King Golden Horn

"If I call your name, do you dare answer?" Today, this phrase is a well-known internet joke, but in the thirty-third chapter of Journey to the West, it is a rule of life and death. If you answer, you are sucked into a gourd and dissolved into pus; if you do not, how long can you hold out? For the one calling your name will persist until your defenses crumble and the words slip from your lips. The inventor—or rather, the executor—of this rule is King Golden Horn of the Lotus Cave on Flat-Top Mountain. He is not a demon who relies on brute force; he wields the most luxurious treasury of magical treasures in the entire book, waging a war of equipment suppression. What is even more chilling is that this demon's identity is a facade, his descent to the mortal realm was prearranged, and even the terrifying treasures in his hands are merely borrowed. Sun Wukong's battle on Flat-Top Mountain was not a fight for survival, but an examination—the examiners were Guanyin and Taishang Laojun, the test consisted of five magical treasures, and the passing grade was simply walking out alive.

Taishang Laojun's Two Furnace Boys: Borrowed Identities

The true identity of King Golden Horn is not fully revealed until the thirty-fifth chapter, when Taishang Laojun personally descends to the mortal realm. Laojun tells Wukong: "Those two monsters, one was my boy who tended the gold furnace, and the other was my boy who tended the silver furnace." With a single sentence, the great demons who had caused such turmoil over the previous four chapters were reduced to their original forms—mere servants who tended furnaces in the Tusita Palace.

This disparity in status is the core tension of the Flat-Top Mountain narrative. In the Lotus Cave, King Golden Horn commanded hordes of demons, arranged battle formations, and deployed five magical treasures, possessing an imposing air befitting a true Demon King. He had King Silver Horn as a partner, a swarm of lesser demons as henchmen, and had even adopted a fox spirit as a foster mother—a complete and organized entourage. Yet, all of this was a temporary stage. In the thirty-fifth chapter, when Laojun reclaimed the treasures, he stated clearly: "Every one of these is my treasure, stolen by these two beasts to be used here." Note the word "stolen"—though he later changed his wording, saying Guanyin had asked to "borrow" them—the vacillation in terminology is itself intriguing. Was it theft or a loan? Even Laojun himself was unclear, or perhaps unwilling to be clear.

The celestial identities of Golden Horn and Silver Horn determine one thing: their purpose in descending to the mortal realm was not to eat the flesh of Tang Sanzang, but to create a sufficiently perilous situation to force the pilgrimage party to prove their abilities in the face of desperation. At the beginning of the thirty-second chapter, the Day Merit Officer transforms into a woodcutter to warn Wukong that there is a "Demon King ahead with immense divine powers." The fact that the Heavenly Palace's own intelligence system proactively leaked information proves that this ordeal was a "staged difficulty." If a demon truly intended to take Tang Sanzang's life, the Heavenly Palace would never provide an advance warning.

However, "staged" does not mean "safe." The treasures in the hands of Golden Horn and Silver Horn were genuine celestial instruments of Laojun. The Purple-Gold Red Gourd could contain all things in heaven and earth, and the Mutton-Fat Jade Vase could dissolve humans into pus. Had Wukong made a single mistake, this examination would have resulted in actual casualties. It was like a military exercise conducted with live ammunition: by the rules, it was a drill; in effect, it could be lethal. Laojun later reclaimed the treasures with a dismissive ease, as if nothing had happened, but throughout those four chapters, Tang Sanzang was captured, Zhu Bajie was bound, Sha Wujing was tied up, and Wukong himself was nearly trapped in the gourd. For those involved, the fear and danger were entirely real.

The only reason two furnace boys could stir up such a storm in the mortal world was the treasures. Without those five items, the martial arts of Golden Horn and Silver Horn were mediocre. In the thirty-fourth chapter, when Wukong fought Silver Horn one-on-one, they fought for "thirty rounds" without a clear victor; there was no overwhelming dominance. The ordeal of Flat-Top Mountain was not due to the demons' prowess, but the power of the treasures. The two boys were merely the couriers of these items; the true threat emanated from Taishang Laojun's Tusita Palace.

The Five Magical Treasures: The Book's Most Luxurious Arsenal

Most demons in Journey to the West possess only one decent treasure. Red Boy relies on the True Samadhi Fire, the Yellow Wind Demon on the Samadhi Divine Wind, and the Scorpion Spirit on the horse-toppling poison spike—one demon, one specialty; this is the norm. But Golden Horn and Silver Horn broke this rule: they brought five magical treasures down to the mortal realm at once.

