冤魂索命 The Wronged Ghosts Come for Our Lives
卻說那些和尚正悲切間，忽的看見他師徒牽馬挑擔而來，諕得一個個魂飛魄散道：「冤魂索命來了。」行者喝道：「甚麼冤魂索命？快還我袈裟來。」眾僧一齊跪倒，叩頭道：「爺爺呀！冤有冤家，債有債主。要索命不干我們事，都是廣謀與老和尚定計害你的，莫問我們討命。」行者咄的一聲道：「我把你這些該死的畜生，那個問你討甚麼命。只拿袈裟來還我走路！」却说那些和尚正悲切间，忽的看见他师徒牵马挑担而来，諕得一个个魂飞魄散道：「冤魂索命来了。」行者喝道：「甚么冤魂索命？快还我袈裟来。」众僧一齐跪倒，叩头道：「爷爷呀！冤有冤家，债有债主。要索命不干我们事，都是广谋与老和尚定计害你的，莫问我们讨命。」行者咄的一声道：「我把你这些该死的畜生，那个问你讨甚么命。只拿袈裟来还我走路！」
逐句解 Line by line
Now, the monks were in the midst of their lamenting when suddenly they caught sight of master and disciple coming toward them, leading the horse and shouldering the load.
悲切 is keen grief. 牽馬挑擔 — leading the horse, shouldering the load: the two men come out of the smoke doing exactly what travellers do, which is precisely what makes them unbearable to look at.
Terror scattered the souls of every one of them. "The wronged ghosts have come for our lives!"
諕得 is xià de. 魂飛魄散 — the hun-souls fly off and the po-souls scatter — is the standard idiom for terror, and doubly apt here, because they take the survivors for 冤魂, the ghosts of the wronged, come back to collect a life for a life.
The Pilgrim shouted at them, "What wronged ghosts? What lives? Give me back my cassock, and quickly."
還 is huán, "give back." Consider that the first thing Wukong says to the men who tried to burn him alive is a demand for the coat. Nothing in this chapter is about anything else.
The whole body of monks fell on their knees together and knocked their heads. "Your Worship! A wrong has its wrongdoer, and a debt has its debtor.
冤有冤家，債有債主 — "a wrong has its wronger, a debt has its creditor" — is a proverb straight out of the vernacular ghost-story: the vengeful dead should go and collect from the right man. Notice that they are not denying the crime. They are apportioning it.
"If you want lives, it is no affair of ours. It was Guangmou and the old monk who laid the plan to do you harm. Do not come dunning us for lives."
不干我們事 is "no business of ours"; 討命 is to dun for a life the way one duns for money. Two hundred and thirty men who shouted 強，強，強 at the plan now name two culprits and stand back.
The Pilgrim barked at them, "You beasts, you deserve to die! Who is asking any of you for a life?
咄的一聲 is a bark. 畜生 (chù sheng) is "beasts," a serious insult in a Buddhist mouth, since animal birth is the wage of past evil. 那個 is interrogative, nǎ: "which of you." He is not offended by being taken for a ghost; he is impatient at the delay.
"Only fetch the cassock, give it back to me, and let me be on my road!"
還我走路: 還 is again huán, give back. Look at how little the demand contains. Give it back, and let me go. No reproach, no verdict, not one word about the fire or about the men who lit it. He has already had his satisfaction, and he collected it at three in the morning from a rooftop.
The monks see two men walking out of a burnt monastery leading a horse, and conclude that they are being haunted. It is the only conclusion available to them, and it is a confession: you do not mistake a guest for a 冤魂, a wronged ghost come to claim a life, unless you know perfectly well that you wronged him. Their first act is to kneel. Their second is to name Guangmou and the abbot. 冤有冤家，債有債主 — let the ghost go and collect from the right debtor. Wú Chéng'ēn gives the whole moral collapse of a community in one proverb, and the proverb is about book-keeping.
And Wukong will have none of it. 那個問你討甚麼命 — who is asking any of you for a life? Their guilt does not interest him, nor their kneeling, nor their careful apportioning of blame. 只拿袈裟來還我走路: bring the cassock, give it back, let me go. That is now the third time in this chapter that somebody has stood over the wreckage of something and asked only after the coat — and this third one is the man who made the wreckage. The novel offers no comment. It stopped needing to several pages ago.