The old woman said, "Which way did he go?"

Which way did he go? She knows, of course; the question is how she gets to say the next thing. 他那廂去了 reads 那 as the asking-word nǎ.

Sanzang said, "I heard a whistling sound, and he went off eastward."

East, he says — and east is where she is about to say she lives. 三藏 reads 藏 as zàng; 聽得 takes 得 as de.

The old woman said, "My home is not far to the east; he has surely gone that way.

A tidy fiction: my house is just along there, so he has surely gone past my door. It gives her a reason to go after him and a reason for the monk not to wonder about it.

I have there besides a spell, called the True Words for Stilling the Mind, and also named the Tight-Fillet Spell.

And here is the single most important object in the whole novel, produced as an afterthought. The spell has two names, and the pair of them tell you everything: 定心真言, the True Words for Stilling the Mind, is what it is for, and 緊箍兒咒, the Tight-Fillet Spell, is what it does — tightening a golden band round Wukong's skull. Doctrine and instrument, the same thing named twice. 我那裡 reads 那 as nà; 還有 reads 還 as hái.

You must con it in secret, keep it fast in your heart, and never let a single soul know of it.

Learn it in secret, keep it in your heart, tell nobody. The secrecy is not decoration; a spell the monkey knew about is a spell he could have talked his way around.

I will go and catch up with him, and send him back to follow you; and you shall give him this garment and cap to wear.

The plan, laid out plainly: I will fetch him back, and you will put these clothes on him. 還來 reads 還 as hái; 將此 reads 將 as jiāng.

If he will not obey your command, you have only to recite this spell in silence, and he will never dare do violence again, nor ever dare leave."

And what it is for: recite it silently and he will never again dare do violence, nor dare leave. Those are the two failures of this chapter — the killing and the desertion — answered by one device. Where persuasion did not hold him, pain will. 行兇 reads 行 as xíng.

Hearing this, Sanzang bowed his head in thanks. The old woman changed into a shaft of golden light and went off eastward.

The disguise drops the moment her business is done: the old woman turns into a shaft of golden light and goes east. In this novel that is how you find out who you have been talking to. 三藏 reads 藏 as zàng; 那老母 reads 那 as nà.

Then Sanzang knew in his heart that it was the Bodhisattva Guanyin who had bestowed these True Words; in haste he gathered a pinch of earth for incense and bowed to the east with all his heart.

There is no censer on a mountain road, so he scrapes up a pinch of earth to stand in for one and bows east with everything he has. 三藏 reads 藏 as zàng.

His worship done, he took up the garment and cap and hid them away within his bundle.

Then he hides the clothes in his bundle — and with them, unknown to anyone but himself and a bodhisattva, the golden band. In 藏在包袱 the character 藏 is the verb cáng, 'to hide', not the zàng of the monk's own name; the character he is called by is the character for what he is doing. 中間 reads 中 as zhōng.

Then, sitting by the roadside, he recited the True Words for Stilling the Mind over and over, until he had them letter-perfect and fixed fast in his breast — of which no more.

And he sits down by the roadside and learns it by heart, over and over, until it is letter-perfect. The gentlest character in the book, quietly arming himself. 那定心真言 reads 那 as nà; 念得 takes 得 as de.