死心塌地 Set Out for the West
三藏道：「此法既是他授與我，他必然先曉得了。你若尋他，他念起來，你卻不是死了？」行者見說得有理，真個不敢動身，只得回心，跪下哀告道：「師父，這是他奈何我的法兒，教我隨你西去。我也不去惹他，你也莫當常言，只管念誦。我願保你，再無退悔之意了。」三藏道：「既如此，伏侍我上馬去也。」那行者才死心塌地，抖擻精神，束一束綿布直裰，扣背馬匹，收拾行李，奔西而進。畢竟這一去，後面又有甚話說，且聽下回分解。三藏道：「此法既是他授与我，他必然先晓得了。你若寻他，他念起来，你却不是死了？」行者见说得有理，真个不敢动身，只得回心，跪下哀告道：「师父，这是他奈何我的法儿，教我随你西去。我也不去惹他，你也莫当常言，只管念诵。我愿保你，再无退悔之意了。」三藏道：「既如此，伏侍我上马去也。」那行者才死心塌地，抖擞精神，束一束绵布直裰，扣背马匹，收拾行李，奔西而进。毕竟这一去，后面又有甚话说，且听下回分解。
逐句解 Line by line
Sanzang said, "Since this method was given me by her, she must surely have known it beforehand. If you go looking for her and she recites it, will you not be a dead monkey?"
Sanzang's warning is the clinching argument: the spell's author cannot be attacked, for she can wield it from afar. 三藏 reads 藏 as zàng; 曉得 reads 得 as de.
The Pilgrim, seeing the sense of this, truly dared not stir a step, but could only turn his heart around; he knelt and pleaded:
The monkey's empirical mind concedes the point — attacking Guanyin is simply suicide. 行者 reads 行 as xíng. Within this segment 得 occurs twice with different values: 說得有理 (resultative de) then 只得 (dé).
"Master, this is her device for keeping me in hand, to make me go west with you.
His plea shows he now understands the fillet's purpose — a leash, not mere cruelty. 教我 reads 教 as jiào.
I will not go troubling her, and you too must not treat it as an everyday thing and keep reciting it.
He asks only that the spell not be used lightly — a bargain, not a surrender. 莫當常言 ("do not treat it as an everyday thing") reads 當 as dàng.
I am willing to protect you, and will have no more thought of turning back."
The pledge is given: he will protect the master and think no more of flight.
Sanzang said, "If that is so, then help me up onto the horse and let us go."
Sanzang, satisfied, calls for the road. 三藏 reads 藏 as zàng.
At this the Pilgrim, his heart now set past all changing, roused his spirits, tightened the quilted cassock, saddled the horse, gathered the baggage, and pressed on toward the west.
The reconciliation is complete: "heart set past all changing," the monkey takes up his duties and the pilgrimage resumes. 那行者 reads 那 as nà; 行者 and 行李 both read 行 as xíng.
In the end, as to what further was said on the road ahead — listen to the explaining in the next chapter.
The chapter closes on the storyteller's set formula. 甚話 reads 甚 as shén; 分解 reads 分 as fēn.
The conversion is finally sealed not by moral awakening but by hard calculation, which is exactly right for this character. Sanzang's argument is unanswerable on Wukong's own empirical terms: the one who made the spell can recite it too, so to attack her is simply to choose death. The monkey "sees the sense of this" and turns his heart around — the phrase is practical, not pious. He submits because submission is the rational move, and the novel is honest enough to say so.
Yet the submission is not abject. Wukong extracts a condition — that the spell not be used lightly, "not as an everyday thing" — and frames his obedience as a bargain: I will protect you, if you will not torment me for nothing. This is the shape the master-disciple bond will keep for the rest of the journey: not a broken servant and his owner, but a fierce, capable subordinate and a gentle, sometimes overcautious master, bound together by mutual need and a single golden band. The phrase 死心塌地 — "heart set past all changing" — marks the settling of the monkey's will, the true beginning of the pilgrimage proper.
So the chapter that opened with a monkey buried under a mountain closes with him saddling his master's horse and pressing west, his heart at last committed to the road. The two great disciplines of the chapter — persuasion (the Dragon King's parable, Guanyin's rebukes) and constraint (the fillet) — have done their combined work. The mind-monkey is not destroyed but harnessed; his enormous power, once a menace to Heaven, is now yoked to the pilgrimage's sacred purpose. The closing formula hands the reader on to the next stage of the journey.