The Monkey King said: 'Since your home neighbours an immortal's, why not follow him in cultivation? Learn a recipe for ageless life — wouldn't that be fine?'

The monkey's instinct is generous and completely uncomprehending: you live next door to an immortal — why not go and learn? 修行 (行 here xíng) is the religious sense, "to practise, to cultivate," and 不老之方 is a "recipe for not growing old." He assumes everyone wants what he wants.

The woodcutter said: 'My life has been a hard one. From childhood my parents raised me, and by eight or nine I knew something of the world;

蒙 (méng) is to receive a kindness — "I had the benefit of my parents' rearing." 才知人事 is "only then did I understand anything of the world" (才 cái, only then). He answers a question about immortality with an autobiography, and the change of register is the point of the whole scene.

then, to my grief, my father died, and my mother was left a widow. I have no brothers or sisters, only myself, and no help for it — I must wait on her morning and night.

父喪 reads 喪 as sàng, to lose a parent, not sāng, a funeral; 居孀 is to live on as a widow (孀 shuāng). 沒奈何 is a set phrase — "there was nothing to be done about it" — and 早晚侍奉 is waiting on her morning and night (侍 shì). No brothers, no sisters, one son. In a society built on family duty, that arithmetic decides a life.

Now my mother is old, and all the more I dare not leave her. Besides, the fields lie waste and we have not enough to eat and wear,

一發 here is "all the more": she is old now, so leaving is less thinkable than ever (拋 pāo, to abandon). Then the second blow, delivered flatly — the fields have gone to weeds (蕪 wú, overgrown) and there is not enough to eat or wear. He is not choosing duty over comfort. He is choosing duty over nothing at all.

so I can only cut a couple of bundles of firewood, carry them to the market, sell them for a few coppers, and buy a few shēng of rice.

Every verb here is exact about a poor man's day. 斫 (zhuó) is to chop, 挑 (tiāo) is to carry on a shoulder-pole, 貨 (huò) is to sell, and 糴 (dí) is the particular verb for buying grain in — Chinese keeps a matching word, 糶, for selling it out. Two bundles of firewood, a few 文 of copper, a few 升 of rice: that is the whole of his economy.

I cook and keep house myself, set out a little food, and support my old mother — that is why I cannot cultivate.'

He cooks it himself as well (炊 chuī), and 供養老母 is to provide for his old mother (供 here fourth tone, gòng). Then the plain conclusion: 所以不能修行, "and that is why I cannot cultivate." Nothing is stopping him except a person who needs feeding.

The Monkey King said: 'From what you tell me, you are a gentleman of filial conduct, and there will surely be a reward for you hereafter.

行孝的君子 — a 君子, the Confucian "gentleman," who practises 孝, filial duty (行 here xíng, to practise; 子 full tone zǐ). The monkey does not argue, or mock, or press. He hands the man a title out of an entirely different value system and tells him it will be repaid — 向後必有好處. It is one of the most attractive things Sun Wukong ever says.

But I beg you only to point me to where that immortal lives, so that I may go and call on him.'

望 (wàng) is "I hope," the 維基文庫 reading against 求, "I beg," elsewhere; 指與 is to point something out for somebody. Having lost the argument, he asks for the only thing he actually needs: directions.

The woodcutter said: 'It's not far, not far. This mountain is called the Mountain of the Numinous Terrace and the Square Inch;

Now the two most loaded names in the chapter. 靈臺, the "numinous terrace," is a term from the 《莊子》 for the heart-mind; 方寸, the "square inch," is an old everyday word for the heart, and it still turns up in phrases about losing your composure. So the mountain the monkey crossed two oceans to reach is called Heart Mountain. Twice over, in case you missed it the first time.

in the mountain is a cave called the Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars, and in that cave is an immortal whose name is Patriarch Subodhi.

The riddle goes on, and this half of it is visual. Take the character 心, "heart." Its curved base stroke is the 斜月, the slanting moon; the three dots around it are the 三星, the three stars. The Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars is a picture of the character for "heart," spelled out for anyone who cares to look. As for the master, 須菩提祖師 takes his name from Subhūti, one of the Buddha's ten chief disciples — the one Chinese tradition calls 解空第一, "foremost in understanding emptiness." Hold on to that until the end of the chapter.

The disciples who have gone forth from that patriarch are beyond counting, and even now there are some thirty or forty cultivating under him.

不計其數, beyond counting (不 in its bú tone before the falling tone of 計), and 見今, at present, another thirty or forty. The detail does quiet work. This is no legendary hermit nobody can reach; he is an established teacher with a full house.

Follow that little path, go south seven or eight li or so, and you'll be at his home.'

順 (shùn) is to follow along; 行 here is xíng, to go. Seven or eight 里 — a 里 being roughly half a kilometre, left untranslated — is barely an hour on foot. Ten years and two oceans, and the last leg is a walk down a lane.

The Monkey King took the woodcutter by the hand: 'Elder brother, come along with me —

扯住 (chě) is to grab hold of. He calls the man 老兄, "elder brother," and the doubled 去去 is a coaxing colloquial "do come along." Having just praised the man's devotion to his mother, he tries at once to talk him out of it. The monkey means well and listens badly.

if I do gain some benefit, I'll never forget your kindness in showing me the way.'

指引之恩, the kindness of being shown the way, is a real debt in this novel's moral bookkeeping — and the monkey will be reminded of much heavier ones later. (決 is "surely"; 不 takes its bú tone before the falling tone of 忘.)

The woodcutter said: 'What an unbending fellow you are! I've just told you all this, and still you don't understand?

不通變 is being unable to adapt, or to take a hint, and 你還不省 is "you still don't get it?" (省 xǐng, to be aware). The woodcutter's patience gives out. He has just explained his entire life, and his visitor heard only the part about the immortal.

If I went off with you, wouldn't it ruin my livelihood? And who would support my old mother?

生意 here means his living, his trade, not "business" in the modern sense (不 in its bú tone before the falling tone of 誤). Then the question that ends the discussion: 老母何人奉養, "and who would look after my old mother?" There is no answer to it, and the monkey does not try to invent one.

I have wood to cut — go on by yourself, go on by yourself.'

斫 (zhuó) again, the 維基文庫's verb for chopping where other editions print 砍. And with "off you go, off you go," the woodcutter turns back to his firewood and out of the book for good — having stood, for one afternoon, at the door of the whole story.