The Great Sage caused havoc in Heaven and the Jade Emperor ordered Heavenly soldiers and generals to punish him. But no one could manage to subdue him. Then the Lord Lao Zi threw his Diamond Jade bracelet at the Monkey King, who was then preoccupied with fighting the God Erlang, and it hit him neatly on the head. Thus the Great Sage was caught.

The Jade Emperor wanted to execute him but failed to inflict 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 elixir, 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.

Leaping out of the Eight Trigrams Furnace