Deer-Power Great Immortal

By chapter 46, a headless tiger already lies on the execution platform. Tiger-Power Great Immortal has just died in the beheading contest, and the court of Chechi Kingdom is pale with shock. The Deer-Power Great Immortal watches the corpse return to tiger form and feels the ground shift under him, but he does not retreat. He steps forward and asks for the second contest: disembowelment. He believes his skill is real. He has practiced the art of opening the belly, removing the organs, and putting them back again. But he does not expect Sun Wukong to turn into an eagle, drop from the sky, and carry the organs away in one strike.

The deer's skill: rainmaking and disembowelment

His true form is a white deer spirit. Like the others in the trio, he rises to power in Chechi Kingdom through rainmaking. The three Great Immortals work together, but the tiger stands first, the deer second, and the ram third. The order is not about magic alone; it is about animal force. Tiger is the fiercest, deer is in the middle, and sheep is weakest.

The Deer-Power Great Immortal is awkwardly placed within the trio. He is less imposing than the tiger and less distinctive than the ram. Still, he has one singular trick: disembowelment with restoration. He cuts himself open, removes the organs, shows them to the audience, then restores them to full health. In the language of Daoist inner alchemy, this suggests deep control over the body's interior. In the novel, it becomes a public stunt.

The rainmaking contest comes first, and it fails because Wukong has already won Heaven's favor. The dragon kings and thunder spirits refuse to cooperate with the three immortals, while Wukong's side is quietly backed by the heavens. Once the deer steps onto the platform, he is already fighting from a losing position.

The eagle that steals the organs

The rules of the disembowelment contest are simple: open the belly, remove the organs, put them back, and heal. The first to do it wins. The Deer-Power Great Immortal volunteers and cuts himself open. He lays out his organs on the platform. It is an awful sight, and Wukong is waiting for exactly that moment.

He plucks a hair, turns it into an eagle, and sends it diving down. The eagle grabs the exposed organs and flies away. The deer is left staring at an empty belly. He cannot restore what is gone. The wound will not close. He bleeds out on the platform and returns to his original form: a white deer with a hollowed belly lying in a pool of blood.

If the tiger's death is absurd, the deer's is cruel. He has time to understand that he has lost. He has time to feel the panic and the futility. His own technique becomes the trap that kills him.

Related Figures

• Tiger-Power Great Immortal - the leader of the trio, killed first in the beheading contest
• Ram-Power Great Immortal - the third immortal, killed last in the oil cauldron contest
• Sun Wukong - the opponent who defeats all three by clever tricks
• Tripitaka - the monk side of the wager, helped in secret by Wukong