Excellent Great Sage! He worked a spell, turned to meet the wind and changed, and was indeed the very likeness of the old monk.

迎著風 takes zhe: 迎 is a verb of moving towards something, and the character marks a state kept up rather than a goal reached. Compare the same construction at 在海上迎著我.

He hid away the iron rod, stretched his stride, came straight to the cave mouth, and called, "Open the gate!"

藏 here is cáng, to hide something away — not the zàng of the master's name. 拽開步: 拽 reads zhuài, to haul or stretch.

The little demon opened it, saw such a figure standing there, and turned quickly to report, "Great King, the elder Jinchi is come."

The little demon does not look twice — which is the whole point of the disguise. Two readings: 模樣 takes 模 as mú, appearance, and 長老 takes 長 as zhǎng, elder.

The fiend was greatly startled. "I have this moment dispatched the little one with a card to invite him.

差了小的 — 差 is chāi, to send someone off on an errand. Two segments further on the same character turns up in 差矣 and reads chà, to be mistaken.

At this hour he cannot yet have reached there. How is it he comes so speedily?

那裡 is pointing here, nà, meaning over there at the temple. 來得 takes the manner-marking de, and 哩 is the closing li. Watch what the fiend does: he reasons correctly from a false premise and arrives at the truth.

I suppose the little one never fell in with him, and that Sun the Pilgrim has assuredly called him here to demand the cassock.

撞著 reports a meeting that actually happened, so it reads zháo. His deduction is exact — the messenger never did meet the abbot — and the conclusion he draws from it is exactly wrong.

Steward — put the Buddha-robe away, and let him not lay eyes on it."

管事的 is the steward. 藏了: cáng. 教 is again the causative jiào. Hiding the robe is the one precaution he takes, and it turns out to be enough.

The Pilgrim came in at the front gate, and saw in the courtyard pine and bamboo mingling their green,

天井 is the open court inside the gate; 篁 is bamboo. What follows is prose rather than verse, but it is the chapter's third garden.

peach and plum contending in loveliness, flowers opening in clusters, orchids fragrant in tufts: a very cave-heaven of a place.

洞天, the cave-heaven, is a technical term from Taoist sacred geography: one of the graded paradises hidden inside mountains. The narrator applies it to a bear-fiend's front yard with no visible irony at all.

On the second gate he saw a matched pair of lines, of the kind known as a couplet, which read: In stillness hidden in the deep hills, no vulgar cares; secluded in an immortal cave, delighting in heaven's own truth.

一聯對子 is a matched pair of lines mounted one on each leaf of a gate — the same thing you still see pasted up either side of a Chinese doorway at New Year, where the two lines answer each other phrase for phrase and the second caps the first. That is what a couplet is, and the translation names it here on its first appearance. This one is an object being looked at, a 對子 quoted as a thing seen, like the six characters on the slab over the cave door, and so it is set as prose rather than verse. 樂天真: 樂 reads lè, to delight in. 天真 is heaven-given nature, and the whole thing is a recluse's boast about himself — posted, note, on a bear-fiend's second gate.

The Pilgrim said within himself, "This creature too has shed the dust and left the world — a monster who knows what is allotted him."

脫垢離塵, shedding the grime and leaving the dust behind, is Buddhist; 知命, knowing what is allotted, comes from the Analects. Alone and with nobody to hear him, the Pilgrim pays the fiend the highest compliment anyone pays him in the chapter — and then walks straight on in to rob him.

Passing in and going further forward, he came within the third gate to painted ridgepoles and carven beams, bright windows and coloured doors.

畫棟雕梁, painted ridgepole and carved beam, is the set formula for a rich house. 都 reads dōu.

He saw the black fellow wearing a lined jacket of dark-green ramie silk,

紵絲 is ramie silk; 袢襖 is a lined jacket. The fiend is dressed for a caller now rather than for war, and the armour-poem from earlier should be read against this.

over it a cloak of raven-blue figured damask, on his head a soft cap of black horn, and on his feet a pair of deerskin boots dyed black.

Three garments, three different measure words, and three instances of 一 — 一領, 一頂, 一雙 — every one of them sitting before a first- or third-tone character, and every one therefore yì.

Seeing the Pilgrim enter, he set his gown and cap straight and came down the steps to receive him. "Old friend Jinchi, these many days we have been strangers. Pray sit, pray sit."

降階 takes jiàng, to come down the steps: the correct courtesy of a host receiving an honoured guest. 欠親 is to have been remiss about keeping in touch.

The Pilgrim greeted him with due ceremony. The greeting done, they sat; and being seated, they took tea.

相見: xiāng. 見畢而坐，坐定而茶 — four beats of ceremony in eight characters, and the matched shape of the two clauses is the point. Everything here is being done properly.

The tea over, the fiend leaned forward. "I sent but now a small note, begging a meeting the day after tomorrow. How is it my old friend condescends to visit me today?"

小簡 is my poor little note; 下顧 is to condescend to call on someone. The fiend is asking the one question that could unmask his guest, and he asks it in the form of an apology.

The Pilgrim said, "I was on my way to pay my respects, and unlooked-for met your splendid brush upon the road. Seeing that there was an elegant gathering for a Buddha-robe, I came hurrying, desiring only to be granted a sight of it."

華翰, your splendid brush, is the courteous word for another man's letter — and the Pilgrim has just beaten its bearer flat. He confesses to having read it and calls the reading a chance meeting on the road.

The fiend laughed. "My old friend is mistaken. This cassock belongs by right to the Tang monk. He lodged his staff at your house:

差矣: chà, mistaken. 住錫, to set down one's staff, is what a travelling monk does when he lodges somewhere. The fiend is now correcting his guest on a point of ownership, and he is right: the cassock is the Tang monk's. The thief is the only person in the chapter who says so.

can it be you never saw it, that you come to me for a sight of it?"

豈不曾看見 — surely you have seen it already? The question is unanswerable, and the Pilgrim answers it at length.

The Pilgrim said, "This poor monk had borrowed it, and it being late at night had not yet unrolled it, when unlooked-for the Great King took it away.

還 is the adverb hái, not yet. The lie is a good one: it explains why an abbot would not have examined the robe, and it is very nearly what actually happened.

Then fire burned our barren hill and my substance was lost; and the Tang monk's disciple is a stout fellow besides.

家私 is household goods. Notice that he calls the burnt monastery 荒山, our barren hill — the self-deprecating style in which an abbot properly refers to his own house.

In all that confusion we searched on every side and could not find it. So it was the Great King's abundant fortune that gathered it in — and therefore I have come expressly to see it."

洪福收來, your abundant good fortune gathered it in: a phrase that converts a theft into a stroke of luck and compliments the thief on it. 都 reads dōu.