黎明潛回 The Return Before Dawn
此時說破根源，悟空心靈福至，切切記了口訣。對祖師拜謝深恩，即出後門觀看。但見東方天色微舒白，西路金光大顯明。依舊路，轉到前門，輕輕的推開進去，坐在原寢之處，故將床鋪搖響道：「天光了，天光了，起耶！」那大眾還正睡哩，不知悟空已得了好事。當日起來打混，暗暗維持，子前午後，自己調息。此时说破根源，悟空心灵福至，切切记了口诀。对祖师拜谢深恩，即出后门观看。但见东方天色微舒白，西路金光大显明。依旧路，转到前门，轻轻的推开进去，坐在原寝之处，故将床铺摇响道：「天光了，天光了，起耶！」那大众还正睡哩，不知悟空已得了好事。当日起来打混，暗暗维持，子前午后，自己调息。
逐句解 Line by line
At this, the source laid bare, Wukong's spirit quickened and blessing came upon him, and he committed the oral formula firmly to memory.
說破 is to lay a thing bare, to say out loud what the whole chapter has been circling. 根源 is the root and source. 心靈福至 plays on the saying 福至心靈, "when fortune arrives the mind grows quick" — so his wits sharpen at the very moment his luck turns. 切切 is earnestly, firmly.
He bowed to the Patriarch in thanks for his deep kindness, and went straight out the back door to look about.
He bows his thanks and slips straight back out the way he came in.
He saw the sky in the east just faintly spreading white, while in the west the golden light still shone bright.
A balanced parallel couplet (對句) set inline rather than as a separate poem: in the east the daylight just beginning to unfurl white (舒, to spread open), and in the west the gold of the setting moon still bright. Sun rising on one side, moon going down on the other — the same pairing the formula he has just learned was built out of.
By the old path he turned back to the front gate, pushed it softly open and went in, sat down in his former sleeping-place, and on purpose shook the bed-frame till it creaked, calling: "Daylight! Daylight! Get up!"
The cover-up, and it is beautifully brazen. He sits down in his own bed, deliberately (故, on purpose) shakes the frame until it creaks, and shouts at everybody else to get up. 轉 is zhuǎn, to turn, not zhuàn, to revolve; 鋪 in 床鋪 is pù, a bed or a shop, not pū, to spread; 耶 is yē, a colloquial exclamation.
The others were all still asleep, and none knew that Wukong had come by his good fortune.
還 is hái, still, not huán, to return. 得了好事 takes 得 as full-tone dé, to obtain: he has come by his "good thing." The greatest event of his life so far has taken place with the entire school asleep through it. (不知 keeps bù; 好 is hǎo, not hào.)
That day he rose and mingled with the rest as usual, but quietly kept up the work, regulating his breath by himself before the hour of zi and after the hour of wu.
打混 (dǎ hùn) is to blend in, to muddle along as though nothing had happened — 混 is hùn, to mix, not hún. And the closing detail is exact: 子前午後, before the hour of 子 (midnight) and after the hour of 午 (noon), are the canonical times for inner-alchemical breath-work, the two pivots where yang is first born within yin and yin within yang. The creature who measured seven years in peach-feasts is now keeping the cosmic clock to the hour. 調 is tiáo.
After the concentrated alchemical climax of the transmission, the narrative exhales. Wukong takes in the secret — 心靈福至, his spirit quickened and his fortune arrived — and then, with the same cool concealment he showed while the whole school was reviling him, slips back to his place and covers the absence by play-acting the morning wake-up, shaking the bed and shouting for everyone to rise. The great event passes entirely unseen: 那大眾還正睡哩，不知悟空已得了好事. The motif of the secret held close, established in the riddle scene, now becomes the texture of his daily life.
The closing detail is quietly precise about what that daily life now contains. Wukong regulates his breath 子前午後, "before the hour of zi and after the hour of wu," and those two hours are not casual. 子 (midnight) and 午 (noon) are the pivots of the daily cycle, the points at which, in the inner-alchemical scheme, yang is first born within yin and yin first born within yang; they are the canonical times for the breath-work of the microcosmic orbit. The monkey who once measured his years by peach harvests now keeps the cosmic clock. And the delicate dawn couplet framing his return — the east just whitening while the west still holds the moon's gold — sets sunlight and moonlight in exactly the balance the formula itself invoked (月藏玉兔日藏烏), so that even the scenery rhymes with what he is carrying back.
Structurally the passage is a hinge of rest. The secret has been given; what remains of the chapter will test and extend it — the looming question of the Three Calamities, the seventy-two transformations, the cloud-somersault — but for these few lines the novel simply lets its hero practise in silence, mingling unremarkably with the others while the real work goes on out of sight. It is the last quiet moment before Wukong's powers, and his troubles, begin in earnest.