These five treasures are: the Purple-Gold Red Gourd, the Mutton-Fat Jade Vase, the Seven-Star Sword, the Plantain Fan, and the Gold Illusion Rope.

The Purple-Gold Red Gourd and the Mutton-Fat Jade Vase are the core weapons, and their functions are nearly identical—they call a person's name, and if the target answers, they are sucked inside and soon dissolved into pus. Having two treasures that do the same thing seems redundant, but it is actually a "double-insurance" design: if one is stolen, the other remains. In fact, Wukong did steal one first, but the other still posed a threat. Had he not successfully swapped all five, Wukong could never have won.

The Seven-Star Sword is a melee weapon. The original text describes King Silver Horn "holding the Seven-Star Sword" as he clashed with Wukong. This sword has the lowest presence among the treasures, but it fills a critical gap—when the other treasures cannot be deployed in time (such as in close-quarters combat), the Seven-Star Sword serves as the final line of defense.

The Plantain Fan here is not the one used by Princess Iron Fan at the Flaming Mountain—which could "extinguish fire with one wave, create wind with two, and bring rain with three"—but the one Laojun used to stoke the fires of his alchemy. In the thirty-fifth chapter, Laojun says while reclaiming it: "That Plantain Fan was used by me to stoke the fire." The function of this fan is to create fire attacks, used during the battle of Flat-Top Mountain to coordinate with other treasures for combined strikes.

The Gold Illusion Rope was originally... no, the Gold Illusion Rope was the belt Laojun used to tie his robe. In the thirty-fifth chapter, Laojun clarifies: "The Gold Illusion Rope is one of my robe-tying belts." A belt, once in the hands of a demon, became a treasure for binding people—this transformation of function is quite imaginative. In battle, the Gold Illusion Rope served as a means of control: binding the opponent so they could not move, allowing them to be collected by the gourd or the vase.

These five treasures formed a complete tactical system: the Gold Illusion Rope handled control (binding), the Purple-Gold Red Gourd and Mutton-Fat Jade Vase handled the harvest (capturing), the Seven-Star Sword handled melee, and the Plantain Fan handled area-of-effect attacks. The logic of this configuration is less like a demon brawl and more like the armament of a well-trained army—combining long and short range, offense and defense, and primary and backup systems. That two furnace boys could coordinate such a system suggests they learned more than just furnace-tending in the Tusita Palace.

Even more noteworthy is that all five treasures were Taishang Laojun's personal effects. The gourd held elixirs, the vase held water, the sword was a personal accessory, the fan stoked fires, and the rope tied a robe—all everyday utensils that became lethal weapons in the mortal realm. This implies a chilling fact: the daily objects of the Upper Realm are weapons of mass destruction to the mortal world. A fan Laojun used to stoke a fire could burn down a mountain in the human realm; a belt he used to tie his robe could bind the Great Sage Equal to Heaven until he could not budge. The power gap between heaven and man is vividly demonstrated through these five magical treasures.

"Do You Dare Answer When I Call Your Name?": The Combat Rules of Sound as a Weapon

Most battles in Journey to the West follow a basic model: two opponents draw their weapons and fight; whoever possesses the superior martial arts wins. Occasionally, magical treasures are involved, but they usually operate on a physical level—the Ruyi Jingu Bang smashes down, the Nine-Toothed Rake scrapes, or a divine sword slashes. However, the Purple-Gold Red Gourd and the Mutton-Fat Jade Vase created an entirely new set of combat rules: sound as a weapon.

The rule is simple: hold the gourd (or vase) upside down and call out the opponent's name. The moment the opponent answers with a "Yes" or "I am here," they are instantly sucked into the treasure. Chapter 33 describes it clearly: "(Yinjiao) turned the bottom of the gourd toward the sky and the mouth toward the ground, and called out, 'Sun Xingzhe!' Xingzhe could not help but answer, and with a 'whoosh,' both man and staff were sucked into the gourd." What happens after they are taken in? "In less than a quarter-hour, they are dissolved into pus and blood."

Why is this rule so terrifying? Because it bypasses all traditional metrics of combat power. No matter how high your martial arts, how many transformations you possess, or how fast your Somersault Cloud, the moment you "answer," it is over. This is an attack on identity—it does not strike the body, but rather the instinctive reaction to one's own name. When a person hears someone call their name, the first impulse is to respond; it is something hardwired into human nature. The magical treasure exploits exactly this instinct.

