火燒黑風洞 The Burning of Black Wind Cave
行者辭了菩薩，按落雲頭，將袈裟掛在香柟樹上，掣出棒來，打入黑風洞裡，那洞裡那得一個小妖。原來是他見菩薩出現，降得那老怪就地打滾，急急都散走了。行者一發行兇，將他那幾層門上都積了乾柴，前前後後，一齊發火，把個黑風洞燒做個紅風洞，卻拿了袈裟，駕祥光，轉回直北。行者辞了菩萨，按落云头，将袈裟挂在香柟树上，掣出棒来，打入黑风洞里，那洞里那得一个小妖。原来是他见菩萨出现，降得那老怪就地打滚，急急都散走了。行者一发行凶，将他那几层门上都积了干柴，前前后后，一齐发火，把个黑风洞烧做个红风洞，却拿了袈裟，驾祥光，转回直北。
逐句解 Line by line
The Pilgrim took his leave of the Bodhisattva, pressed down his cloud-head, hung the cassock on a fragrant nan tree, and whipped out his rod.
Chapter eighteen opens on the clean-up. 按落雲頭, to press one's cloud-head down, is the stock phrase for landing after flight — nobody in this novel ever simply arrives. Then a small domestic touch: he hangs the cassock on a tree first. 柟, read nán, is a variant way of writing 楠, the fragrant nanmu timber that went into coffins and temple pillars — expensive, solemn wood. The Buddha's own robe goes on a funeral tree while its guardian walks off to do murder, and the novel says nothing about it.
He battered his way into the Black Wind Cave — and in that cave there was not one small fiend to be had.
He breaks in ready for a fight and finds nobody home. The line turns on one character doing two jobs three characters apart: the 那 of 那洞裡 is the pointing word nà, that cave, while the 那 of 那得 is the question word nǎ — 那得一個小妖, where was a single imp to be found? Chinese likes a rhetorical question where English would use a flat no, and the effect here is deflating rather than grand.
The truth was that, having seen the Bodhisattva reveal herself and subdue the old monster till he rolled about on the ground, they had all scattered and fled in haste.
降 changes job with its reading: xiáng here, to subdue, not jiàng, to descend. In 降得 the 得 is the little unstressed de that hangs a result on a verb — subdued him so far that 就地打滾, he rolled about on the ground. The explanation belongs to the narrator; the Pilgrim never asks for it. The cave is empty because its garrison saw what he did not stay to watch.
Now the Pilgrim let his violence run its full course: against the several tiers of gates he heaped dry brushwood, before and behind, and set the whole alight at once,
一發 here means all the more, to the full — not at one stroke, which is its other sense. 乾 is gān, dry, not qián, which is the name of one of the eight three-line figures of the Book of Changes; the automatic reading takes the wrong one, and dry firewood is plainly what is meant. That the wood was already stacked at the gates is the quietly damning detail. The bear-fiend kept house.
so that he burned the Black Wind Cave into a Red Wind Cave. Then he took up the cassock, mounted the auspicious light, and turned back due north.
Here is the joke. 黑風洞, Black Wind Cave, is burned into a 紅風洞, Red Wind Cave: one character swapped, and the address changes. 直北 is a plain compass bearing, due north — resist reading any doctrinal geography into that 直. He leaves nothing behind him but a changed colour.
Chapter seventeen ended with the Bodhisattva leading the bear-fiend away to keep the back gate at Potalaka. A few lines later, chapter eighteen opens on a cave with nobody in it. The novel loves this kind of deflation: it builds an elaborate duel of shape-changing, throws away the aftermath in a single sentence — the small fiends had already run — and leaves its hero with a fight prepared and nothing to spend it on but empty rooms and a woodpile.
The burning serves no purpose, and the narrator admits as much: 一發行兇, letting his violence run to the full. Nothing in the plot needs the cave destroyed. But this is not yet the pilgrim of the later chapters; the fire belongs with the monkey who scorched the underworld in chapter three. And the joke — black wind cave, red wind cave — is the sort of verbal turn the 世德堂本 narrator produces exactly where a reader might have expected a moral judgement instead.