恐泄漏吾像 Lest Our Shapes Be Seen
金剛停在空中叫道：「聖僧，此間乃長安城了。我們不好下去，這裡人伶俐，恐泄漏吾像。孫大聖三位也不消去。汝自去傳了經與汝主，即便回來，我在霄漢中等你，與你一同繳旨。」金刚停在空中叫道：「圣僧，此间乃长安城了。我们不好下去，这里人伶俐，恐泄漏吾像。孙大圣三位也不消去。汝自去传了经与汝主，即便回来，我在霄汉中等你，与你一同缴旨。」
逐句解 Line by line
The guardians halted in the air and called: “Holy monk — this place is the city of Chang'an.”
They stop rather than descend, and the stopping is the point. 停在空中 — halted in mid-air, above the city, with the cargo still aboard. 長安 again, and again Cháng'ān. The guardians announce the destination like a driver naming a stop.
“It would not do for us to go down. The people here are sharp, and our shapes might be given away.”
⚠ 這裡人伶俐 — the people here are quick. It is an odd compliment and a very Chinese one: the objection to landing in the capital is not that the citizens are dangerous but that they are observant. 泄漏 is to leak — the word for a secret getting out, still used that way today. The guardians are worried about being recognised. Heaven's own bodyguard will not set foot in Chang'an because somebody might notice. The Tang monk gave that same reason last chapter for sneaking out of a village at midnight.
“The Great Sage Sun and the other two need not go either.”
⚠ 不消 — no need, don't bother. It is dismissive, and it is aimed at the three who did all the fighting. The proposal is that the Tang monk walk into the capital alone with the scriptures, and that the disciples wait in the sky. After fourteen years, the delivery is to be a solo errand.
“Go yourself, hand the scriptures to your sovereign, and come straight back. We will wait for you up in the empyrean and hand our commission back in together with you.”
⚠ 繳旨 is the phrase the whole chapter runs on and it is pure officialdom: to hand a warrant back in once the job is done. It is the same word four companies of gods used at the top of last chapter when they queued up to close their files. 汝主, your sovereign — the guardians are careful to say whose emperor Taizong is, and it is not theirs. So the plan is a courier drop. Hand it over, come straight back, and we all file the paperwork together.
The guardians stop in mid-air over Chang'an and refuse to land, and their reason is worth hearing twice: the people down there are sharp, and somebody might work out what they are.
⚠ That is the same anxiety the Tang monk had last chapter when he picked the lock of his own temple at midnight — a true man does not show his form. Heaven's escort has it too. Nobody in this book wants to be seen being holy.
⚠ And the plan they propose is a delivery, in the courier's exact words: go in alone, hand it over, come straight back, and we will file the return together. The disciples are told they need not bother. Fourteen years, eighty-one ordeals, and the last mile is to be run by one man with a parcel.