In the famous The Journey to the West, the relationship between the gods and the demons seems quite subtle.

In the reader's inertial memory, the two should be seriously opposed groups.

Immortals and Buddhists either live in the Heavenly Palace, that is, the "supreme scenic spot", or in the pure land of the West. Whenever they come to the world, wherever they go, they will be accompanied by fragrant rain and peaceful wind.

Demons mostly live in caves and don't pay much attention to personal hygiene. The surrounding environment is mostly "messy". Wherever they go, it is bound to be overcast and surrounded by hidden interests, and the air is filled with anxiety.

Of course, their functions are quite different. Immortals and Buddhists are in charge of the good and bad fortune of the world, while demons seem to be the troublemakers.

Because of this, in the fifty-seventh session of The Journey to the West, Guanyin Bodhisattva hinted to the Monkey King that "it is your merit to kill monsters and ghosts".

Bodhisattva's words have the demeanor of decent people in the Jianghu in martial arts novels, which seems to indicate the incompatible opposition between the good and evil factions.

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Throughout the journey to the west, it seems that the gods and demons are not completely opposite, and there is even some vague intimate relationship between them.

For example, Wan Zishan, the yellow-robed king of Bo Yueqiang who put the Tathagata's proud disciple Tang Yan to death, is the Kuixing Wood Wolf God in the sky. Wang Jinjiao and Wang Yinjiao, who used to occupy the mountain in Pingdingshan and almost killed the Monkey King with three mountains, are two fairies who are in charge of the Bagua Furnace by the old gentleman in Taishang, while the green lion essence and white elephant essence entrenched in the Lion Tuoling are actually mounts of Samantabhadra and Manjusri Bodhisattva, and they eat privately. He is also a cheap maternal uncle of the Tathagata Buddha. As for Tongtianhe, he must eat a pair of virgin goldfish essence every year, which is actually a goblin pet kept in the lotus pond of Guanyin Bodhisattva.

Such cases abound in novels.

More interestingly, such decent people as Tathagata Buddha, Taishang Laojun, Guanyin Bodhisattva, who show their glorious images in The Journey to the West, almost all of their private social relations are closely related to demons. According to this logical thinking, the gods, buddhas and demons in the mythical world seem to be one.

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The most interesting thing is the change of the Monkey King's identity.

This fellow came to arrest his heavenly soldiers and generals, such as Li Tianwang and his son, the giant spirit god, etc., when he was in the chaos in Huaguoshan. It was very unkind to keep his mouth shut as soon as he met. Seeing Wukong serving in heaven twice, the names around him seem to have changed.

To Bi, the subordinate of Tian Ding, the handyman of the Imperial Horse Prison, saw him and bowed down in succession, calling him the immortal Lord.

It's even worse when you are the Monkey King. "Nine Obsidian Stars, Five Generals, Twenty-eight Hosts, Four Heavenly Kings, Twelve Chen Yuan, Five Elders, Universe Stars and Hehan Gods all treat each other as brothers and call each other." At least on the surface, they are great.

Therefore, in a sense, God, Buddha and demon are one. The change of name stems from the change of identity. Even the Jade Emperor seems to acquiesce in the existence of this gray rule. For example, the Kuimu Wolf, a demon in the lower bound, has done a lot of bad things in the past ten years, robbing cloth and ignoring human life. At dawn, the Jade Emperor only made a little punishment and sent it to the palace to light a fire for the old gentleman for a few days, but he resumed the life of a fairy as a show. The Monkey King, for example, has a personality. When Heaven became an official, the Jade Emperor called him a fairy monkey. When the lower bound was in trouble, he was furious and changed his name to a demon monkey.

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Journey to the West's description of the unity of gods and demons probably has something to do with the birth of the novel. Journey to the West was formed in the middle of Ming Dynasty, when the social atmosphere was already very dirty. Probably because the fish didn't stand upright.

Wu Cheng'en, the author of the novel, lived mainly in Jiajing period. Emperor Jiajing is very famous in history. He asked questions all day, which led to "pretending to be a lucky minister". For example, Harry, a straight minister, once mercilessly scolded him, "I want to live forever, and there is no love between father and son, monarch and minister, and husband and wife." Emperor Jiajing had a man named Yan Song, who was a cabinet official and was also very famous. The History of Ming Dynasty listed Yan Song as one of the six treacherous court officials in Ming Dynasty, saying that he was "only interested in flattery, stealing power and bending the law". This kind of scandal between monarch and minister is still mentioned, and the so-called bad news spreads for thousands of years.

In this environment, the atmosphere of the ruling and opposition parties is certainly not much better. No wonder Wu Cheng'en resentfully satirized the Song Dynasty in the poem "Song of Jiro Search Tu Shan", saying, "People's disasters dig clothes, not for apes and cranes. Sitting in the song room with the five ghosts, I didn't see the four murderers in court. Ye Fu was very grateful, but he felt sorry for his kindness. Wear an evil knife on your chest. You can't hate it. Save the moon has a goal to save the Japanese bow. Are there no heroes in the world? Who can make some contribution to Lin Feng for me and make it last for ten thousand years? "

This scene of "being an official and being a thief" is probably the alienation of the integration of gods and demons in Journey to the West.

No wonder Guanyin Bodhisattva once turned into a green wolf spirit and made trouble in black wind mountain in the seventeenth cycle of The Journey to the West. When the Monkey King saw this, he joked, "Wonderful, wonderful! Or goblin bodhisattva, or