Wukong fell victim to this during his first encounter with the gourd. He knew the rules, yet he "could not help but answer"—the phrase "could not help" is written with extreme precision. This is not a failure of intelligence, but a failure of instinct. If you tell a person "do not blink," they will still blink; if you tell Wukong "do not answer," he will still answer. The connection between a name and the self is so deep that even the Great Sage Equal to Heaven cannot sever it.

Wukong later found the solution: changing his name. In Chapter 34, while disguised as a small demon to steal the gourd, the opponent attempted to test the gourd's authenticity by calling his name. Wukong improvised a fake name, "Xingzhe Sun." When called as "Sun Xingzhe," he did not answer—because at that moment, he was no longer "Sun Xingzhe"; he was "Xingzhe Sun." This solution was incredibly clever: the treasure recognizes the correspondence between a name and a person. As long as you temporarily alter that correspondence, the treasure becomes useless.

This set of rules is almost unprecedented in literary history. Western fantasy traditions have the concept of "True Names"—knowing the true name of an elf or demon allows one to control it—but that is "knowing the name = gaining power." The logic of the Purple-Gold Red Gourd, however, is "calling the name + the opponent's response = triggering the harvest." Both parties must participate; neither can be missing. It is not unilateral control, but a trap that requires the victim's "cooperation." This design creates immense narrative tension: the audience knows the character must not answer, yet as they watch Wukong step toward that inevitable moment of "not being able to help himself," a sense of anxiety arises that pure martial arts scenes cannot produce.

The 1986 television series turned this plot point into the classic line, "Do you dare answer when I call your name?" which spread throughout the Chinese-speaking world. However, the horror in the original text is far deeper: in the novel, being trapped in the gourd leads to being dissolved into pus—it is not imprisonment, but dissolution. Your body is in a sealed, dark space, slowly broken down into liquid. Wu Cheng'en did not describe this process in detail, but the reader's imagination automatically completes the image.

The Intelligence Network of Lotus Cave: A Portrait of Sun Wukong

An easily overlooked detail in the story of Flat-Top Mountain is that Gold Horn and Silver Horn's knowledge of the pilgrimage party far exceeds that of typical demons.

In Chapter 32, two small demons, "Fine Ghost" and "Clever Bug," are ordered to patrol the mountain. King Golden Horn's instructions are not a simple "capture any monk you see," but specifically identify the targets as "the Master Tripitaka of the Eastern Land Tang and his three disciples." More crucially, King Silver Horn produces a portrait—"depicting the likenesses of Tang Sanzang, Sun Xingzhe, Zhu Bajie, and Sha Wujing"—so the demons can identify them by sight.

How could a group of demons entrenched on Flat-Top Mountain possess portraits of the pilgrimage party? This is unique within the entirety of Journey to the West. Other demons usually gather intelligence through hearsay—hearing that "a monk has come from the East, and eating his flesh grants immortality"—and then wait for them to arrive. Gold Horn and Silver Horn, however, had conducted thorough intelligence preparation: they knew how many targets there were, what each looked like, and what each was named.

There is only one explanation for this level of accuracy: it was provided by the Heavenly Realm. Gold Horn and Silver Horn were originally Laojun's attendants; before descending to the mortal realm, they already knew everything about the pilgrimage party. This information was public knowledge in Heaven, as the quest for scriptures was a major project jointly launched by the Buddha and Guanyin, known to all the immortals. The two attendants did their homework before descending, drawing the targets' likenesses to distribute to their subordinates. This level of meticulousness suggests they were executing a carefully planned mission.

The existence of the portraits also creates a dramatic effect: it presents a new challenge to Wukong's transformation arts. Previously, Wukong could pass through by transforming into someone else, but since the demons of Gold Horn and Silver Horn possessed standard portraits, the effectiveness of his transformations was diminished. In Chapter 33, when Wukong transforms into a small demon to scout for information, he is exceptionally careful—he does not just become any random person, but chooses a demon who had already been beaten to death to impersonate, ensuring there wouldn't be a slip-up involving "two of the same person."

Beyond intelligence gathering, Gold Horn and Silver Horn's tactical deployment far exceeds the average. They do not sit in their cave waiting for the party to deliver themselves; instead, they take the initiative: sending demons to scout, setting ambushes once the target's location is confirmed, and dividing labor—Silver Horn fights on the front lines while Gold Horn commands from the rear. This planned, divided, and intelligence-backed method of warfare makes the ordeal of Flat-Top Mountain appear exceptionally "professional" among the eighty-one tribulations.

