The tale begins in the high, crystalline reaches of the Heavenly Realm, where the Jade Emperor sat upon his throne, eternally vexed by the antics of Sun Wukong, the Stone Monkey of the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. To pacify this powerful and unpredictable being, who had already caused a stir in the Dragon King's palace and the Underworld, the Emperor bestowed upon him the title of 'Great Sage, Heaven's Equal.' However, a title without a duty was a recipe for disaster with a creature as restless as Wukong. At the suggestion of his advisors, the Jade Emperor appointed the Monkey King as the Superintendent of the Garden of the Peaches of Immortality, the most sacred orchard in all of creation, owned by the Queen Mother of the West, Xi Wangmu.
The Garden was no ordinary grove. It was a place where the air itself shimmered with spiritual energy and the soil was enriched by the essence of the stars. In this garden grew three thousand six hundred peach trees, divided into three distinct classes. In the front, there were one thousand two hundred trees with small flowers and small fruit that ripened every three thousand years. Anyone who ate them would become enlightened and their body would become light and strong. In the middle, another one thousand two hundred trees bore fruit that ripened every six thousand years; eating these allowed a person to rise into the clouds and stay eternally young. At the back grew the final one thousand two hundred trees, which bore purple-veined fruit with golden pits that ripened only once every nine thousand years. These were the most precious of all; those who ate them would become as eternal as Heaven and Earth, living as long as the Sun and the Moon.
Initially, Sun Wukong took his duties seriously. He patrolled the garden, counted the trees, and enjoyed the prestige of his position. But as the fragrance of the ripening nine-thousand-year peaches filled the air, his primate instincts began to overwhelm his sense of duty. He noticed that the most magnificent trees at the back were laden with heavy, succulent fruit. One day, under the pretext of taking a nap, he dismissed his local subordinates—the Earth Gods and the garden keepers—and transformed himself into a tiny insect to hide among the leaves. Once alone, he resumed his true form, climbed the ancient branches, and began to gorge himself. He didn't just eat one; he ate dozens, choosing only the largest and most ripe, discarding the pits and leaving the branches bare. For several days, he repeated this secret feast, absorbing an immense amount of divine energy that fortified his already formidable physical form.
The climax of his transgression arrived when the Queen Mother of the West prepared for her legendary 'Peach Banquet,' a grand assembly of all the high-ranking immortals, Bodhisattvas, and celestial officials. She dispatched the Seven Fairy Maidens, dressed in the colors of the rainbow, to gather the finest fruit for the feast. When they reached the back of the garden, they were horrified to find the branches of the nine-thousand-year trees stripped and broken. While they were searching, they discovered Sun Wukong, who had fallen into a deep, peach-induced slumber on a high branch. Startled by their presence, the Monkey King interrogated them and learned about the grand banquet. To his immense fury, he discovered that while every minor deity and official was invited, the 'Great Sage, Heaven's Equal' was not on the list.
Feeling insulted and vengeful, Wukong used his magic to cast a freezing spell on the Seven Fairy Maidens, leaving them paralyzed in the orchard. He then sped toward the Jade Pool, the site of the banquet. Using his shape-shifting abilities, he transformed into a high-ranking immortal to gain entry. Once inside, he saw the vast arrays of celestial delicacies: rare wines, dragon livers, phoenix marrow, and jars of jade-nectar. Finding the attendants distracted by the preparations, he used his sleep-inducing insects to put the guards and cooks into a trance. Left alone with the feast, the Monkey King began a secondary spree of gluttony. He drank jars of the finest heavenly wine until he was thoroughly intoxicated, staggering through the halls of the Jade Palace.