him being a creepy lech, they use magic to summon silk ropes from their navels like evil umbilical cords to wrap him up. Then, they all run giggling into the cave, using their hands to cover their naughty bits from whatever other magical creeps might be watching. The ropes around Piggy vanish, and he gets to his feet, and follows the ladies inside the cave. Stay classy, Piggy.
Inside, he sees Sanzang hanging in midair and sobbing like a little kid that just dropped his ice cream. Since the naked girls are hiding from the demon men, they’re able to cut the priest down and be on their way. They continue down the road and see a Taoist temple a few hours later. Since they haven’t defeated the naked girls yet, you can probably guess that the Taoist is the demon’s teacher, because no one survives an encounter with the group, and all Taoists are evil, especially women and priests (and, I guess, priests who consort with women).
The women fled through the cave to the temple, and see the party arriving. Angry at being literally stripped of their dignity, they tell their master that these assholes tried to kill them. The head priest responds by poisoning the party’s tea. Monkey notices something weird in the tea and doesn’t drink it, but because he’s an asshole, he doesn’t warn anyone else. They all pass out, leaving Monkey free to go all renegade cop on their ass. He pulls his staff from behind his ear and makes it about billy club sized, then smacks the priest in the face.
The women freak out at the fighting, strip of their clothes, and again shoot silk rope out of their belly buttons. Monkey sees it coming and is able to break it when it surrounds him, and escapes the temple. A local god plot device wanders by to tell Monkey that the seven spirits are actually spiders, because duh. Having provided exposition, the god leaves again.
Monkey pulls 70 hairs out of his tail and changes them all into shadow clone monkeys, complete with staff. The staff has been surrounded by spider web by now, so Monkey sings a song, and the clones sing with him, and they all use their staffs to rip apart the web to the beat. The clones rush inside, and soon return with the 7 women, reverted to their spider demon forms, all with ropes around their necks.
“Don’t kill us, sir! Please, we’re just helpless spider women!” “Give me back my three friends, and you’re free to go.” “Master! Give him the priest back! Don’t let him kill us!” The Taoist thinks for a moment and says “Sorry, ladies. I really want to eat the priest, so…no. He probably won’t kill you.”
Monkey responds by having his 70 clones smash the spiders into pulp, beating them to death, then they vanish. Monkey charges inside to kill this fucker. They fight for a while, and Monkey is getting the upper hand. The priest is feeling tired, so he takes off his belt, and then his robe. Monkey laughs. “Dude, getting naked is not going to help things. Don’t make this weird.”
The Taoist pulls off his shirt, revealing a thousand golden eyes flashing a bright light. Monkey is surrounded by the light and blinded. He tries to jump away, but smashes into the edge of the light. He then turns himself into a pangolin (they’re adorable, and kind of look like armadillos) and digs under the light. He stays underground for 6 miles before finally coming back out, safely away.
Monkey is tired and bruised, and he starts crying in frustration and pain. A woman appears from somewhere, probably Kuan-Yin, and tells him to go to Mount Purple Cloud, where a sage named Vairambha lives who can help him. In a very anticlimactic moment, the sage has no trouble rounding up the Taoist and also gives Monkey antidote pills for the poison, so they continue on their way.
The group travels further west. One day, an old man appeared at the top of a hill. They heard him yell “Hey, guys! Don’t go that way! Every last person in the continent of Jambu was eaten by demons; it’s not safe.” Despite the fact that they have faced dozens of demons at this point, Sanzang panics at this news and passes the fuck out, falling from his saddle.
Monkey helps him up. “Don’t be a pussy. I can take any demons we find.” “Monkey, did you not just hear the nice man say that the demons ate an entire continent!?!” “He’s probably exaggerating. I’ll go check.” Sanzang snorted. “With your ugly face and foul mouth? There’s no way he’ll tell you the truth.”
Monkey thinks for a second, then transforms into a fastidious looking monk. “How about now?” asks Monkey as he scampers off. “Hey old man! I need details. What do you know about these demons, huh?” The old man tells him that there are three demon kings living in Lion Cave with 47 or 48,000 lesser demons under their command.
