The Monkey King, hearing this, could only take his leave. Out of the deep wood he came, found the path,

只得相辭 — he "could only" take his leave, which quietly concedes that the woodcutter has won the argument. Then 找上路徑, he finds the path (徑 jìng) and follows the directions to the letter.

crossed a hillside, and after some seven or eight li did indeed catch sight of a cave-dwelling.

坡 (pō) is a hillside, and 七八里 is seven or eight 里, left untranslated. Then 果然 — sure enough — a 洞府, a grotto-residence, exactly where he was told it would be. After ten fruitless years, something in the world has finally matched what somebody promised him.

Drawing himself up to look, he saw it was a truly fine spot. Behold:

挺身 (挺 tǐng) is to draw yourself up straight: he has smartened his posture without being asked. 真好去處 and 但見 cue the 賦 of the master's cave.

Mist and rosy cloud scatter their colours; sun and moon shimmer their light.

The cave-賦 opens with light rather than rock — mist and rosy cloud scattering colour, sun and moon shimmering. Compare the mountain-賦 a few passages back, which opened with halberds and cliffs. This register is markedly more heavenly, and the difference is deliberate.

A thousand aged cypresses, ten thousand joints of tall bamboo.

株 (zhū) is the measure word for trees and 篁 (huáng) is bamboo, counted here by its joints. The pair is stated now and picked up and expanded in the next two lines — the same "state, then amplify" pattern used on the earlier mountain.

A thousand aged cypresses, rain-laden, green and soft against the sky;

The cypresses again, 帶雨 rain-laden and 青冉冉, softly green, with 冉冉 suggesting something that droops or drifts gently rather than standing stiff.

ten thousand joints of tall bamboo, holding mist, a whole ravine deep blue-green.

And the bamboo, 含煙 holding the mist, filling a whole ravine (壑 hè) with 蒼蒼 — the deep grey-green that distance puts on things.

Beyond the gate, rare flowers spread like brocade; by the bridge, magic herbs breathe fragrance.

佈錦 spreads rare flowers out like brocade (佈 is the 維基文庫 form of 布, to spread; 錦, brocade), and 噴香 has the jade-herbs gushing scent (噴 pēn). Note the two words of civilisation slipped in among the flowers: a gate, and a bridge. Somebody built here.

On the stone cliff, jagged, the green moss glistens; up the sheer wall, high-spread, the kingfisher lichen grows long.

突兀 (兀 wù) is jutting out abruptly; 懸壁 is a sheer hanging wall (懸 the 維基文庫 reading against 縣), and 翠蘚 is kingfisher-green lichen (蘚 xiǎn) growing 長 (cháng), long. Wet, old and undisturbed.

Now and then one hears immortal cranes cry; often one sees phoenixes wheel.

唳 (lì) is the particular word for a crane's cry. Cranes and phoenixes are the standard birds of the immortals, and their presence gives the same certification the earlier mountain-賦 gave with its peaches and evergreens — except that this poem stops to expand on each.

When the immortal cranes cry, the sound shakes the deep marsh, far as the heavens;

The line reaches back to the Book of Songs: 鶴鳴於九皋，聲聞於天, "the crane cries in the deep marsh, and its voice is heard in heaven." 九皋 (jiǔ gāo) is that ninefold marsh and 霄漢 the high heavens. Quoting it is a way of saying that what happens in this hidden place is audible a very long way up.

when the phoenixes rise in flight, their plumage glows five-coloured as the painted clouds.

翎 (líng) is a feather, and the phoenix's plumage is 五色, five-coloured, glowing like painted cloud (彩 is the 維基文庫 reading against 綵).

Black gibbons and white deer come and go at will; golden lions and jade elephants appear or hide as they please.

Black gibbons, white deer, golden lions, jade elephants — a menagerie no forest ever held. What matters is what they do: 隨隱見 and 任行藏, appearing and vanishing exactly as they please (見 here xiàn, to appear; 行藏 xíng cáng, a set phrase for showing yourself or staying hidden). Even the animals here have the freedom the monkey came looking for.

Look closely at this numinous, blessed land — it truly rivals heaven.

