Wukong answered aloud: "Master, your disciple has been kneeling here in waiting a good while."

應聲 is to answer aloud, with 應 as yìng, to respond — not yīng, should, as in 應該 a few lines back. He has been kneeling there the whole time, and he says so.

Recognizing Wukong's voice, the Patriarch rose, threw on his robe, sat up cross-legged, and barked: "You wretched ape! Why aren't you off sleeping in the front, instead of coming round here to the back to me — what for?"

He throws on a robe (披衣), sits up cross-legged (盤坐) and barks — and the bark is theatre. 喝 is hè, to shout, not hē, to drink. The master is pretending not to know why a disciple might be at his back door in the middle of the night. 聞得 takes 得 as the toneless de that shows the action succeeded. (不在 takes bú before the falling tone of 在.)

Wukong said: "Yesterday at the dais, before the whole company, the master gave his word — bidding your disciple come at the third watch and pass the teaching to me by the back door; and so I made bold to come straight and bow beneath your honor's couch."

And the monkey calls the bluff, very politely. He treats the coded blows as a public promise — 對眾相允, given before the whole assembly — which is a quiet joke, since nobody else in that assembly understood a syllable of it. 相允 is to give one's word, with 相 as xiāng, toward one, not xiàng. 教 is jiào, the causative "bidding me." 徑拜 is to go straight and bow (徑 jìng, directly); 老爺 is "your honour"; 更 is gēng.

Hearing this, the Patriarch was greatly pleased, and thought to himself: "This creature really is a thing born of Heaven and Earth — else how could he have cracked the hidden riddle of my platter?"

The test is over and he is delighted. 這廝 (zhè sī) is rough and familiar — "this creature." 天地生成的, a thing formed by Heaven and Earth, is the same verdict he reached at the end of the last chapter on hearing the monkey was born out of a stone; now he has evidence for it. 尋思 takes 思 in full tone sī, to think, not the neutral si of 意思. (不然 keeps bù.)

Wukong said: "Here there are no 'six ears' — only your disciple alone. I beg the master to bestow great mercy and pass me the way of long life; I will never forget the kindness."

六耳, "six ears," is a lovely idiom for an eavesdropper: two people make four ears, so a third pair means somebody is listening who should not be. 更無六耳 is therefore "we're alone." 更 here is gèng, moreover, in fourth tone — not the gēng, night-watch, of 三更 two lines earlier. 大捨 is to give generously (捨 shě), and 罷 is ba, a softening syllable at the end. (一人 is yì rén; 不忘 takes bú before the falling tone of 忘.)

The Patriarch said: "You have an affinity today, and I am glad to speak. Since you have read the hidden riddle of the platter, come close and listen carefully — I shall pass you the marvelous way of long life."

有緣 is to have the karmic affinity — the right connection at the right moment, which in this book is never quite an accident. 識得 takes 得 as de; 當 is dāng, shall.

Wukong kowtowed his thanks, washed out his ears and fixed his mind, and knelt beneath the couch. The Patriarch intoned:

洗耳用心 — wash out the ears and apply the mind, that is, listen with everything you have. It is the same gesture as the everyday 洗耳恭聽, and tradition traces that phrase back to the recluse Xu You (許由), who rinsed his ears in a stream after somebody offered him the empire. There he was washing something out; here Wukong is cleaning his ears to let something in.

The true and marvelous formula, manifest-and-secret, perfectly penetrating —

顯密圓通 (xiǎn mì yuán tōng) is Buddhist vocabulary through and through: 顯 and 密 are the exoteric and esoteric teachings, and 圓通 is complete interpenetration. Note that the supreme Daoist secret is being announced in Buddhist terms. Nobody in the room finds this odd.

to cherish and cultivate nature-and-life, there is nothing else to tell.

性命 (xìng mìng) is "nature and life-destiny," the paired objects of inner alchemy — 性 the spirit or mind, 命 the vital force. Cultivating the two together, 性命雙修, is the programme the whole poem lays out. Miss the pairing and you have missed the system.

All of it comes down to essence, breath, and spirit;

精氣神 (jīng qì shén) — essence, breath and spirit — are the 三寶, the Three Treasures, the raw materials the work is done on. 都來 is "all in all," with 都 as dōu, all, not dū, a capital city.

guard them close and store them firm, and let nothing leak away.

And the first rule of the work: 休漏泄, do not let them leak away. Conservation comes before transformation. 藏 is cáng, to store, not zàng.

Let nothing leak away,

The line repeats to carry the thought over into a new stanza — a standard hinge in 詞 form, where the closing words of one stanza open the next.

but store it within the body;

體中藏, store it inside the body. 藏 is cáng again.

receive my transmission, and the Way will of itself thrive.

汝 and 吾 are archaic "you" and "I" — the register lifts for the transmission itself. 自昌 is "will flourish of itself."

Hold the oral formula in memory, and the benefit is great;

口訣 (kǒu jué) is the oral formula, passed mouth to ear and never committed to paper. Which is a nice irony to meet in a printed novel.

dispel deviant desires, and you attain the clear and cool.

屏除 is to get rid of, with 屏 as bǐng, not píng, a screen. 得清涼, attaining "the clear and cool," names a state of purity, and 得 here is full-tone dé, to attain.

Attain the clear and cool,

The phrase carried over to open the next stanza, as before.

the light pure and bright;

皎潔 (jiǎo jié), luminous and pure-bright — the word normally used of moonlight, which the next line duly picks up.

good then to turn to the elixir-terrace and savor the bright moon.

丹臺 (dān tái), the elixir terrace, is the inner site where the elixir is refined and contemplated. And the bright moon to be enjoyed there is not the one in the sky. 好 is hǎo, good, not hào, to like.

The moon hides the jade hare, the sun hides the crow;

A couplet of alchemical code. 玉兔, the jade hare, is the moon's emblem, and 烏, the crow — properly the three-legged sun-crow — is the sun's. So the line means the lunar yin essence and the solar yang essence, both gathered inward (藏 cáng). In this system, sun and moon are also organs.

of themselves the tortoise and the snake will coil and entwine.

龜蛇, tortoise and snake, is the emblem of 玄武, the Dark Warrior of the north and of water — the same god Wukong will go to for help some sixty chapters later. Their coiling together (相盤結) figures the union of the opposed forces inside the body.

Coil and entwine,

Carried over once more to open the stanza: the coiling union of the inner forces.

and nature-and-life grow firm;

性命堅, nature-and-life grown firm — the union made stable, which is the whole object of the exercise.

then within the fire you can plant the golden lotus.

火裡種金蓮, planting a golden lotus in the middle of a fire, is the tradition's favourite paradox for the birth of the immortal embryo in the refining heat. A lotus grows in water and burns in fire; raising one inside a furnace is exactly the point. 種 is the verb zhòng, to plant, not zhǒng, a seed.

Cluster the Five Phases and turn them upside-down to use;

攢簇五行 is to cluster the Five Phases together (攢 cuán, to gather, not zǎn, to hoard; 行 xíng), and 顛倒用 is to run them backwards. This is the great "reversal" of inner alchemy: ordinary life flows down and outward through the Five Phases in their generative order, and the adept turns the whole sequence round and drives it back toward the source. 倒 is dǎo, to invert, in third tone — distinct from the dào, backward, of 倒背著手 two passages ago.

the work complete, you become at will a Buddha or an immortal.

And the closing line does in seven characters what the novel takes a hundred chapters to do: the work complete, you become at will 佛和仙 — a Buddha and an immortal. That little conjunction is carrying a great deal of weight.