Monkey jumps into the clouds to investigate, and soon sees a junior devil dressed like a messenger running along. Monkey transforms himself into a similar demon, and catch up. “Hey, fellow demon. I’m the Senior Patroller in charge of your company. Here’s a pass to prove I am that I totally didn’t just magic into existence.” The demon kings demand unquestioning obedience, and the junior demon, Wind Piercer, accepts the obvious lie. He takes Monkey back to his company.
Monkey questions the demons about the chiefs and learns that they have a treasure called the Male and Female Vital Principles jar. Anyone they put inside is liquified in moments (which might be the scariest magic item we’ve seen yet). Everyone is starting to get suspicious that a superior officer doesn’t seem to know this, so Monkey kills all of them. Then he transforms into the now dead Wind Piercer and heads to Lion Cave.
He walks into the cave and finds the three kings seated in their thrones. He bows. “So you’re back, Wind Piercer. Did you find the Monkey King?” Monkey bows again. “Sorry, your royal kinglininesses, I don’t dare tell you. Monkey likes to turn himself into a fly and spy on his enemies. He could be here even now, planning a sneak attack!”
“That’s good information, kid. Brothers, we’ll just have to kill any fly that comes into the cave. There aren’t many here anymore, so if you see one, it’s definitely him.” While they’re talking, Monkey pulls a hair and changes it into a fly, which he sends right at the center demon’s face. “Fuck, he’s here! Kill him!” Everyone proceeds to engage in some epic Three Stooges shit trying to kill the fly and mostly hitting each other. Monkey starts giggling, and loses control of the transformation enough for his tail to reappear. The third demon seizes Monkey. “Brothers, this little shit almost had us.” “Who, Wind Piercer?” asks the first. “No, dumbass, Monkey! Look at the tail! He clearly killed Wind Piercer and took his place.”
The second demon says “Monkey is slippery little fuck. Let’s put him in the jar now so he doesn’t escape.” Someone read the evil mastermind rules, apparently. They plunk him in and let the jar get to work. Monkey is pretty immortal, but the jar is powerful, and his ankles start to burn. He thinks they feel a little soft to the touch. “Well” thinks Monkey, “I’m glad that buddha gave me three lifesaving hair at the beginning of the story that were not mentioned up until now, but definitely happened back at the beginning, which is why I have them now.” He pulls the three hairs that are hard as rock instead of soft and supple like the rest of his hair.
He changes them: one turns into a steel drill, one into a strip of bamboo and one into a silk cord. Monkey puts the three together to make a hand drill and bore through the jar. The magic escaped through the hole, as did Monkey.
The lead king charges at the escaped convict, jaws agape, and Monkey dives into his throat. “I’m not sure that was a good idea, brother.” says the second demon. From inside the first demon’s stomach, Monkey says “I think it was a great idea. Now you’ll never be hungry again!” The demon is now remembering some of the stories he heard, and asks Monkey to come back out of his stomach. In response, Monkey practices his martial arts. The demon keels over in pain, and vows to guide Sanzang over the mountain if Monkey will just let him be.
Monkey does so, but not without a little insurance. He turns one of his hairs into a 400 ft long rope and ties one end around the demon’s heart. The other, he keeps with him to prevent treachery. As soon as Monkey appears, the massed demons attack, Monkey yanks on the rope, but can’t keep the pressure up and also fight of tens of thousands of demons. He decides to hightail it the fuck out of there since the odds are a little one sided.
Monkey leaps into the clouds, then yanks hard on the rope, dragging the demon into the sky by his goddamned heart. He spins him around once, then slams the senior demon into the ground with a bone snapping crash. His two younger brothers beg for mercy and again promise to take Sanzang. They go back to their cave to get a chair to carry the monk.
Naturally, instead of meeting the party, they try fighting again. The second demon challenges Monkey, who’s really sick of this shit by now. Piggy volunteers to fight this time. Piggy, being an idiot, promptly gets caught by the elephant demon, who drags him back to the cave with his trunk. Monkey sighs and goes off to save the day. Again.
Monkey kicks his ass in nothing flat, and he again bargains for his life by promising to take Sanzang across the mountain. “Alright, but this is the last time. You try this shit one more time, and I’ll rip your head off and piss in your throat, got it?” The demon nods and leaves.
