黑大王 The Great King of Black Wind
行者大怒，走進方丈屋裡，把那觸死鬼屍首擡出，選剝了細看，渾身更無那件寶貝。就把個方丈掘地三尺，也無蹤影。行者忖量半晌，問道：「你這裡可有甚麼妖怪成精麼？」院主道：「老爺不問，莫想得知。我這裡正東南有座黑風山，黑風洞內有一個黑大王，我這老死鬼常與他講道，他便是個妖精。別無甚物。」行者道：「那山離此有多遠近？」院主道：「只有二十里，那望見山頭的就是。」行者笑道：「師父放心，不須講了，一定是那黑怪偷去無疑。」行者大怒，走进方丈屋里，把那触死鬼尸首擡出，选剥了细看，浑身更无那件宝贝。就把个方丈掘地三尺，也无踪影。行者忖量半晌，问道：「你这里可有甚么妖怪成精么？」院主道：「老爷不问，莫想得知。我这里正东南有座黑风山，黑风洞内有一个黑大王，我这老死鬼常与他讲道，他便是个妖精。别无甚物。」行者道：「那山离此有多远近？」院主道：「只有二十里，那望见山头的就是。」行者笑道：「师父放心，不须讲了，一定是那黑怪偷去无疑。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Pilgrim, in a great rage, went into the abbot's chamber, hauled out the corpse of the old ghost who had killed himself against the wall,
觸死鬼, "the ghost who dashed himself dead." The narrator has adopted the monks' phrase for their patriarch within a hundred graphs of his death.
stripped it and looked it over closely — and on the whole body there was no such treasure. He dug the abbot's quarters up three feet deep besides, and found not a shadow of it.
選剝 — 剝 is read bāo in this vernacular sense, "to strip, to peel." The corpse is undressed and searched, and the floor of the dead man's cell dug three feet down. Nothing in this chapter is treated with reverence except a coat.
The Pilgrim pondered a while, then asked, "Is there any goblin hereabouts that has become a spirit?"
忖量 takes liáng, the verb, "to weigh in the mind." The question is the first intelligent one anybody has asked since the fire, and it comes after the exhumation, not before.
The prior said, "Had your Worship not asked, we should never have thought to tell you.
莫想得知 ("you could never have come to know it"); 得知 takes dé. The prior has known there was a demon on the next mountain since before Sanzang arrived.
"Due south-east of us there stands a Black Wind Mountain, and within the Black Wind Cave there is a Great King of Black Wind. This old dead ghost of ours often discoursed on the Way with him. He is a fiend.
常與他講道 — "often discoursed with him on the Way." The abbot of the Guanyin Chan Monastery and the bear-spirit of Black Wind Mountain were in the habit of discussing doctrine together. The novel lets this fall as an aside, and it is the most damning aside in the chapter.
"There is nothing else of the kind."
別無甚物: 甚 is shén, elliptical for 甚麼 — "nothing else of the sort." Having named the one demon within a day's walk, the prior adds that there is nothing unusual about the neighbourhood.
The Pilgrim said, "How far off is that mountain?" The prior said, "Only twenty lǐ. That peak you can see from here — that is it."
Twenty lǐ, and visible from the courtyard. The whole geography of the theft has been standing in plain sight the entire time.
The Pilgrim laughed. "Set your heart at rest, master. No need to argue it. Beyond a doubt it is that black fiend who has stolen it."
坐定, 無疑 — Wukong reasons like a man who has been an outlaw. He knows what a fire looks like from a mountain at night, because he has watched one from a mountain at night.
Wukong strips a corpse, digs up a floor, and then thinks to ask a question. The order is exact and unflattering: violence first, and inference after, which has been his method since the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. But the answer, when it comes, is the chapter's last and quietest revelation. There is a demon twenty lǐ away, visible from the courtyard — and the dead abbot, 常與他講道, used to discuss the Way with him.
Consider what that sentence does. The Guanyin Monastery has been shown to us as a house of accumulation, of family idiom, of eight hundred robes and twelve locked chests. It now turns out that its patriarch's nearest companion in the study of doctrine was a bear-spirit in a cave. Neither party appears to have found this odd; the prior mentions it as one might mention a neighbour. And the bear, when we meet him in the next chapter, is discovered holding a 佛衣會, a Buddha-Robe Festival, to celebrate his acquisition. Between a monk who converts the Dharma into an heirloom and a monster who converts a theft into a liturgy, Wú Chéng'ēn declines to draw a line. The line was drawn already, by the poem: 不是真僧不敢穿.