Sanzang, having no help for it, could only do as he was told and bestride the bare-backed horse.

無奈 is "having no alternative"; 只得 takes 得 as dé, "could only". 刬馬 chǎn mǎ is a horse ridden bare — no saddle, no bridle, nothing between rider and animal. It is a specific word for a specific indignity, and it is being applied to an imperial envoy.

The Pilgrim shouldered the baggage, and they came to the brink of the gorge.

挑著 takes the unstressed zhe; 行囊 is the travelling pack. Both instances of 行 in this segment are read xíng.

There on the upper reach they saw an old fisherman poling a raft of dead wood, coming down with the current.

栰子 fá zi is a raft, here made of 枯木, dead wood; 撐著 takes the unstressed zhe. He appears at precisely the moment he is wanted, which in this novel is never a coincidence and is usually a clue. 那上流頭 is the pointing nà.

Seeing him, the Pilgrim beckoned with his hand and called: "Old fisherman, here — come here.

招呼 is to hail, to beckon. 那老漁 is the pointing nà. Wukong summons a stranger on the water in exactly the tone he used to summon an earth-god out of the ground.

I am bound from the Eastern Land to fetch the scriptures, and my master finds this a hard crossing. Come and ferry him over."

And here is the lesson, applied. 難過 is "hard to get across", with 難 read nán; 渡他一渡, "ferry him a ferrying", is the doubled verb of a casual request. But look at the order of the sentence. Before he asks for anything, he says who he is and where he is going — the Eastern Land, the scriptures. Guanyin told him to do that not two hundred characters ago, and he has done it without being reminded and without making anything of it.

Hearing this, the fisherman at once poled in to the bank. The Pilgrim helped his master down from the horse and supported him on either side.

撐攏 is to pole a boat alongside; 扶持左右 is to support a man on both sides. The fisherman complies at once, and asks for nothing.

Sanzang boarded the raft; they hauled the horse aboard and stowed the baggage.

揪上馬匹 — 揪, to haul by main force, is the same verb he used on the dragon-horse's forelock a page ago. A prince of the Western Sea is being manhandled onto a raft, and nobody comments.

The old fisherman poled the raft away, swift as wind and arrow, and before they knew it they were across Eagle-Grief Steep Gorge and up on the western bank.

如風似箭 takes 似 as sì, "like"; 不覺的 is "before they were aware of it". The gorge that could not be fought across is crossed in one sentence.

Sanzang bade the Pilgrim open the bundle, take out a few of the Great Tang's copper coins, and give them to the old fisherman.

錢鈔 is coin and paper notes; 教 is causative, jiào. Tang money is worth nothing on this side of the frontier and everybody present knows it. The courtesy is the entire payment.

The old fisherman thrust the raft off with one stroke of his pole, saying: "I want no money, I want no money" — and went away into midstream, vague and far and vanishing.

一篙 is one thrust of the pole. 渺渺茫茫, "vast and indistinct", doubles two syllables to describe something dissolving into distance — and it is the wrong register for a boatman. It is how an immortal leaves. The disclosure is two lines away, and the vocabulary has already given it up.

Sanzang was much abashed, and could only press his palms together and give thanks.

甚不過意: 甚 here is the adverb shèn, "exceedingly", not the shén of 甚麼 everywhere else in the chapter. 不過意 is the feeling of having taken more than one is owed — a very precise piece of social discomfort. 合掌 is the añjali, palms pressed together.

Said the Pilgrim: "Master, leave off your civilities. Do you not know him? He is the water-god of this very gorge.

休致意 is "leave off making acknowledgements"; 認得 takes the unstressed de. And the revelation is thrown away in a single clause — he is the water-god of this gorge — which is exactly how this novel likes to deliver its marvels: sideways, in passing, on the way to something else.

He never once came out to receive old Sun, and old Sun owes him a beating still. That he is let off the beating is enough for him — how should he dare ask for money!"

接得 takes the unstressed de, on the same pattern as the mountain and earth gods earlier; 還要打他 takes 還 as hái, "still". Wukong's grievance has not shifted by a hair: the god failed to turn out and receive him, and therefore owes him a beating. Which puts the refusal of payment in a rather different light.

The master, half believing and half not, could only bestride the bare-backed horse again and follow the Pilgrim, striking for the high road and hastening away westward. And this is what is meant by the lines:

似信不信 takes 似 as sì, "as if"; 只得 is again dé. 跨著 and 隨著 both take the unstressed zhe. 這正是 is the storyteller's tag for a closing couplet.

Broad and vast, True Thusness ascends the farther shore; the heart made sincere, the nature comprehended, one climbs to Vulture Peak.

真如 zhēn rú renders Sanskrit tathatā, "suchness" — reality exactly as it is, with nothing added. 彼岸, "the farther shore", is where the pāramitā named in the poem at the Southern Sea is going. 了性 takes 了 as liǎo, to comprehend fully, not the everyday toneless le. So the couplet reads the raft as an allegory of crossing over — which is what the ferrying has quietly been the whole time. A man has just been carried over water to the far bank, free of charge, by somebody who would not give his name.