In the Journey to the West, the red child monopolized the dry pine stream fire cloud cave, almost ate the Tang monk, defeated Wukong, the eight precepts, and changed into Guanyin Bodhisattva, quite arrogant. In the end, Guanyin Bodhisattva asked Muzha to borrow Li Jing's Tiangang sword and use a golden hoop, which took in the red child and made him a boy of good fortune.
Regarding the red child, many people on the Internet discussed, such as why he spewed fire, why he was taken in by the bodhisattva, and so on.
In these discussions, many times the red child will be said to be the illegitimate son of Taishang Laojun, or Zhang Daoling or even Li Jing or the children of others.
In fact, the red child is not someone's illegitimate son, he is the child of the Bull Demon King and the Iron Fan Princess. He knew Samadhi True Fire because he himself had been cultivating in the Flame Mountain for three hundred years and had cultivated it himself. Moreover, the Samadhi True Fire is not anyone's exclusive secret, and Sun Wukong will also have samadhi fire.
Some people also said that the red child was the son of the Bull Demon King, but there was no appearance of a cow, which was definitely wrong.
Yes, if the red child is really the child of the Bull Demon King, why doesn't it look like a cow?
Let's take a look at the author's description of the appearance of the red child in the original work.
The face is as white as Fu powder, and the lips are like Zhu Yicai. The sideburns are cloudy and indigo- and the eyebrows are crescent-like knife cuts. The battle dress is skillfully embroidered with dragons and phoenixes, and the shape is richer than Nezha. The two-handed gun was fierce, and the auspicious light protector went out.
It can be found that the red child is handsome in appearance, and a table of talents, his face is richer than Nezha. More importantly, he also had the Auspicious Light Protective Body when he went out. Looking at it this way, he really doesn't look like a monster.
However, is it strange that the red child does not look like a cow? In fact, it is not strange, let's take a look at the appearance of his father bull demon king, and the appearance of his mother's iron fan princess, we can know.
Let's start with what the Bull Demon King looks like.
The Bull Demon King appeared very early and had married Goku as a brother, but the author did not write about his appearance at that time. Later, Goku fights the Bull Demon King for the sake of the Banana Fan, and the author writes the appearance of the Bull Demon King.
He wears a water-milled silver bright wrought iron helmet on his head, wears a pair of velvet gold armor, steps on a pair of roll-tipped foundation suede boots, and a three-strand lion belt with silk tied around his waist. One pair of eyes is like a mirror, and two eyebrows are like red neon. The mouth is like a blood basin, and the teeth are lined with copper plates.
Look at the appearance of the Bull Demon King, is there a little bit of a cow look? No, not at all.
Why doesn't the Bull Demon King have the appearance of a cow? In fact, we should ask: Who said that the Bull Demon King must have the appearance of an ox? You must know that the Bull Demon King is also more than a thousand years old, and although he is a cow into a spirit, he has already cultivated into a human form. Since it has become a human form, it naturally does not have the appearance of an ox.
In the 86 version of Journey to the West and Zhang Jizhong's version of Journey to the West, the Bull Demon King is the appearance of the bull's head and horns, but this is for the visual effect, so that the audience can know that he is a cow spirit and a cow devil king at a glance.
In the original work, it is not, the Bull Demon King is humanoid. If he is a minotaur, then he is not called a human form, it can only be called a minotaur, which belongs to the half-human and half-beast. If the Bull Demon King is half human and half beast, then it is still a fart demon king!
Therefore, the Bull Demon King is not like a cow at all.
Journey to the West many yokai are like this, once cultivated into human form, there can be no similarities with the body. For example, does the scorpion essence look like a scorpion? Does the rat spirit look like a mouse? Of course, some will also resemble the body, such as the black bear essence is very black.
Let's take a look at the appearance of the Iron Fan Princess.
When Sun Wukong borrowed the banana fan for the first time, he met with the Princess of the Iron Fan, and was also flown by the banana fan to Mount Meru, which was fifty thousand miles away, and Lingji Bodhisattva gave him a wind dan.
At that time, Goku saw the appearance of the Iron Fan Princess.
His head is wrapped in a flower handkerchief and he wears a NaJinyun robe. The waist is double-bundled with tiger tendons, and the slightly exposed embroidered skirt is partial. Three inches of phoenix bow shoes, gold pins of dragon whisker knee pants. The sword in his hand was louder and fiercer than yue po's appearance.
Obviously, the Iron Fan Princess did not look like a cow either.
Even Ruyi Zhenxian, the younger brother of the Bull Demon King, did not have the appearance of a cow.
Since neither the Bull Demon King nor the Iron Fan Princess have the appearance of a cow, why should the red child have the appearance of a cow? You know, although the Red Child looks like a child, he is at least three hundred years old, because he has been cultivating in the Flame Mountain for at least three hundred years.
It can be seen from this that after the red child cultivates into human form, it is completely normal to have no cow appearance.
Taking a step back, even if the red child did not cultivate human form, it was normal to look like a cow.
Because according to genetics, the son generally follows the mother, and the iron fan princess is not a monster who becomes an animal (the iron fan princess prototype is the Tang Dynasty's ghost mother and the iron fan fairy in the yuan miscellaneous drama Journey to the West), so it is normal for the red child to look outstanding.
In addition, the red child also has archetypal characters.
Ming Dynasty murals of Devil Mother and Ai Nu'er
Initially, the Devil Mother had a young son, named Ai Nu'er, who later became a fire child, and in journey to the West, she became a red child. Ai Nur is not a goblin, but a handsome boy. In some murals in the Ming Dynasty, there are ghost mothers, and there are love slaves around the ghost mothers, which is very cute.
In short, it is very normal for a red child to have no cow appearance, and it is strange if he really has the appearance of an ox.
Because if the red child has the appearance of an ox, it means that he has not yet cultivated into a human form, and if the red child can cultivate the true fire of Samadhi, he can burn Sun Wukong to the ground with a fire, and he has not yet cultivated into a human form, which is really strange.
Many readers think that Journey to the West is a famous book, it must be profound, this understanding itself is problematic, because Journey to the West is only a game novel. Even if it is a famous book, the profound place must lie in the practice, not in "the red child is the bastard son of the old king" and "the real Wukong was killed, and the sutra is a six-eared macaque monkey".
It is very sad to interpret the journey to the west in this way.
Because, such an interpretation does not allow you to understand the original work better than others, but it lowers the level of famous works. To study who had illegitimate children and who had a relationship with whom, it was better to look at the story before the journey to the west.