賽 (sài) is to match or outdo, and 真個 is the 維基文庫 form of 真箇. The 賦 ends by declaring the place a rival to heaven — which, in a book where heaven is a real address with a real civil service, is a specific claim rather than a compliment.

He saw, too, that the cave door was tightly shut, silent and still, with no trace of anyone.

And after all that, a shut door. 洞門緊閉, and 靜悄悄杳無人跡, silent and still, with no trace of anybody (杳 yǎo, vanished from sight). He has arrived, and nothing happens. It is the first obstacle in the chapter he cannot get past by jumping.

Turning suddenly, he saw on the cliff-head a stone tablet, some three zhàng and more high and eight chǐ and more wide,

石碑 is a stele (碑 bēi), over three 丈 tall and eight 尺 wide (餘, "and more"; the units are left untranslated). Note the scale. This is a monument, not a signpost — and taller than the immortal stone he was born from.

and on it a single line of ten large characters, reading: 'Mountain of the Numinous Terrace and the Square Inch; Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars.'

Ten characters in a single line (行 here háng, a row of script, not xíng or héng). They are exactly the two names the woodcutter spoke. For the monkey this is confirmation; for the reader it is the riddle set out in stone — Heart Mountain, and the cave whose name draws the character 心.

The Handsome Monkey King was delighted: 'The folk here really are honest — there truly is such a mountain and such a cave!'

樸實 (樸 pǔ) is plain and honest. His delight is disarmingly literal: not "I have reached the seat of the Way" but "the locals here don't tell lies." After a decade among people chasing money and rank, an honest set of directions genuinely impresses him.

He gazed a good while but dared not knock; so he went and sprang up to the tip of a pine branch, picked pine seeds, ate them, and played.

不敢敲門 — he does not dare knock (敲 qiāo). The monkey who leapt blind through a waterfall and walked past tigers is frightened of a door. Then, because he is still himself, he climbs a pine, eats the seeds (松子, with 子 in full tone zǐ) and plays. Awe and appetite in a single sentence.

After a little while, with a creak — yā! — the cave door opened,

少頃間 is "after a short while" (頃 qǐng), and 呀的一聲 writes the creak of the door as a sound (呀 yā). Nobody knocked. The door opens because the master already knows.

and out came an immortal lad, his bearing truly handsome and grand, his features fresh and rare,

丰姿英偉 is a fine, imposing bearing (丰 fēng, comely) and 像貌清奇 is a face out of the ordinary run. This is the doorman, and he looks like that.

unlike any common mortal. Behold him:

俗子 is a worldly person — the sort the monkey has spent nine years among. 但見他 cues the verse portrait.

A twin hair-knot bound with twin silk cords, a loose robe, wind in both sleeves.

髽髻 (髽 zhuā) is a doubled top-knot bound with silk cords (綰 wǎn, to tie up; the 維基文庫 reads 髽髻 against 鬢髻 elsewhere), and 寬袍兩袖風 is a loose robe with the wind in both sleeves. Exactly how a Daoist acolyte is drawn in every painting: nothing tight, nothing heavy.

His face and form set him apart; heart and appearance alike are empty.

And then the portrait turns strange. 心與相俱空 — heart and outward form alike 空, empty (相 xiàng, appearance). That is the Buddhist śūnyatā, emptiness, and it is being attributed to a boy who answers doors, in a Daoist grotto. The novel's mixing of traditions is nowhere more casual than here.

A long-years guest beyond the world of things, an ever-living lad of the mountains.

物外 is outside the world of things, and 長年 (長 cháng) and 永壽 both mean everliving. The doorman, in other words, is deathless. If that is the servant, the monkey must be thinking, what is the master?

Not a speck of dust clings to him; he lets the cycling years tumble by.

一塵不染, "not a speck of dust clings," is still a current idiom for someone spotless — of hands as much as habits. And 甲子任翻騰 lets the sixty-year cycles tumble past without touching him (甲子 the cyclical count, 子 in full tone; 翻騰, to roll over). Compare 山中無甲子 back on the monkey's own mountain. There, time was simply never counted. Here it is counted, and it does not matter.