They come back with the chair and yet another plan to weasel out of the deal. They carry the priest 150 miles to a great walled city. Something about it seems off and Monkey mutters “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” He hears something behind him, and turns to see the third demon swinging a massive halberd at his face. The other two demons attack Piggy and Ogre, and junior demons appear from the forest to carry Sanzang into the city. They fight all day, and Piggy finally makes a mistake and is, as always, captured. Ogre tries to break off his fight, and is caught as well, leaving Monkey to fight three to one.
He too is eventually caught, and all three are taken into the city. The third demon, proud that his plan worked, orders everyone tied up until they can be steamed and eaten. Piggy and Ogre are dragged into the steamer when Monkey makes his move. Monkey creates a shadow clone and switches places with it. The demons come back and put the fake Monkey in the steamer, none the wiser. They they put Sanzang in with everyone else to cook.
Monkey summons the Dragon King of the North Ocean to call in a favor. The dragon king turns himself into a cold wind, which blows under the steamer to keep it from heating up. Monkey figures that’s good enough for now, and leaves. That night, he hears that the demons couldn’t get the steamer working, so they just said fuck it and ate Sanzang raw. “Shit, I forgot that demons eat people raw, even though they swallowed me whole, so I should have realized.” He changes himself into a junior demon and finds Piggy and Ogre, who confirm the rumor. Sanzang is dead.
“Well, this is actually Buddha’s fault. If he really wanted to convert people, he should have just sent the scriptures east himself. This whole quest is bullshit, honestly, so I don’t feel at all guilty about abandoning my friend of a decade to death. Nope.” He knows he’s lying to himself, so he goes to Buddha to report the news. Which begs the question, if Monkey could just go there in the first place, why this ridiculous 14 year journey? There’s really no good answer to that except “Buddha said so”.
Monkey finds Buddha on his throne, and tells his story, wringing his tail miserably. “Don’t sweat it Monkey. Those were some tough demons. I’ll go handle them myself, which isn’t against the rules now because I say so.” He catches the elder two quickly, but the younger demon is slippery. Fed up, Buddha creates a lump of raw meat, which the demon snags out of the air because he’s a scavenger, and his instincts get the better of him. While the demon is occupied, Buddha destroys the muscles in the demon’s wings. Unable to get away, it reverts back to its true form, a golden vulture.
“Goddamn it, Monkey, why did you have to bring Buddha into this? All we wanted to do was kill and eat all of you, and we never even got to do that. That monk is still in the Brocade Fragrance Pavilion. I bet he would have been good steamed. Monkey opens the door to the room, and sees an iron trunk from which can be heard the sounds of a crying, terrified monk. Then Buddha goes back to where they are trying to go, leaving them to get there the long way round, because fuck you that’s why.
The group travels on, and finds the city that used to be Bhiksuland, but is not Boytown. Over the door of each house sits a little boy in a cage. One of them tells Monkey that three years ago, an old Taoist came to town with a gorgeous 15 year old (who looked like Kuan-Yin). She was presented to the king, because 15 was a very normal age to get married at that time, who proclaimed her the favorite of all his women and called her Queen Beauty. The king seems like kind of a lech.
He no longer cared about any of his other wives or concubines, and instead spent every day and night fucking her constantly. Just nonstop, animal fucking. He didn’t stop to eat or sleep, and started to waste away. The royal physician tried to cure him, but no luck. He can only stop during the time between firing a load and getting the next erection.
The old Taoist has apparently been working on a potion for years to make people live a very long time (not like there are dozens of other ways in this story alone, or anything), but he still needs one ingredient: the hearts of 1,111 little boys. Once he gives the king his potion, he’ll be able to keep fucking the girl for a thousand years. The king is enthusiastic, but the people are less so, what with it requiring the wholesale murder of his kingdom’s children.
Even so, the people are so afraid of the king and the Taoist that they don’t dare even be sad about having their kids butchered so the king can get some epic viagra. Monkey says “That is some sick shit, even for this trip” and asks a bunch of gods to hide the boys for a day or two. The Taoist finds the boys gone, and strangely isn’t upset. He recognizes the priest as having a pure soul, refined over 10 lifetimes, and a virgin to boot, so he’ll do even better.