Wukong's Three Thefts of Treasures: A Classic Battle of Wit Over Strength

The battle of Flat-Top Mountain is the fight with the highest element of intellectual combat in all of Journey to the West. Wukong does not win by outfighting Gold Horn and Silver Horn, but by stealing and swapping their treasures, using their own methods against them.

The First Theft: The Gold Illusion Rope. In Chapter 33, Wukong transforms into a small demon to infiltrate Lotus Cave and seizes the opportunity to steal the Gold Illusion Rope. However, he does not know how to use it; "he knew how to bind people but not how to release them," and the rope was subsequently reclaimed by Silver Horn. This failure is significant—it demonstrates that a magical treasure cannot be used simply by possessing it; one must also know the incantations and techniques. Wukong could steal the object, but he failed to steal the manual.

The Second Theft: The Purple-Gold Red Gourd. This is the most brilliant sequence in the Flat-Top Mountain arc. In Chapter 34, Wukong transforms into an old Taoist and approaches the subordinates of Gold Horn and Silver Horn with a fake gourd, claiming his gourd can "contain the sky." The demons are skeptical, so Wukong demonstrates on the spot—having previously arranged for the North Sea Dragon King to cooperate, the Dragon King darkened half the sky, and then Wukong blew into the gourd, and the sky was "contained" (in reality, the Dragon King simply withdrew the spell, and the light returned). The demons believe him, thinking a gourd that can contain the sky must be more powerful than the Purple-Gold Red Gourd, and they trade the real one for the fake.

The brilliance of this scam lies in Wukong's exploitation of the demons' greed. While Gold Horn and Silver Horn are shrewd, their subordinates have limited experience—a gourd that can "contain the sky" is so shocking to them that they completely forget to verify its authenticity. Wukong's transformation arts are not used here for fighting, but for a "social engineering" attack—he did not breach the walls of Lotus Cave, but rather the cognitive defenses of the demons.

The Third Theft: The Mutton-Fat Jade Vase. After obtaining the Purple-Gold Red Gourd, Wukong uses the same logic—transformation, deception, and exploiting the opponent's information gap—to trick them into giving up the Mutton-Fat Jade Vase. By this point, the two most lethal weapons of Gold Horn and Silver Horn have fallen into Wukong's hands.

Once the treasures change hands, the roles of attacker and defender are completely reversed. Holding the Purple-Gold Red Gourd, Wukong calls out to King Golden Horn: "King Golden Horn!" Even King Golden Horn cannot resist his own treasure—the same rule, the same instinctive reaction, the same "could not help but answer"—and with a "whoosh," he is sucked into the very treasure he once took such pride in.

The irony of this conclusion is profound: King Golden Horn is defeated by his own weapon. The more arrogant he had been—capturing Tang Sanzang, binding Bajie and Wujing, and nearly containing Wukong—the more pathetic his end becomes. Furthermore, the manner in which he is captured is identical to how he captured others: the call of the name, the answer, and the suction. The entire process forms a perfect loop: the creator of the rules is destroyed by those same rules.

Wukong's victory at Flat-Top Mountain is one of the few in the entire book where he wins "entirely on his own." He does not ask Guanyin for help, seek reinforcements from the Heavenly Host, or borrow treasures from Bodhisattvas—he relies solely on transformation, eloquence, and adaptability. This battle proves one thing: when an opponent's advantage lies entirely in their equipment, stealing the equipment is equivalent to stealing the victory. And in all of Journey to the West, only Sun Wukong is capable of such a feat.

Laojun Descends to Recover His Own: An Exam with a Prewritten Script

In the thirty-fifth chapter, just as Wukong has used the magical treasures to subdue Golden Horn and Silver Horn and is feeling triumphant and ready to set out, Taishang Laojun descends from the heavens. He has not come to help—he has come to collect his goods.

Laojun's entrance is quite interesting. He does not descend slowly atop his Green Bull, but arrives "in a great hurry"—as if fearing Wukong might have broken his treasures. Upon seeing Laojun, Wukong's first reaction is not respect, but an interrogation: "How could you let your own kin become demons and harm others?" The subtext of this question is: You knew perfectly well that your boys had descended to the mortal realm as demons; why did you do nothing?

