The Kingdom of Chesha had seen no rain in three years. Rivers ran dry, fields cracked under a blazing sun, and the people grew thinner with each passing month.

The cause was a young dragoness, the daughter of the Dragon King of the Western Sea. She had stolen the magical Pearl of Moonlight from her father and fled to Dragon Lake in Chesha, refusing to return it. Without the Pearl, her father could not summon rain.

When Tripitaka and his disciples passed through, the desperate villagers begged for help.

"A dragon?" Sun Wukong cracked his knuckles. "I have not wrestled a dragon in centuries. This should be fun."

He journeyed to Dragon Lake alone. But instead of a fearsome beast, he found a girl no older than seventeen, weeping at the water edge. Her tears fell as pearls upon the sand.

"Why do you cry, little dragon?" Wukong asked, sitting cross-legged on a rock.

"My father," she sobbed. "He promised me in marriage to the Black Dragon of the Northern Sea. But I love another. A mortal scholar. He writes poems that make the stars weep."

Wukong was struck silent. A dragon in love with a mortal? He knew that pain. Once, before his imprisonment, he had loved the Moon Princess—and had been punished for daring to reach beyond his station.

"Return the Pearl," he said gently. "Let your father bring rain. Then I will take you to the Jade Emperor myself and plead your case."

And that was exactly what he did.