Monkey, of course, turns himself into a fly and eavesdrops on this conversation. When Sanzang is summoned to the court, Monkey turns himself into Sanzang and goes instead.
“Look, Mr. Priest, I’ll cut right to the chase. I’m and I need your heart to make the medicine to cure me. Can we have it?” “Which one?” asked the fake Sanzang. “I have a few hearts, actually.” The king replied “Your black one.” Not Sanzang answered “Sounds fair. Go ahead and crack me open!” Relieved, the king ordered an official to give the fake monk a knife, who takes it, puffs out his chest, then cuts himself open just below the ribs. Out pour literally dozens of hearts. The king’s attendants are terrified, and one pukes all over his robes.
Fake Sanzang goes through the hearts: “a loyal red one, a pure white one, a greedy one, a fame-whore one, a jealous bitch one, a calculating one, a competitive one, an ambitious one, an overbearing one, a murderous one, a vicious one, a scared one, a cautious one, a heretical one, and a gloomy one. Sorry, King. Fresh out of black ones.”
The king is feeling sick. Well, sicker. “Put those away! They’re disgusting!” Monkey does so. “Sorry, Your Kinginess, but monk’s are good people. The only black heart in this room is your taoist adviser there!” Channeling a little Law and Order, Monkey turns to point dramatically at the Taoist, Elder of the Nation. Unfortunately, he gets so wrapped up in his little show that he forgets about his tail, which flops out. Elder recognizes Monkey now, and flees for his fucking life. He knows what Monkey is capable of.
“Don’t make me chase you, bitch!” Monkey leaps into the clouds after Elder. They fight, and Monkey is quickly getting the upper hand. Terrified, tries to run again. He parries Monkey, then turns into a beam of cold light and swoops into the Queen’s chambers. She, too, turns into cold light, and they both vanish.
They don’t run far enough, though, and the local god tells Monkey where they’re hiding. He rushes in and smacks them both upside the head, just as the Star of Longevity swoops in. “Don’t kill them, Monkey! They’re my messengers. I let them get away and become monsters. My bad.” The Star forces them to turn back into their true form, white deer.
The group leaves the king to deal with his poor health and a population that is sure to rise in revolt over the treatment of their children, but fuck it. Not their problem. They travel for a long time, and come to a towering mountain. They see a road going around the base, and decide to camp to let the horses rest. Monkey and Ogre go off to get food, leaving Sanzang with Piggy to meditate. Honestly, it’s like he has a death wish.
Surprising no one but the monk, once alone, he hears a women calling for help. He goes to investigate and finds her buried up to her waist and tied to a tree with creepers. A this point, even the story admits that this is obviously a trap, given everything that’s happened over the last decade, but that Sanzang is just too innocent to see it. At least it’s self aware.
The evil spirit spins a sob story and Sanzang starts to cry like someone kicked his puppy. He orders Piggy to untie the girl, and the idiot goes to do it. “I can’t leave you dumb shits alone for five minutes!” yells Monkey, having heard the exchange. “Don’t spring the fucking obvious trap for once!” “What they hell do you know?” yells back Sanzang, furious at not being able to help the damsel in distress. “How could you possibly thing that’s an evil spirit?”
“Maybe because I can remember the last decade? Or because before I converted, I used to pull this exact trick? Or because I can fucking see demon auras? How many reasons do you need?” Piggy choses this moment to pipe up and be a moron. “We’ve never seen her before, so she could be a local girl. You don’t KNOW she’s a demon. You’re just trying to get us to go on by so you can come back yourself later so you can rape and torture her yourself!” “Are you fucking serious?” asks Monkey? “How many times have I saved you from this exact trap? If I really wanted to rape and murder without you knowing, I wouldn’t be this fucking obvious about it! Besides, asshole, you’re the one that started off by kidnapping a girl to rape repeatedly so you could pretend to have a wife. That your schtick.”
“Nope, I can’t leave anyone tied up in the middle of the forest. Since she might not be a demon, untie her now.” Piggy does so, and Monkey face palms hard. She stands up out of the hole and happily follows the group out of the forest and back to the road. They go another 10 miles, and see a building as the sun begins to set. Sanzang is happy. “Awesome, that’s go to be a temple. Let’s stay there for the night.” Monkey face palms again, and quietly prepares to save everyone’s ass when this definitely turns out to be a demon lair.
