On the very summit of that mountain there lay an immortal stone.

仙石 (xiān shí) is a 'transcendent stone' — stone steeped in the numinous power of the 仙 (Daoist immortals), not merely a 'magic' rock. 正當 takes 當 in its first-tone reading dāng ('right at, directly upon'), not dàng.

The stone was three zhàng, six chǐ, and five cùn in height, and two zhàng, four chǐ in girth.

The units are 丈 (zhàng, ten 尺), 尺 (chǐ, roughly a 'foot'), and 寸 (cùn, an 'inch'): 三丈六尺五寸 = 36.5 chǐ and 二丈四尺 = 24 chǐ. 圍圓 (wéi yuán) is the measurement around, the girth. The exact figures are not casual — they are glossed numerologically in the next clause.

Its height of three zhàng six chǐ five cùn answered to the three hundred sixty-five degrees of the celestial circuit; its girth of two zhàng four chǐ answered to the twenty-four solar terms of the regulating calendar.

按 (àn) here means 'corresponds to, is modelled upon.' 周天三百六十五度 is the 365 degrees of the sky's full annual round, and 二十四氣 the twenty-four solar terms (節氣); 政曆 (zhèng lì) is the official, regulating calendar by which those terms are fixed. The year's two great cycles — the ecliptic and the seasons — are thus written into the stone's very body.

On it were nine apertures and eight holes, answering to the Nine Palaces and the Eight Trigrams.

九竅 (jiǔ qiào, the body's 'nine orifices') and 八孔 are matched to the cosmological 九宮 — the Nine Palaces of the magic square (洛書) — and the 八卦, the Eight Trigrams of the Yijing. Number by number the stone is being constituted as a microcosm: heaven (365°), seasons (24), and the diagrammatic order of change are all inscribed in it.

On none of its four sides was there any tree to cast shade; yet to left and right, instead, numinous fungus and orchids set it off.

更 is read gèng ('not even...') and 倒 is dào ('on the contrary, instead'), not dǎo — the line turns on the contrast. 芝蘭 are the auspicious 靈芝 fungus and the orchid, emblems of purity, and 相襯 (xiāng chèn, with 相 in its first-tone 'mutually' sense) means they set the stone off. A bare, shadeless stone flanked only by numinous plants marks a site of concentrated, unmixed cosmic energy.

For ever since the first parting of Heaven and Earth it had drunk in the truth of Heaven and the fairness of Earth, the essence of the sun and the brilliance of the moon; and having been so wrought upon for so long, it came at last to possess a spiritual awareness.

蓋 (gài) is the literary connective 'now, for.' 開闢 is the primal 'splitting open' of chaos into Heaven and Earth (闢 read pì). 天真地秀，日精月華 name the four cosmic influences the stone absorbs — the genuine vapour of Heaven, the fine vapour of Earth, the essence of sun and efflorescence of moon (華 here huá) — and 靈通 (líng tōng) is numinous penetration, the dawning of sentience. This passage from inert matter to spirit is the seed of the whole allegory.

Within it an immortal womb was nurtured, which one day burst apart and brought forth a stone egg, round and about the size of a ball.

仙胞 (xiān bāo, an immortal 'womb' or embryo-sac) is the reading of the 世德堂本 / 維基文庫 text; some editions read 仙胎 (xiān tāi, 'immortal embryo'), the sense being identical — we follow Wikisource. 迸裂 is bèng liè ('to burst apart'); 迸 is bèng, never bìng. 毬 (qiú) is a graphic variant of 球, a ball.

Meeting the wind, it changed into a stone monkey, its five senses all present and its four limbs complete.

五官俱備，四肢皆全 (the five sense-organs all furnished, 俱 jù; the four limbs all whole, 皆 jiē) presents a fully formed creature from the first instant. Note that he has as yet no name — he is simply 石猴, the 'stone monkey.' The title 美猴王 comes only when he wins the Water-Curtain Cave, and the dharma-name 孫悟空 later still, from Patriarch Subodhi; Anthony C. Yu reads this nameless stone-creature as the first form of the 心猿, the restless 'mind-monkey' whose taming is the book's spiritual argument.

At once it learned to crawl and to walk, and made its bows to the four quarters.

便就 (biàn jiù) is 'thereupon, at once' (便 read biàn, not pián). Bowing to the four directions is the newborn's first act, an instinctive ritual orientation to the cosmos; 了 is the neutral-tone perfective le.

From its eyes there shot two shafts of golden light, striking upward to the Palace of the Dipper.

斗府 is the palace of the 北斗 (Northern Dipper), by extension the celestial bureaucracy of Heaven; 斗 is read dǒu (the Dipper / a dry measure), never dòu (to fight, 鬥). 射沖 (shè chōng) is 'to shoot up and pierce.' That a newborn monkey's gaze should reach the throne of Heaven is the first hint of his cosmic significance — and of trouble to come.