Laojun's answer serves as the final explanation for the entire story of Flat-Top Mountain: "The Bodhisattva of the Sea asked me three times, and only then did I consent." Guanyin Bodhisattva had asked to borrow his servants three times before he agreed to let two boys descend to the mortal world. This word "borrow" defines the nature of the entire affair as a transaction: Guanyin needed a difficult challenge to test the pilgrimage party, but she lacked the necessary cards in her own hand (or it was inconvenient for her to act personally), so she borrowed two boys and five magical treasures from Laojun.

This explanation raises several key questions.

First, why did Guanyin need to borrow Laojun's people? She had Sudhana and the Dragon Maiden, as well as Huian Walker under her command; why not send her own? The answer may be that her own people would be too easily seen through. The "tribulations" on the road to the scriptures needed to seem authentic; if Wukong discovered the demons were Guanyin's subordinates, the purpose of the exam would be lost. Using Laojun's people had one advantage: there is sufficient distance between the Daoist and Buddhist systems, making it less likely for Wukong to associate the event with a "prearranged plan."

Second, why did Laojun agree? The fact that he "consented only after being asked three times" indicates that he initially refused—handing over two boys and five private magical treasures to someone else's disposal was a significant risk. He eventually agreed for several possible reasons: first, it is difficult to refuse Guanyin's request (the Buddhist and Daoist schools were in a cooperative partnership for the pilgrimage project); second, it benefited him as well—if the two boys experienced the mortal world for a time, they might return more obedient. In hindsight, Laojun's attitude when recovering the boys was indeed like that of a parent retrieving two mischievous children who had been caught, without any severe punishment.

Third, did Golden Horn and Silver Horn know they were pawns? The original text does not explicitly state this. However, judging by their behavior in the mortal realm, they acted more like "actual demons" than "actors in a play": they truly wanted to eat Tang Sanzang's flesh (the thirty-third chapter explicitly mentions "steaming him to eat"), they truly wanted to kill Wongkong, and they truly took a vixen as a godmother to expand their power. If all of this were a performance, their acting was far too realistic. A more plausible explanation is that after descending, they were corrupted by mortal desires, and the nature of the immortal boys gave way to the ambition of demon kings. When Laojun called them "beasts" upon recovering them, it was less a scolding for stealing treasures to descend and more a rebuke for forgetting who they were.

The process of Laojun recovering his treasures was extremely concise: "With a single point of his finger at the two boys, they instantly turned into two streams of true qi and flew swiftly into Laojun's sleeve." There was no struggle, no resistance—because they were essentially Laojun's appendages; recovering them was as natural as recovering his own shadow. The five magical treasures also returned to their places: the gourd returned to hold elixirs, the pure vase returned to hold water, the fan returned to stoke fires, the rope returned to bind robes, and the sword returned to the waist—the daily order of the heavenly realm was restored, as if that thrilling battle in the mortal world had never happened.

Guanyin's Request and Laojun's Cooperation: The Behind-the-Scenes Buddhist-Daoist Deal

On the surface, the story of Flat-Top Mountain is about Wukong fighting demons, but beneath that lies a power operation based on Buddhist-Daoist cooperation. This operation involves three levels.

The first level is the "design of the exam." Guanyin Bodhisattva is the executive director of the pilgrimage project—Rulai Buddha set the general direction of the journey to the West, and Guanyin was responsible for the specific operations. The eighty-one tribulations on the road were her "list of exam questions." However, Guanyin's own resources were limited—she could not personally arrange every tribulation, so she needed to "outsource" some of the questions to other systems. The Flat-Top Mountain question was outsourced to the Daoist system.

The second level is the "allocation of resources." What Guanyin borrowed from Laojun was not just two boys, but a complete "exam kit": two examiners and five pieces of equipment. The scale of this resource allocation is rare among the eighty-one tribulations—most obstacles are caused by mounts that have descended from heaven (Green Bull Spirit is Laojun's bull, Golden-Haired Hou is Guanyin's mount), where one demon with one magical treasure is usually sufficient. Flat-Top Mountain suddenly deployed two demons and five treasures; such a high specification indicates that the "point value" of this question was very high—it required not just martial prowess to pass, but intellectual wit.