They get to the gate of the Sea Guarding Monastery of Meditation, and Sanzang insists on going in alone to ask for lodging. Granted, they’re probably more likely to agree if they don’t know he has a bunch of reformed demons with him right away, but given how many times he’s been kidnapped in strange temples, you’d think he’d be a little more cautious. He’s taken to meet the abbot, who is shocked that Sanzang made it this far alone. “Oh, I’m not alone, I have three disciples with me. They’re waiting outside the gates.” The abbot spits out his tea. “Dear god, man! There are demons, bandits, ghosts, wolves, and tigers out there! I can’t believe you would leave them in danger like that!” He orders them brought inside.
They eat with the monks that night, and Sanzang feels sick the next morning, so they end up staying for three more days, with the entire party confined to quarters so the illness doesn’t spread. On the third day, they hear one of the monks saying “Did you hear? In the last three days, six young monks have been eaten by a monster!” I think it’s a little rude that they didn’t tell their guests that there was a monster stalking the halls. That seems like the kind of thing to make a big fucking deal about.
Monkey decides to hat up and fix this shit. He turns into a 12 year old monk and goes into the Buddha Hall to sit and chant as bait. He’s there for several hours before anything happens, but eventually, a roaring wind rises carrying the scent of perfume and incense. Slender, feminine arms slide around his waist. “You’re very diligent, little monk.” She stops his chant with a kiss. “It’s a beautiful night out, and we were fated to meet each other. Wanna go out to the garden and fuck?” Monkey thinks “Figures. Hormones got the best of them.”
Out loud, he says “Lady, I’m a monk, so I’m a virgin. I don’t know anything about, uh, love making.” She smiles seductively. “Then I shall teach you.” Monkey shrugs. “Alright. Let’s go.” As they enter the garden, she trips monkey to the ground, and makes a grab for his dick. “Are you trying to eat me or my dick, lady?” says Monkey, grabbing her arm as he falls and throwing her off balance as well. He comes up swinging, since Sanzang isn’t here to meddle.
The demon quickly realizes that this little kid is more monkey than monk, and falls back. She takes off her left shoe and turns it into a shadow clone, complete with a pair of wicked swords. The clone dashes at Monkey and attacks, while the real demon fades into the night. “If that cursed Monkey is here, then the priest should be available for some murder fucking.”
Monkey fights the clone and eventually manages to crush her skull, so he’s surprised when the body poofs into a shoe. “Goddamn it, I fell for my own fucking trick!” Monkey goes to Sanzang, but the man is gone. He asks the monks about the lady, but is told that she left after the first night. “Well,” says Monkey “since I was just fucking fighting her ass, I don’t think she did. I tried to warn everyone that she was a demon, since I have fucking magic sight, but nooooooooooo you all thought she was a good person because she flashed tits and a smile.
He then summons the local god and finds out that she has taken the monk a long ways away to the Bottomless Cave in Mount Pitfall. They decide to head out, and since the horse used to be a dragon, it flies along on the clouds with them. This again begs the question of why they’re taking the dangerous roads if they can all fucking fly hundreds of miles per hour. The answer again appears to be because Buddha said so.
They soon reach a towering mountain and land, following a trail along the mountain for another two miles. They see two she-monsters drawing water from a well, and decide to follow them. The two she-beasts lead the party six miles into the caves before abruptly disappearing. Monkey catches up, and sees an archway proclaiming this to be the Bottomless Cave. These demons really need to read the evil overlord list.
Monkey starts to just waltz in, but decides she might recognize him (not mention being surprised that a stranger is in a cave hidden miles underground), so he turns into a fly and buzzes himself in. He finds the priest sitting in a wooden trellis covered with opaque red paper. He buts a hole through the paper with sheer bloody mindedness, and lands on Sanzang’s head. “Hi, buddy. Believe me that she’s evil yet?” “Now’s not the time, Monkey. Get me out!” Monkey overheard one of the serving girl demons saying that she was going to get a bottle of wine for the demoness to seduce the priest with, so he instructs Sanzang to pour the wine very quickly so that it froths. Monkey will hide in the bubble and pull his favorite demon slaying game of internal organ acrobatics.
