But even as he was making his salutation, the old man was suddenly not to be seen; and turning to look back at the Shrine of Village and Soil, they found only a stretch of naked ground.

打問訊, "to make the Buddhist greeting with joined hands." 一片光地, "a stretch of bare earth." The shrine, the acolyte, the tea, the supper, the beds — none of it was ever there.

They heard only a voice speaking in mid-air: "Holy monk, I have used you with much neglect.

只聽得 takes the resultative 得 (de). 簡慢, "to be remiss in courtesy" — an apology, offered by a god who has just given away everything he pretended to own.

I am the Mountain God and the Local God of Mount Potalaka, dispatched by the Bodhisattva to bring the saddle and bridle to you.

落伽山 is Potalaka, with 伽 read qié; 差 is read chāi, "dispatched." Not the local gods of Coiled-Snake Mountain, then, but Guanyin's own — and the poverty, the fire, the bereavement, the beggar's post were a fiction she composed.

Press on westward with all your strength, and be not slothful for a moment."

努力西行, "strive westward"; 怠慢, "to slacken, to be remiss." The parting charge repeats, almost word for word, what Guanyin said to Wukong when she refused to let him quit.

Startled clean out of himself, Sanzang tumbled from the saddle and bowed toward the empty sky, saying: "Your disciple has the fleshly eyes of a mortal womb and did not know your honoured face. I beg forgiveness for my fault.

慌得 takes the resultative 得 (de); 滾鞍下馬, "to tumble from the saddle." 肉眼凡胎, "fleshly eyes, a common womb," is the standing confession of mortal blindness. Within one chapter Sanzang has failed to recognise a Bodhisattva, a water-god and now two mountain deities.

I pray you convey my thanks to the Bodhisattva, whose grace and protection I have deeply received." And look at him: he did nothing but knock his head toward heaven, past all counting.

深蒙恩佑 — and 佑 is the very graph of the chapter's title, 諸神暗佑, "the gods give secret protection." He thanks them for exactly what the chapter has been called. 朝天磕頭 (朝 read cháo), "to knock the head toward heaven"; 不計其數, "past all reckoning."

At the roadside the Great Sage Sun fell over laughing, laughing till he was helpless; the Handsome Monkey King was fairly undone with glee.

活活的笑倒, "to fall down alive with laughter"; 孜孜的喜壞, "to be spoiled with glee." The reduplicated adverbs are barely translatable; between them they render helpless, shaking, unseemly mirth.

He came forward and took hold of the Tang monk, saying: "Master, get up. He has gone far off already;

扯住, "to seize hold of" — the same verb with which he clutched at Guanyin's robe and refused to let her go. 去得遠了 takes the resultative 得 (de).

he cannot hear your prayers, he cannot see you knocking your head. What are you going on bowing for?"

禱祝, "to pray"; 只管拜怎的, "what do you mean by going on bowing?" The objection is briskly practical, and it is also the chapter's deepest joke about protection that is given from out of sight.

Said the elder: "Disciple! When I kowtow like this, you will not bow him so much as a single bow,

不拜他一拜, "will not bow him one bow." The reproach is a father's, and entirely just.

but stand off at the side doing nothing but smirk. What sort of behaviour is that?"

立在傍邊 (傍 read páng), "standing off to one side"; 哂笑, "to smile in derision." For once Sanzang's indignation is unanswerable, and it is not answered.

Said the Pilgrim: "How should you know? A creature like that, who hides his head and shows his tail, ought by rights to have had a beating;

那裡知道 is the rhetorical interrogative, nǎ. 藏頭露尾 takes 藏 as cáng, "to hide" — with 冬藏 at the village shrine, one of only two places in this chapter where the graph is not the zàng of the monk's own name. Wukong's grievance is that the god came disguised.

and only for the Bodhisattva's sake was he let off the beating, which is quite enough for him. Should he dare receive a bow from old Sun besides?

只為 takes 為 as wèi, "only because"; 儘夠了, "quite enough for him"; 他還敢 takes 還 as hái, "should he yet dare." Reverence, in Wukong's economy, is a coin he does not mint.

Old Sun has been a stout fellow since he was small, and never learned how to bow to anybody.

好漢, "a stout fellow, a man of mettle"; 不曉得拜人 takes the resultative 得 (de), "never learned how to bow to anyone."

Even when I met the Jade Emperor and the Most High Lord Lao, I made them no more than a chanted salute, and there was an end of it."

唱個喏 — 喏 read rě — is to make a bow with a murmured salutation, the very slightest courtesy the language knows. 太上老君 is Laozi deified, in whose furnace Wukong's fiery eyes were tempered. He names the two highest beings of the Daoist heaven precisely in order to establish how little he bows.

Said Sanzang: "Irreverent creature! Say no more of such empty stuff. Up now, and do not delay us on the road."

不當人子 (bù dāng rén zǐ), literally "unbecoming a man's son," is an exclamation of scandalised piety — "God forbid; that is blasphemy." 空頭話, "empty talk, brag." The monk has no argument, only shock, and shock is enough to end the conversation.

Only then did the master rise, gather their things, and set off westward.

才起來, "only then rose." Sanzang has the last word and Wukong has his way, which is how this pair will travel for eighty-five chapters more.