We now tell how Liu Boqin and the Tang Master Sanzang, in all their fright and confusion, once more heard a voice cry out, "The master has come!"

卻說 ("now we tell") is the storyteller's standard formula for resuming a thread. The chapter picks up directly from the close of the thirteenth: Sanzang and the hunter Liu Boqin (劉伯欽, styled the "Guardian who Quells the Mountain," 鎮山太保) have just heard the disembodied cry.

The household servants said, "That call must be the old ape in the stone chest at the foot of the mountain."

石匣 — literally a "stone box" or chest — is the rocky prison in which Wukong has been sealed. The servants already know the local legend of the "old ape" trapped there.

The Grand Guardian said, "It is he — it is he." Sanzang asked, "What manner of old ape is this?"

太保 (tàibǎo), "Grand Guardian," is Boqin's title. The doubled 是他，是他 conveys his startled recognition.

The Guardian said, "This mountain was once called the Mountain of Five Phases; but because our great Tang sovereign marched west and secured the realm, it was renamed the Mountain of the Two Frontiers.

The two names carry the chapter's geography and its allegory. 五行山, the "Mountain of Five Phases," is the mountain the Buddha conjured from his own palm to pin Wukong at the end of the Havoc in Heaven; 兩界山, the "Mountain of the Two Frontiers," marks the border of Tang territory. The renaming binds the cosmic prison to the historical map of the pilgrimage.

In years past I heard the old folk tell that when Wang Mang usurped the Han, this mountain came down from Heaven, and beneath it a divine monkey was pressed —

王莽篡漢 dates the imprisonment to the interregnum of Wang Mang (r. 9–23 CE), who seized the Han throne — a folk-chronological flourish that sets Wukong's confinement against real dynastic history.

one who fears neither cold nor heat and takes neither food nor drink, for a local earth-spirit keeps guard over him and, when he hungers, feeds him iron pellets, and when he thirsts, gives him molten copper to drink.

The detail of 饑餐鐵丸，渴飲銅汁 — iron pellets for hunger, molten copper for thirst — is the language of infernal punishment, underscoring the harshness of the sentence the Buddha imposed.

From of old until now he has died of neither frost nor famine. That cry is surely his. Do not be afraid, elder; let us go down and take a look."

The Guardian's reassurance and invitation move the party toward the prison. 長老 (zhǎnglǎo), "elder," is the respectful term for a senior monk, here Sanzang; 長 is read zhǎng.

Sanzang could only comply; leading the horse, he went down the mountain. They had not gone a few li

只得 ("could only," read dé) marks Sanzang's reluctant consent — a small touch of his timidity. 里 (lǐ) is the Chinese unit of distance, roughly half a kilometre.

when they saw, within the stone chest, that there was indeed a monkey — his head thrust out, his hands stretched forth, waving wildly as he called:

The monkey's frantic gestures — 露著頭，伸著手，亂招手 — are the first glimpse of him after five centuries. The particle 著 here is the durative zhe, marking the ongoing posture.

"Master, why do you come only now? You have come at a good time — a good time indeed!

The monkey's eagerness is unmistakable: he greets his rescuer before any introduction. His delight that Sanzang has come "at a good time" is almost comic in its heartiness.

Rescue me, and I will guard you all the way to the Western Heaven!"

His promise — 我保你上西天, "I will guard you to the Western Heaven" — states the whole plot of the book in a single breath.

We told how the elder drew near to look; and this was the creature's aspect:

你道他是怎生模樣 ("you may ask what he looked like") is the conventional cue that a descriptive set-piece follows; it hands the reader over to the portrait-verse that comes next.

A pointed snout and sunken cheeks; eyes of gold with fiery pupils.

The portrait opens at the face. 金睛火眼 ("golden pupils, fiery eyes") is Wukong's signature feature — the eyes he acquired in Laozi's brazier, able to pierce disguises; the phrase recurs throughout the novel.

On his head moss and lichen lay heaped; within his ears the fig-vine grew.

Five centuries of stillness are rendered botanically: moss (苔蘚) heaped on his head, the climbing fig (薜蘿) sprouting from his ears. The living overgrowth measures the length of his captivity.

By his temples, few hairs and much green grass; beneath his chin, no beard but green sedge.

The parallel continues: grass for hair, sedge for a beard. 莎 here names the sedge-grass and is read suō. The couplet turns a filthy, weathered head into a small landscape.

Earth in the furrow of his brow, mud in the hollow of his nose — a sorry, wretched sight.

狼狽 (lángbèi) — "in sorry plight, bedraggled" — sums up the squalor of a brow and nose caked with earth and mud.

Thick fingertips, calloused palms, and grime to spare.

Yet, happily, his eyes could still turn and roll, and his throat and tongue were sound of voice.

The turn (還喜得, "yet happily") pivots from ruin to vitality: whatever the neglect, the eyes still move and the voice is clear. 還 is read hái ("still, yet").

His speech came ready and nimble, though his body could not stir.

The antithesis is pointed: fluent of tongue but immobile of body — the trapped Great Sage, mind as sharp as ever while the body lies pinned. 那 here stands for 挪 ("to shift, to stir") and is read nuó.

This was none other than the Great Sage of five hundred years before — his ordeal now fulfilled, escaping Heaven's net this very morning.

The verse closes by naming him. 今朝 (jīnzhāo) is "this very morning" (朝 read zhāo); 難滿 means his term of tribulation is complete (難 read nàn, "ordeal, calamity"); 天羅, "Heaven's net," is the snare from which he is freed at last.