Sanzang does as instructed, but instead of drinking the Monkey-laced wine, she sets it down and proceeds to tell Sanzang how handsome he is and how much she loves him, eyes downcast as though embarrassed to be admitting this. By the time she finally picks up the glass, the bubbles are gone and a fly is clearly just floating in it. To her credit, she picks the fly out and flicks it away, but doesn’t let a little fly keep her from getting her drank on.
Monkey is pissed that his plan isn’t working, so he turns into an eagle and flies out, flipping tables and smashing pots on his way out. See, it’s an old trope. The demoness is frightened by the sudden sound, and clings to the priest, who is honestly scared himself since he also doesn’t know that it’s Monkey. A little while later, the fly buzzes back and lands in Sanzang’s ear to whisper.
“Alright, new plan. Convince her to go out into the garden for a little licking and fucking. She likes to fuck in the garden, don’t ask how I know that. I’ll go to the peach tree and turn into a red peach. Pick that one and offer it to her as a love token. She’ll eat me instead of your cock, and then I can get freaky with her insides in a different way.” The demon is distracted with talking to her servants for a picnic lunch, so he whispers “Why don’t you just fight her? I don’t want to end up having to actually have sex with her. That would for some reason be a fate worse than death!”
Monkey sighs. “Because she lives in a fucking rabbit warren of caves with god know how many other demons around who will be drawn to a fight. Trust me, lying and deceiving are better than a standup fight right now.
This time, everything goes exactly as planned, and Monkey finds himself holding the demon’s heart hostage from the inside again. She agrees to walk the priest out of the cave in return for Monkey getting out of her once that’s done. She carries the priest to the entrance sullenly. If it weren’t for the child murder, I’d say that this was completely unjustified. She’s really done nothing but really want to fuck Sanzang.
Once outside the cave with Piggy and Ogre again, she opens her mouth and Monkey jumps out. Expecting treachery, Monkey raises his staff to bash her face in, and in response she draws her swords. Monkey motions to Ogre and Piggy to watch Sanzang, and turns to fight. It’s not clear that she was actually going to start a fight until Monkey did, so again, I can’t help but wonder if this woman is really all that bad. You know, except for murdering and eating children.
Ogre and Piggy join the fight, and she realizes she’s fucked, and not in the fun way. She takes off her right shoe and throws it, once again changing it into a shadow clone. Then, she turns into a puff of wind and hides. Seeing Sanzang sitting alone on his horse, she sneaks up, bites through the bridle, and carries Sanzang back into the cave, horse and all. Piggy finally gets the better of the shoe and is stunned to see it turn into the shoe she threw. “Fuck me, did we really just fall for that trick again?” He whirls on the other two. “I had this. Why didn’t you stay and protect the priest like you were supposed to? I didn’t ask for your help!”
They go back into the cave looking for him, but the demon’s house is empty. They’re about to leave and search elsewhere, when Monkey smells her incense. He follows his nose, and comes to a small shrine. The table is carved with dragons, and holds the incense burner and two tablets, once to Honored Father, Heavenly King Li, and one to Elder Brother, Third Prince Nezha. Monkey hisses. “This bitch is from the jade court.”
He travels to heaven to complain to King Li about his daughter, who’s become an evil spirit. Li, Nezha, an army, and the party go back to the cave, where they find a secret door in the floor of one of the caves to another, smaller cave. Inside, they find a tiny, cute cottage with flowers growing out front. It’s domestic as shit. This is where she took Sanzang to force him to marry her. They find all of the junior demons in another cave, preparing the ceremony, and they charge in, and murder everyone, red wedding style. The bride and groom are still in the cottage, and when she sees her father, she flings herself to the ground to beg for mercy. The story doesn’t say whether she gets it, but given how every other demon has been treated, I tend to think she didn’t.
The party leaves the possible execution and travels on until they meet an old woman, who tells them that they are near to the capital of Dharmadestructia, and that the King there hates Buddhism. He vowed two years ago to kill 10,000 Buddhist monks, and has since killed 9,996 monks. He has apparently heard of the party, and figures that the four can provide a nice capstone to his mass murder project. The woman says that they must turn back, because they’re is no way around and they will surely die is they go inside.
