Hearing this, the Pilgrim put away his iron rod. "Idiot, do not boast.

說嘴, to brag, to talk big. And 獃子, Idiot — the first time Wukong uses it, and the name that will stick for the rest of the book. Neither of them notices it happening.

Old Sun will stretch out this head of his right there. Strike it a blow and see whether the soul goes and the spirit leaks away."

伸在那裡 uses the pointing 那, nà, "out there." 築一下兒 takes the little suffix 兒 as er, and it is what makes the invitation sound casual rather than mad: give it a tap, go on.

The fiend did indeed raise his rake, put his strength into the stroke, and brought it down with a thud;

著氣力 takes 著 as the full verb zhuó, to apply or put forth — he put his weight behind it. 築將來 takes 將 as the directional jiāng. 撲的一下 is the sound of it landing.

and the rake struck fire, spark upon spark, and had not shifted so much as a fraction of the scalp.

火光焰焰 — the rake strikes sparks off the skull the way steel strikes sparks off flint. 一些兒 takes 兒 as er. Not one hair moved.

It so unnerved him that his hands went numb and his feet went weak. "What a head!" he cried. "What a head!"

The character 諕 stands for 嚇 and is read xià, to frighten; 諕得 takes 得 as de. And the doubled 好頭, "what a head, what a head," is admiration and terror in the same two words, which is roughly where his relationship with Wukong will stay.

The Pilgrim said: "There is something you do not know.

Three chapters of the novel are about to be recited by the man they happened to, at speed, as a job application.

When old Sun made his uproar in Heaven, and stole the elixir, and pilfered the peaches, and made away with the imperial wine,

Four crimes in four matched clauses: 鬧天宮, made an uproar in Heaven, then 偷了仙丹, stole the elixir, 盜了蟠桃, took the peaches, 竊了御酒, made off with the imperial wine. Three different verbs for stealing, because the sentence would be dull otherwise. 因為 takes 為 as wèi.

he was taken by the Little Sage Erlang and haled before the Dipper-and-Bull Palace,

小聖二郎 is the Little Sage Erlang, the one god in the pantheon who could take him in a straight fight. 斗牛宮 takes 斗 as dǒu: the palace named for the Dipper and the Herdboy, two constellations.

where the assembled gods hewed at old Sun with axes and beat him with hammers, hacked at him with blades and stabbed at him with swords, burned him with fire and struck him with thunder — and never shifted a hair of him.

The whole catalogue of failed executions, six instruments packed into three four-character units: axes and hammers, blades and swords, fire and thunder. 分毫 is a fraction of a hair — the smallest unit the language keeps handy for this purpose.

Then that Most High Lord Lao had me taken and put into the eight-trigram furnace and refined in the divine fire,

The 八卦爐, the eight-trigram furnace, is Lord Lao's crucible, and the same furnace that made the rake. 將神火鍛煉 takes 將 as the disposal marker jiāng.

and refined me into fiery eyes and golden pupils, a head of bronze and arms of iron.

火眼金睛, fiery eyes and golden pupils. They were an accident: the furnace was meant to destroy him and instead handed him the single most useful faculty he has, the ability to see what a thing really is. Everything Wukong can do that matters, he got from a failed execution.

If you doubt it, strike a few more, and see whether it hurts or does not hurt."

不信, "if you do not believe it." Note the form of the offer. He is not daring the fiend to hit him again; he is submitting further evidence. The Pilgrim is still arguing his case.

The fiend said: "You monkey — I remember when you made your uproar in Heaven,

猴子 — the fiend drops to plain name-calling, and in doing so gives away that he knows exactly who this is. 記得 takes 得 as de.

your house was in the Water-Curtain Cave, on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, in the Land of Aolai, in the Eastern Continent of Superior Spirit.

The full ceremonial address of Wukong's birthplace, recited from the first chapter and complete to the last element: 東勝神洲 (Pūrvavideha), 傲來國, 花果山, 水簾洞. Giving an address in full is a mark of respect, the way a herald announces titles. On the continent-name: this edition writes 神, spirit, where Buddhist geography has 身, body, in 東勝身洲; and 勝 here means superior, not victorious. We follow the edition — Eastern Continent of Superior Spirit — and record the standard reading as the variant.

For years now your name has not been heard. How do you come to be here, bullying me on my own threshold?

上門子 is to come to somebody's door, with 子 as the neutral suffix zi. There is genuine grievance in it, and the grievance is fair: on the facts, Wukong is the one who broke in.

Can it be my father-in-law who went and fetched you?"

莫敢是, "can it possibly be that —?" 去那裡請你 uses the question-word 那, nǎ: went where to fetch you?

The Pilgrim said: "Your father-in-law did not go and fetch me.

The denial is exact, and in the letter it is true. Squire Gao did not fetch him. The servant Gao Cai did, and Wukong was already sleeping under the roof.

It is that old Sun has mended his ways and turned from the Dao to the Buddhist order,

改邪歸正, to leave the crooked and come back to the straight, is still a live idiom for going straight. 棄道從僧 is the startling half — to abandon the Dao and follow the monks — in a novel whose bloodstream is Daoist alchemy. He picks a side, and it is not the obvious one.

and guards an imperial younger brother of the Great Tang of the Eastern Land, one called the Master of the Law Sanzang, bound west to worship the Buddha and seek the scriptures.

The title given in full, with the same ceremony the fiend just gave the Water-Curtain Cave: 東土大唐駕下御弟, imperial younger brother of the Great Tang of the Eastern Land, and 三藏法師, Master of the Law. 藏 is zàng.

We passed the Gao Farm and lodged there; that old man Gao, talking, let the thing out,

因話說起 — talking, the subject came up. 那高老兒 takes the little suffix 兒 as er, and Wukong is not being polite about his host.

and begged me to save his daughter and take you, you chaff-swilling lout."

And 女兒, daughter, takes 兒 as ér, a full syllable, because here the character is a word in its own right and not a suffix. The two uses stand in neighbouring segments with different readings — a good reminder that the shrinking suffix and the noun "child" are one and the same character.