闔家相見 Welcomed into the House
老者卻才下拜，將唐僧請到裡面，即喚老妻與兒女都來相見，具言前事，個個忻喜。又命看茶。茶罷，問悟空道：「大聖啊，你也有年紀了？」悟空道：「你今年幾歲了？」老者道：「我痴長一百三十歲了。」行者道：「還是我重子重孫哩。我那生身的年紀，我不記得是幾時；但只在這山腳下，已五百餘年了。」老者道：「是有，是有。我曾記得祖公公說，此山乃從天降下，就壓了一個神猴。只到如今，你才脫體。我那小時見你時，你頭上有草，臉上有泥，還不怕你；如今臉上無了泥，頭上無了草，卻像瘦了些，腰間又苫了一塊大虎皮，與鬼怪能差多少？」一家兒聽得這般話說，都呵呵大笑。老者却才下拜，将唐僧请到里面，即唤老妻与儿女都来相见，具言前事，个个忻喜。又命看茶。茶罢，问悟空道：「大圣啊，你也有年纪了？」悟空道：「你今年几岁了？」老者道：「我痴长一百三十岁了。」行者道：「还是我重子重孙哩。我那生身的年纪，我不记得是几时；但只在这山脚下，已五百余年了。」老者道：「是有，是有。我曾记得祖公公说，此山乃从天降下，就压了一个神猴。只到如今，你才脱体。我那小时见你时，你头上有草，脸上有泥，还不怕你；如今脸上无了泥，头上无了草，却像瘦了些，腰间又苫了一块大虎皮，与鬼怪能差多少？」一家儿听得这般话说，都呵呵大笑。
逐句解 Line by line
The old man then made his bow, invited the Tang monk within, and at once called his aged wife and his children to come and meet the guests; he told them all that had passed, and every one of them was glad.
Recognition complete, the old man turns host, presenting the monk to his household. 將 here is the object-marker, read jiāng; 都來相見 ("all come to meet") reads 都 as dōu and 相 in its reciprocal sense, xiāng.
He ordered tea; and when the tea was done, he asked Wukong, "Great Sage, you too must be well on in years?"
The offering of tea (看茶) is the first courtesy of a guest's reception; the polite inquiry after Wukong's age opens a comic exchange.
Wukong said, "And how old are you this year?" The old man said, "I have foolishly reached one hundred and thirty."
The banter inverts their apparent ages: the monkey, ancient beyond reckoning, treats the 130-year-old man as a junior. 痴長 ("to have foolishly grown old") is a modest way of naming one's age; 長 is read zhǎng.
The Pilgrim said, "Then you are but my great-great-grandchild.
The punchline: the old man is Wukong's 重子重孫, "grandchild many times over." Here 重 means "repeated, layered" and is read chóng.
The age of my very birth I cannot recall to what time it belongs; but here at the foot of this mountain alone I have already spent five hundred years and more."
Wukong's careless vagueness about his own origins — he cannot recall the time of his birth — is characteristic; only his five centuries under the mountain are fixed. 那 reads nà; 記得 ("remember") takes 得 as de.
The old man said, "True, true. I remember my grandfather saying that this mountain came down from Heaven and pressed a divine monkey beneath it.
The old man confirms the monkey's tale from family memory: his grandfather knew the legend of the mountain fallen from Heaven and the monkey pinned beneath. 降下 ("came down") reads 降 as jiàng.
Only now have you got free of it.
The remark that the monkey is only now released underlines how long the sentence has run — a span of many family generations.
When I saw you in my childhood there was grass on your head and mud on your face, and still I was not afraid of you;
His childhood recollection — grass, mud, and a boy unafraid — adds a homely human witness to the marvel of the imprisoned Sage.
but now the mud is gone from your face and the grass from your head, and you look rather thinner, with a great tiger-skin bound at your waist besides — how much, then, do you differ from a goblin?"
The teasing catalogue of the monkey's altered looks turns on a joke: cleaned of grass and mud and wrapped in tiger-skin, he seems, if anything, more like a goblin than before. 差多少 ("differ by how much") reads 差 as chà.
The whole family, hearing this kind of talk, all burst out laughing.
The family's laughter closes the scene warmly. 聽得 takes 得 as de; 都 ("all") is dōu.
With recognition achieved, the chapter settles into a warm domestic interlude. The old farmer brings the travellers indoors, presents them to his wife and children, and serves tea — the ordinary rituals of hospitality that the pilgrimage will meet again and again at wayside households.
The centrepiece is a comic dialogue on age. The 130-year-old host politely supposes the Great Sage to be "well on in years"; Wukong, whose imprisonment alone has lasted five centuries, cheerfully makes the old man his grandchild many times removed. The joke rests on the vast, half-mythic timescale of the monkey's existence set against ordinary human span.
The old man's memory — a boy who once saw the grass-grown, mud-caked prisoner and was unafraid — grounds the marvel in family recollection, and his teasing that the cleaned-up, tiger-skinned monkey now looks more like a goblin than ever sets the whole household laughing. It is a moment of ease before the winter road and the robbers to come.