Monkey, being Monkey decides to try stealth. He finds a nearby inn and steals the clothes of some laborers staying there. “Hey, guys, i found these clothes and hats just lying around, so I borrowed them. Let’s disguise ourselves as horse dealers and sneak on through!”
Thy spend the night in the city at the Widow Zhao’s Inn and decide to sleep in a trunk so that no one will see their bald heads and realize that they are monks. It was clever, but not clever enough, because in the night, thieves steal the trunk thinking it contains treasure. The bandits murder the city guards at the gate and let themselves out.
The death of the city police causes a huge uproar, and a force of infantry, calvary, and bowmen are dispatched to kill the bandits in retaliation. The bandits being not entirely stupid, realize that it’s suicide to try and fight. They ditch the heavy trunk by the roadside and split up to vanish into the nearby villages. The revenge force doesn’t find any bandits, but they do find the trunk, so they bring it back with them to the city. The group is still inside, having no idea what’s happening except what they’ve been able to hear of death and violence.
The trunk is placed in storage sealed and under guard until it can be brought to the king the next day for a decision as to what to do with it. Figuring that will get them all hate murdered, monkey drills a hole in the chest, turns into an ant, and climbs out. He sneaks out to the palace gates, pulls a bunch of hairs out of his arms, and changes them all into sleeping bugs. He summons the local god, who takes the bugs throughout the palace and the government offices so that everyone official will be asleep. Then he pulls more hairs, and turns them into tiny monkey clones with straight razors. At this point, you half expect Monkey to slit everyone’s throat and be done with it, but he’s learning restraint and does something far more clever. He has each of the monkeys shave the heads of the government officials.
When the king wakes the next morning, he looks over and sees that his queen is bald as an egg. “What the fuck, wife? Why did you shave your head like a monk?” The queen doesn’t say anything, but points at his head. “What, is there something on…my….” He feels his own bald pate. He rushes into the hall to figure out who’s head is going to roll for this, but sees that absolutely everyone has a shaved head. One of the senior advisors says “Your Highness, everyone has been turned into a monk. It’s because we killed all those monks.”
The king is forced to agree, and rules that henceforth, no more monks shall be killed, even though he was just four away from a full punch card, but whatever. It’s cool I guess. The next order of business is the trunk. The guards set it down and Piggy, getting a fucking cramp, bursts out of the trunk and stumbles out. Monkey, who snuck back inside trunk, helps Sanzang out, then Ogre. Sanzang is honest, and tells the king that they are monks on a holy quest, and that they slept in the trunk because of the king’s order about murdering them.
The king apologizes for the wholesale slaughter and says it’s because a monk said a mean thing to him once. That wasn’t a disproportionate response, no. He begs the monk to let the whole city convert to Buddhism, which Sanzang graciously accepts. He suggests that they change the country’s name from Dharmadestructia to Dharmarespectia, which is equally stupid sounding. Then they continue on their way.
They soon reach a towering mountain, and Sanzang has a bad feeling about it. For a change of pace, Monkey is the one saying that everything will be totally fine, no worries mate. Inevitably, there is a demon living on the mountain. This demon has a junior demon that used to live in Lion Cave (where the three demon brothers lived), so he knows who they are. He has a revenge plot to capture and eat the monks that killed his last bosses. “Pick your three best demons, who have to be good at transformations, and have them turn into your clones. Then, send one out to fight Monkey, one to fight Piggy, and one to fight Ogre. While the defenders are busy, we can sneak in and take the monk.” Not gonna lie, it’s a solid plan.
The plan goes off without a hitch, and Sanzang is once again in the clutches of demons. The king has his servants start the cooking pot to prepare to steam him so that they can all eat him. He’s smarter than some of the others since he isn’t waiting to do the deed. I guess someone finally read that Evil Overlord list.
The trio quickly tracks the cave down. Piggy hulks out and smashes a hole in the gates. “Give us Sanzang!” “Uh, we kind of ate him already, but you can have his head.” Sure enough, a severed head flies out of the hole to land at their feet. Sanzang’s glazed eyes stare up at Piggy in accusation. Monkey snorts. “Lame. It’s totally a fake. I’ve thrown enough severed heads around to know what they sound like. This one’s hollow.”
