叫和尚伏侍 In the Unseen and the Seen
三藏道：「他那廂離此有二十里，如何就斷得是他？」行者道：「你不曾見夜間那火，光騰萬里，亮透三天，且休說二十里，就是二百里也照見了。坐定是他見火光焜耀，趁著機會，暗暗的來到這裡，看見我們袈裟是件寶貝，必然趁鬨擄去也。等老孫去尋他一尋。」三藏道：「你去了時，我卻何倚？」行者道：「這個放心，暗中自有神靈保護，明中等我叫那些和尚伏侍。」即喚眾和尚過來，道：「汝等著幾個去埋那老鬼；著幾個伏侍我師父，看守我白馬。」三藏道：「他那厢离此有二十里，如何就断得是他？」行者道：「你不曾见夜间那火，光腾万里，亮透三天，且休说二十里，就是二百里也照见了。坐定是他见火光焜耀，趁着机会，暗暗的来到这里，看见我们袈裟是件宝贝，必然趁哄掳去也。等老孙去寻他一寻。」三藏道：「你去了时，我却何倚？」行者道：「这个放心，暗中自有神灵保护，明中等我叫那些和尚伏侍。」即唤众和尚过来，道：「汝等着几个去埋那老鬼；着几个伏侍我师父，看守我白马。」
逐句解 Line by line
Sanzang said, "His quarter lies twenty lǐ from here. How can you conclude so certainly that it was he?"
他那廂 is "his side, his quarter." Sanzang's objection is a reasonable one about distances; 斷得 takes dé.
The Pilgrim said, "You did not see last night's fire. Its light climbed ten thousand lǐ; its brightness pierced the three heavens.
光騰萬里，亮透三天 — the whole fire-description boiled down to two four-character phrases, and quoted by the man who raised the wind that made it so. He is offering his own arson as forensic evidence, and nobody notices.
"Never mind twenty lǐ — at two hundred it would still have been seen.
The rhetorical frame is 且休說…就是…也…, "never mind twenty; even two hundred would still." He is enjoying himself.
"Depend upon it, he saw the fire-light blazing, took his chance, came here quietly,
趁著機會 takes zhe. 坐定是他 is "it is settled that it was he" — the firmer restatement of the 一定 he used a moment ago. The reconstruction is exactly right in every particular, which is what one would expect from its author.
"saw that our cassock was a treasure, and made off with it in the confusion. Let old Sun go and hunt him out."
趁鬨擄去 — "carried it off in the uproar" — is the very phrase the narrator used of the bear at the moment of the theft. Wukong has never laid eyes on him, and describes him perfectly.
Sanzang said, "If you go, on what shall I lean?"
我卻何倚: "on what am I then to lean?" It is the first thing Sanzang has said in twenty lines that is not about the cassock — and it turns out to be about himself. The verb is worth noticing: not who will protect me but what shall I lean on, the same word the closing poem will use of the staff he set out with.
The Pilgrim said, "Set your mind at ease. In the unseen you have spirits to guard you; in the seen, I shall make these monks wait upon you."
暗中 and 明中, in the unseen and in the seen, both zhōng. The arrangement is impeccable and the joke is total: in the unseen are the spirits Guanyin appointed, who slept soundly through a fire; in the seen are the monks who lit it. Wukong offers his master both sets of guardians in the same sentence and does not appear to hear himself.
He called the monks over at once and said, "Let some of you go and bury that old ghost; let some wait on my master and look after my white horse."
著幾個, twice over: the causative zhuó, "have some of them do it." And 埋那老鬼 — the burial of the patriarch is issued as the first item on a work-roster, ahead of the horse.
Wukong solves the theft without leaving the courtyard, and the solution is a confession. How does he know a demon twenty lǐ away saw the fire? Because he knows exactly how bright the fire was: 光騰萬里，亮透三天, its light climbed ten thousand lǐ and pierced the three heavens. He is quoting the description of his own wind. And how does he know what a passer-by would have done on finding an unguarded treasure in a burning house? 趁鬨擄去也 — "carried it off in the uproar." That is the narrator's phrase for the bear, word for word, and Wukong arrives at it by consulting nobody but himself.
Then Sanzang asks the one human question in the passage — 你去了時，我卻何倚？, "if you go, on what shall I lean?" — and the answer is a small masterpiece of unconsciousness. 暗中自有神靈保護，明中等我叫那些和尚伏侍: in the unseen, the spirits will protect you; in the seen, I shall have these monks wait on you. The spirits slept through the fire. The monks lit it. Wukong hands his master to both, walks out, and the arrangement will hold perfectly well — because the terror of him is now the strongest force in the district.