妖敗閉門 行者回莊 The Fiend Bolts His Door; The Pilgrim Returns to the Farm
他兩個自二更時分，直戰到東方發白。那怪不能迎敵，敗陣而逃，依然又化狂風，徑回洞裡，把門緊閉，再不出頭。行者在這洞門外看有一座石碣，上書雲棧洞三字。見那怪不出，天又大明，心卻思量：「恐師父等候，且回去見他一見，再來捉此怪不遲。」隨踏雲點一點，早到高老莊。他两个自二更时分，直战到东方发白。那怪不能迎敌，败阵而逃，依然又化狂风，径回洞里，把门紧闭，再不出头。行者在这洞门外看有一座石碣，上书云栈洞三字。见那怪不出，天又大明，心却思量：「恐师父等候，且回去见他一见，再来捉此怪不迟。」随踏云点一点，早到高老庄。
逐句解 Line by line
The two of them fought from the second watch straight through until the east grew white.
The night is measured out. 二更 is the second night-watch, roughly nine to eleven, and 更 is gēng here, not gèng. From there to first light is most of the night — and this is the first fight in the novel that is won by neither party.
The fiend could not hold his ground. Beaten, he fled, changed himself once more into a wild wind,
迎敵, to meet the enemy, is a military term, and the novel keeps using military terms for a creature who used to command a fleet. 依然又化狂風: turning into a gale is both his signature move and his line of retreat, and the two are the same thing.
went directly back into his cave, shut the door fast, and would not show his head again.
再不出頭 — he would not put his head out again. The idiom is faintly comic and faintly cowardly, and the narrator has picked it on purpose.
Outside that cave door the Pilgrim saw a stone tablet, and graven upon it were the three graphs: Cloud-Ladder Cave.
石碣 is a stone tablet with an inscription cut into it, the same furniture that stood outside the Water-Curtain Cave in the first chapter. The name on it, 雲棧洞, is Cloud-Ladder Cave: a 雲棧 is one of those plank roads pegged into a cliff face, high enough to be walking through cloud.
Seeing that the fiend would not come out, and that the day was now fully light, he thought to himself:
The narration slips inside Wukong's head at 心卻思量, without warning or quotation. 思量 takes 量 as liáng, the verb — to weigh something up.
"My master will be waiting. I had best go back and let him see me, and there will be time enough to take this fiend afterwards."
見他一見 doubles the verb around 一, the vernacular way of saying "just see him a moment," the same shape as "have a quick look." 不遲, "it will not be too late," is Wukong's standing excuse for putting anything off.
So with one touch of his foot on the cloud he was back at once at the Gao Farm.
點一點 — one touch of the toe on the cloud. The whole distance between the chapter's two halves is disposed of in six characters, which tells you what the novel thinks distance is worth once a monkey is doing the travelling.
A short bridging passage whose real business is the map. The fight has ranged from the Gao Farm to a mountain with no name; now the mountain gets one, cut into stone at the cave mouth — 雲棧洞, the Cloud-Ladder Cave — and with the name the place joins the geography of the pilgrimage. The novel is consistent about this. A monster is not fully a monster until you know his address.
Worth noticing why Wukong breaks off. He is not checked, and he is not tired; he stops because he remembers that his master will be worrying. This is the first time in the book that the Pilgrim has interrupted a fight out of consideration for anybody. The golden fillet has begun to do its work by means other than pain.