Now the Gold-Headed Guardian, mounting a single cloud, came early to the Southern Sea.

卻說 picks up the thread the storyteller put down with 不題 — the two formulas work as a pair, like a cut and a cut-back. The 南海, Southern Sea, is Guanyin's home. 一駕雲, "one riding of the cloud", measures the entire journey as a single effortless act.

He reined in his auspicious light and went straight to the Purple Bamboo Grove on Mount Potalaka, where he had the golden-armoured devas and Mokṣa Huì'àn carry word within, and so obtained audience with the Bodhisattva.

落伽山 is Mount Potalaka, Guanyin's island paradise, with 伽 again read qié, exactly as in 伽藍 earlier in the chapter. 紫竹林 is the Purple Bamboo Grove. 木叉, Mokṣa, styled 惠岸, is Guanyin's disciple. 得見 takes 得 as dé, "obtain an audience". Note that even a god has to be announced, and waits.

Said the Bodhisattva: "On what errand have you come?"

汝 is the classical "you"; 何幹 is "on what business?" Four characters. She is the one being in this chapter who does not waste a word, and the contrast with everybody else's shouting is the point.

Said the Guardian: "The Tang monk has lost his horse at Eagle-Grief Steep Gorge on Coiled-Snake Mountain, and the Great Sage Sun is so beside himself that he can neither advance nor retreat.

急得 takes the unstressed de. 進退兩難, "hard to advance and hard to retreat", is the set phrase for being stuck between two impossible options — still entirely current in Chinese, and the exact equivalent of being caught between a rock and a hard place. Here 難 is nán, difficult, not the nàn of appointed calamity that bound dragon and monkey together in the rhapsody.

On enquiring of the earth-god of that place, we learn it was swallowed by the vile dragon whom the Bodhisattva sent to dwell in the gorge.

本處土神 is the earth-god of that place. The Guardian reports the single fact that matters — the dragon is the Bodhisattva's own charge — and he reports it with the faintest possible edge on it.

The Great Sage has bidden this humble god come and beg the Bodhisattva to subdue the vile dragon and give him back his horse."

著 is causative here and read zhuó: to send, to have someone do a thing. Then the chapter's two governing verbs land in one clause. 降 is xiáng, subdue, not jiàng, descend; and 還他馬匹 takes 還 as huán, give back. Subdue and give back: that is the entire brief as Wukong understands it, and it is about to be answered by somebody who understands it differently.

Hearing this, the Bodhisattva said: "That creature is by birth a son of Aorun of the Western Sea.

敖閏, Áo Rùn, is the Dragon King of the Western Sea; 之子, "his son", takes 子 in its full sense, zǐ. 這廝, "that creature", keeps up the dismissive register everyone has used of the dragon throughout — including, it turns out, the Bodhisattva who saved its life.

For setting fire to the luminous pearl of the palace hall he was charged by his own father with unfilial conduct, and in the courts of Heaven he was condemned to death.

And here is the withheld fact. 殿上明珠, the luminous pearl of the palace hall, was a treasure of the sea-dragon's court — and the pearl beneath the dragon's own chin, which spat coloured mist all through the duel, is the same kind of object. 忤逆, unfilial refractoriness, was a capital charge in imperial law as much as in the codes of Heaven: a son who wrongs his father is not merely rude, he is criminal. 為 is read wèi, "on account of". The offence is of exactly Wukong's order — a crime against a superior.

It was I who went in person before the Jade Emperor and begged him down, that he might serve the Tang monk as a beast of burden.

討他下來 is "begged him down", that is, petitioned for the death sentence to be lifted. 腳力 is a beast of burden, a mount. Stop and take in the arrangement: the horse the dragon has just devoured was to have been made redundant by the dragon himself. The irony is complete, and not one creature at the gorge has any idea of it.

How comes he to have eaten the Tang monk's horse instead?

反 is "on the contrary, instead". Even the Bodhisattva is taken aback, which is rare in this novel and worth registering: her providence works through the natures of the creatures involved, not around them, so it can be surprised by an ordinary appetite.

Since it is so, wait while I go."

這等說 is "since it is put like that"; 等我去來, "wait while I go", is the colloquial idiom for setting off at once. No deliberation, no retinue, no announcement.

The Bodhisattva descended from her lotus dais, left her immortal grotto, and with the Guardian rode the auspicious light, passing over the Southern Sea and away.

Two readings of one character inside a few lines, and this time in a single passage. 降蓮臺 takes 降 as jiàng, to come down — she descends from her lotus dais — set directly against the xiáng, "subdue", of the Guardian's request a moment earlier. 駕著 takes the unstressed zhe.

There is a poem to attest it. The poem says:

有詩為證, "there is a poem to attest it", is the storyteller's standing formula for bringing on verse, with 為 read wéi, to serve as. 詩曰 then announces a regulated poem in seven-syllable lines.

The Buddha preached the pāramitā, the sūtras of the Three Baskets; the Bodhisattva spread goodness till it filled the Long Wall.

蜜多 transliterates the Sanskrit pāramitā, the "crossing over to the farther shore" — the same word that will close the chapter's ferry scene. 三藏經 is the Tripiṭaka, the Three Baskets of the canon; and yes, that is the monk's own name sitting in the middle of the line, since 三藏 (with 藏 read zàng) is precisely what Sanzang is called. He is named after the scriptures he is going to fetch. 長城, the Long Wall, with 長 read cháng, stands here for the whole realm of China.

The mahā words of wonder pass through Heaven and Earth; the prajñā mantra of truth delivers the ghostly souls.

摩訶 mó hē transliterates mahā, great; 般若 bō rě is prajñā, transcendent wisdom; 真言, "true words", renders mantra. Between them the couplet names the two poles of the Perfection of Wisdom literature — which is exactly what the pilgrimage has been sent to fetch.

Thus was the Golden Cicada made to slough his shell once more; thus was Xuanzang set again to the practice of the Way.

金蟬, the Golden Cicada, was Sanzang in a previous life: a disciple of the Buddha banished for inattention during a sermon. 重脫殼 takes 重 as chóng, again, and 殼 as qiào — a cicada sloughing its shell is the standing Chinese figure for rebirth, and this one is doing it a second time. 玄奘, Xuánzàng, is the monk's historical name; there really was such a traveller, in the seventh century, and everything else in this book is invention hung on him.

Only because the road lay barred at Eagle-Grief Gorge did the dragon's son return to truth and take the form of a horse.

龍子, "the dragon's son", with 子 read zǐ, is the jade dragon. 歸真, "return to the true", is the term both Daoists and Buddhists use for reverting to one's proper nature. And there, in the last line, is the end of the story, printed before the scene is played: the obstacle in the road turns out to be the deliverance. Neither combatant can see it. The reader now can.