The third level is the "Buddhist-Daoist tacit understanding." The pilgrimage is a Buddhist project, and Daoism is nominally a bystander. However, the Flat-Top Mountain story reveals a fact: the Daoist participation in this project was far deeper than it appeared on the surface. Laojun not only lent people and treasures, but the timing of his descent to recover them was also perfect—neither too early nor too late, arriving exactly after Wukong had used the treasures to subdue Golden Horn and Silver Horn. Had he come a step earlier, Wukong would have had no chance to demonstrate his intellectual combat abilities; had he come a step later, Wukong might have already opened the gourd and turned Golden Horn into liquid (in which case Laojun would have truly lost a servant). This precise timing shows that Laojun had been "watching the battle"—he knew what was happening in the mortal realm and was waiting for the right moment to intervene.

The deeper question is: why go to such trouble? Could Guanyin not have simply arranged a hardship for the pilgrimage party herself? Why involve Laojun? One possible reason is the "avoidance of conflict of interest"—since Guanyin was both the examiner and the protector of the pilgrimage party, if she arranged the hardships and then solved them herself, the value of the eighty-one tribulations would be diminished. Introducing Laojun as a third party was equivalent to introducing an "independent examiner": I wrote the question, but the examiner is not my person, and whether the student passes depends on the examiner's judgment. This gave the entire examination process more credibility—at least on the official records of the Heavenly Palace.

This mechanism of Buddhist-Daoist cooperation appears repeatedly in Journey to the West, but the Flat-Top Mountain story demonstrates it most thoroughly. The tragedy of Golden Horn and Silver Horn (if it can be called a tragedy) was that they believed they were demon kings, when in fact they were pawns; they believed they were fighting a life-and-death struggle, when in fact they were merely completing a procedure for two powerful figures. Their ferocity was real, their fear was real, and their failure was real—but all of this occurred within a framework with a predetermined outcome.

Related Characters

• King Silver Horn: The younger brother of King Golden Horn and the boy who tended the furnace for Taishang Laojun. Together, they descended to the mortal realm to occupy the Lotus Cave on Flat-Top Mountain; King Silver Horn was responsible for campaigning abroad, while King Golden Horn guarded the cave. Silver Horn's martial arts were slightly superior to Golden Horn's, and he handled most of the direct confrontations with Wukong. Ultimately, both were reclaimed by Taishang Laojun to the Heavenly Realm.

• Taishang Laojun: The original master of Golden Horn and Silver Horn, and the true owner of the five magical treasures. He agreed to lend the boys and the treasures to Guanyin to test the pilgrimage party, and descended to the mortal realm to reclaim everything once Wukong emerged victorious. Laojun's role in this affair was that of the "resource provider" and "final arbiter"—he provided the tools for the examination and decided when the test should end.

• Guanyin: The true architect of the ordeal at Flat-Top Mountain. She requested to borrow the boys and the treasures from Taishang Laojun three times, with the aim of creating a sufficiently grueling trial for the pilgrimage group. Although Guanyin never appeared directly in this episode, she was the driving force behind the scenes—the initial impetus for Golden Horn and Silver Horn's descent to the mortal realm came from her "request."

• Sun Wukong: The primary adversary of Golden Horn and Silver Horn. During the battle at Flat-Top Mountain, Wukong demonstrated the highest level of intellectual combat seen in the entire book—rather than relying on brute force, he used transformation arts and deception to steal and swap the five treasures one by one, eventually using the enemy's own methods against them by using the Purple-Gold Red Gourd to subdue King Golden Horn.

• Fox King Seven: The foster mother Golden Horn and Silver Horn adopted in the mortal realm, who is a Fox Spirit. Her presence indicates that after descending to the mortal realm, Golden Horn and Silver Horn quickly integrated into demon society and established a localized social network—adopting foster parents and paying respects to local powers, behaving no differently than true demons.

• Tang Sanzang: The target of Golden Horn and Silver Horn—at least on the surface. Tang Sanzang was captured and taken into the cave at Flat-Top Mountain, but he suffered no substantial harm. From the perspective of the "examination," Tang Sanzang's capture was part of the test: it examined whether Wukong could remain calm and respond effectively under the pressure of his master being captured.

• Zhu Bajie: During the battle at Flat-Top Mountain, he was nearly killed when King Silver Horn used magic to drop Mount Sumeru, Mount Emei, and Mount Tai upon him. In this battle, Bajie's weaknesses were exposed—his laziness while patrolling the mountain and how easily he was seen through by the demons—forming a sharp contrast with Wukong's ingenuity.

• Sha Wujing: Captured and taken into the Lotus Cave along with Tang Sanzang. Sha Wujing's role in the story of Flat-Top Mountain remained consistent—loyal but lacking the ability to solve problems independently, serving primarily as an object to be rescued.