The servant panics that the ruse didn’t work and rushes to the king. “Piggy and Ogre are idiots, but that Monkey is some kind of cadaver connoisseur. He knew it was a fake because it didn’t sound right. Shit.” The trio rushes into the cave right behind the servant, and 100 junior demons launch into battle. They’re holding their own until Monkey rips out a handful of hair and changes them into shadow clone Monkeys, who surround the demons. They flee.
Monkey turns himself into a flying ant this time, and sails into the cave. He turns his clones into sleep insects, and puts the rest of the demons waiting in the cave to sleep. Then he flies until he sees a small door in the corner of the room. He squeezes under it, and sees two men tied up. He frees Sanzang, who insists that Monkey also free his new friend the woodcutter, who was captured and brought here the day before. They take him home, and then continue on their merry way. For once, the innocent bystander really was human. The party continues on and finally comes to the border of India.
Now that we’ve reached a major milestone in this fuckdiculous journey, it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s monster is the aptly named, Mongolian Death Worm, so called because its native name Olgoi-Khorkoi isn’t as metal. It means intestine worm, which is horrifying and accurate for way too many reasons. You know you’re in for a treat when the creature has a SyFy movie dedicated to it. And if there isn’t already a death metal band named Mongolian Death Worm, DIBS!
Like the Popo Bawa from Episode 2, the Death Worm is a cryptid, which means a lot of people believe that it exists, but hasn’t been officially discovered yet. For the western world, the story started in 1926, when American paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews wrote a book called On the Trail of Ancient Man. He tells of a gathering of officials in Mongolia, where he first heard the creature described. None of them had seen it personally, but everyone knew stories of those who had, were certain of its existence, and could describe the creature in minute detail.
The worms grow to between two and five feet long, with thick, supple bodies. The story, first told to Andrews in 1922 by the Mongolian Prime Minister Dambinbazar, described the creature as shaped like a sausage, with no head and no legs. It is so poisonous that to merely touch it means instant death. In short, its the possibly real world version of the sand worms from Dune or Tremors. The latter movie is actually based on the death worm, and has to be better than the SyFy original. It is said to live in the most remote parts of the Gobi desert, in Mongolia and China. It hibernates most of the year, only coming active around June and July, usually only surfacing after a rainfall (in the fucking desert), which is part of why so few have seen it.
Other accounts have described the creature as tunneling underground, creating waves of sand on the surface which can be seen, like water breaking around a shark fin. Of course, being rare and inactive isn’t the only reason so few have first hand accounts. It’s also deadly as shit. Its poisonous skin isn’t its only weapon. It can also spray venom at a large distance, or electrocute you with a electric discharge. It’s venom is corrosive enough to eat metal.
Some stories claim that the worm frequently preys on camels, laying its eggs in their intestines to later erupt in deathy, alienesque goodness. Supposedly, its birth in camel guts explains its red, glisten texture, like intestines come to horrible, horrible life. For some reason, it apparently really likes the color yellow, so maybe that’s why Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat never went to Mongolia.
In the early 90s, someone else noted the connection to the fictional Dune worms, and tried to find the real worms by creating a sand thumper machine like in the book. Predictably, it failed and Ivan Mackerle went home wormless. Most scientists have ruled it most likely to be sightings of completely mundane burrowing lizards or snakes, but can’t definitively rule out its existence, and there are an awful lot of sightings. Probably the most compelling is the blurry video of the creature, which can be found at National Geographic, if you’re curious.

That’s it for this episode of Myth Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher or on TuneIn, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. I want to thank Icy Hearted Witch 1990 for the review on iTunes. These reviews really help increase the show’s standing and let more people know it exists. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff, whom you can find on fiverr.com.

Next time, we’ll finally be reaching the fabled Vulture Peak, and the end of this epic myth. You’ll meet the Buddha’s mischievous servants with a mean-spirited sense of humor, the world’s least useful boat, proof that if you’re in a Chinese myth, you should never promise to do anything ever. Then, in Gods and Monsters, it’s the little old lady that’s the reason you aren’t born knowing language. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.