This startled that Most Sacred One of High Heaven, the Greatly Compassionate and Benevolent, the Jade Sovereign and Great Celestial Worthy, August High Lord of the Mysterious Vault of Heaven,

This is the full Daoist honorific of the 玉皇大帝 (the Jade Emperor). The epithets stack: 高天上聖 'Most Holy of High Heaven,' 大慈仁者 'the Greatly Merciful and Benevolent,' 玉皇大天尊 'Jade Sovereign and Great Celestial Worthy,' 玄穹高上帝 'August High Lord of the Mysterious Vault' (穹 qióng, the dome of the sky; 尊 zūn). The grandeur is partly mock-heroic — Wú Chéng'ēn deploys such bureaucratic pomp throughout as gentle satire of the celestial court.

who, enthroned in the Treasure Hall of the Numinous Empyrean within the Cloud Palace of the Golden Portal, had gathered his immortal ministers about him.

駕座 ('enthroned, seated in state') is the 維基文庫 / 世德堂本 reading; many modern editions print the near-synonym 駕坐 ('seated'), both jià zuò. 金闕 (jīn què) is the golden gate-tower of the palace and 靈霄寶殿 the 'Treasure Hall of the Numinous Empyrean' (霄 xiāo, the high sky) — also frequently written 凌霄寶殿 elsewhere. 仙卿 (xiān qīng) are the immortal lords and ministers of the heavenly court (卿 qīng).

Seeing the golden light blazing up, he straightway commanded Thousand-Mile Eye and Wind-Following Ear to open the Southern Gate of Heaven and observe.

燄 (yàn) is the 世德堂本 / Wikisource form, a variant of the now-standard 焰 ('flame, blaze'). 千里眼 ('Thousand-Li Eye') and 順風耳 ('Ear that Follows the Wind') are the Jade Emperor's far-seeing and far-hearing officers, stock figures of popular religion later attached to 媽祖 lore. 南天門 is the Southern Gate of Heaven, the threshold between the celestial and lower realms.

The two officers duly went forth beyond the gate at his command; they saw the matter truly and heard it plainly.

二將 ('the two officers') uses 將 in its jiàng reading ('general, commander') — compare 將 as jiāng ('about to') only a few clauses later in 金光將潛息, the same graph with two functions in one passage. 看的真，聽的明 uses 的 colloquially for the resultative particle 得 (de): 'saw [it] clearly, heard [it] plainly.' 果 (guǒ) here is adverbial, 'indeed, duly.'

In a little while they returned and made their report, saying:

須臾 (xū yú) is a fixed expression for 'a brief moment, an instant.' In 回報道, 道 (dào) carries its verbal sense 'to say,' introducing the direct speech that follows.

'Your servants, obeying the decree, observed and listened at the place of the golden light. It lies within the bounds of the little kingdom of Aolai, east of the sea, in the Eastern Continent of Superior Body.

臣 ('your servant') is the self-deprecating first person used before a superior. 之處 takes 處 in its noun reading chù ('place'), not the verb chǔ. 東勝神洲 is Pūrvavideha, the eastern of the four continents of Buddhist cosmography ranged around Mount Sumeru (set out in the preceding passage); 傲來 (Àolái) is the otherwise-fictitious 'kingdom' on its eastern sea, the monkey's homeland.

There is a Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, and upon the mountain an immortal stone, and the stone gave birth to an egg.

花果山, the 'Mountain of Flowers and Fruit,' is named here for the reader though already introduced in the narration. The officers' speech deliberately re-tells the birth just witnessed; such verbatim recapitulation — narrator's account, then a character's report in nearly the same words — is a convention of the vernacular 章回 novel, heightening the event by repetition rather than abbreviating it.

Meeting the wind it became a stone monkey, which there bows to the four quarters; from its eyes wheels a golden light that shoots up to the Palace of the Dipper.

The report mirrors the earlier narration almost phrase for phrase (拜四方, 眼運金光，射沖斗府), the standard doubling of the storyteller's manner. Readings as before: 斗 dǒu, 沖 chōng; 那裡 (nà lǐ, 'there') is written 裡 in the Wikisource text, 里 in some editions.

Now that it takes food and drinks water, the golden light is about to die away.'

服餌 (fú ěr) is 'to ingest, to feed on' (餌 ěr), here simply eating and drinking; in Daoist contexts the same word denotes consuming elixirs. 將 is now jiāng ('about to'), and 潛息 (qián xī) 'to subside, sink and cease' — once the stone-born creature begins ordinary feeding, its prodigious light naturally fades. 矣 (yǐ) is the sentence-final particle marking a completed or imminent state.

The Jade Emperor, graciously bestowing his kindness, declared: 'A thing of the world below, born of the very essence of Heaven and Earth — it is nothing to wonder at.'

垂賜恩慈 — 'graciously bestowing his kindness' (垂 chuí, to hand down from above; 賜 cì, to grant). 不足為異 takes 為 in its wéi reading ('to be, to count as'): 'not enough to be reckoned strange.' The Jade Emperor's calm dismissal — that anything born of 天地精華 is unremarkable — is quietly ironic, since this very creature will one day storm his court; Andrew H. Plaks notes how persistently the novel undercuts the complacency of the celestial hierarchy.