三擊暗謎 The Riddle of the Platter
祖師聞言，咄的一聲，跳下高臺，手持戒尺，指定悟空道：「你這猢猻，這般不學，那般不學，卻待怎麼？」走上前，將悟空頭上打了三下。倒背著手，走入裡面，將中門關了，撇下大眾而去。諕得那一班聽講的人人驚懼，皆怨悟空道：「你這潑猴，十分無狀。師父傳你道法，如何不學，卻與師父頂嘴？這番衝撞了他，不知幾時才出來呵！」此時俱甚報怨他，又鄙賤嫌惡他。悟空一些兒也不惱，只是滿臉陪笑。原來那猴王已打破盤中之謎，暗暗在心，所以不與眾人爭競，只是忍耐無言。祖師打他三下者，教他三更時分存心；倒背著手走入裡面，將中門關上者，教他從後門進步，秘處傳他道也。祖师闻言，咄的一声，跳下高台，手持戒尺，指定悟空道：「你这猢狲，这般不学，那般不学，却待怎么？」走上前，将悟空头上打了三下。倒背著手，走入里面，将中门关了，撇下大众而去。諕得那一班听讲的人人惊惧，皆怨悟空道：「你这泼猴，十分无状。师父传你道法，如何不学，却与师父顶嘴？这番冲撞了他，不知几时才出来呵！」此时俱甚报怨他，又鄙贱嫌恶他。悟空一些儿也不恼，只是满脸陪笑。原来那猴王已打破盘中之谜，暗暗在心，所以不与众人争竞，只是忍耐无言。祖师打他三下者，教他三更时分存心；倒背著手走入里面，将中门关上者，教他从后门进步，秘处传他道也。
逐句解 Line by line
At these words the Patriarch, with a “Bah!”, leapt down from the high dais, ferule in hand, and pointing straight at Wukong said: “You wretched ape — this you won't learn, that you won't learn; just what is it you're after?”
咄 (duō): an exclamation of anger or reproof, "Bah! / Tut!" 戒尺 (jiè chǐ): a flat wooden rod (ferule) used by teachers and Buddhist masters to discipline or to beat time — here the master's rod, not a measure of length. 猢猻 (hú sūn): "macaque, monkey" — the very word from which 孫 (Sun) was carved as Wukong's surname in 第一回; the master flings it back as an epithet. 卻待怎麼: "yet what do you mean to do? / what are you after?"; 待 = dài "to intend." 那 = nà "that" (那般 "that way"). Sandhi: 一聲 = yì shēng; 不學 → bù.
He stepped forward and struck Wukong three times on the head.
三下: "three strokes"; 下 = xià, a measure for blows. These three blows are the first half of the coded riddle, decoded at the close of the passage.
Then, clasping his hands behind his back, he walked off inside, shut the middle door, and left the whole assembly standing there.
倒背著手 (dào bèi zhe shǒu): "with hands clasped behind the back" — a 多音字 cluster: 倒 = dào "inverted, backward" (not dǎo "to fall"); 背 = bèi "the back" (not bēi "to carry"); 著 = zhe, the durative particle. 撇下 (piē xià): "to cast aside, abandon." 中門: the middle/inner gate.
This so frightened the class of listeners that every one of them was terrified, and they all blamed Wukong: “You insolent monkey! What outrageous manners! The master was handing you the methods of the Way — how could you refuse to learn them and talk back to him besides? Now you've offended him, and who knows when he'll come out again, ah!”
諕 (xià): "to frighten" — a vernacular graph for 嚇; 諕得 = "scared so that." 無狀 (wú zhuàng): "outrageous, without propriety." 傳 = chuán "to transmit" (傳道法); 多音字 (not zhuàn "biography"). 衝撞 (chōng zhuàng): "to affront, offend"; 多音字 衝 = chōng. 幾時 (jǐ shí): "when, what time"; 多音字 幾 = jǐ. 呵: a sentence-final exclamatory particle here (≈ 啊, "ah!"), read a — the 世德堂本 writes the Ming-vernacular 呵 (the 中華傳世 edition prints 啊). Sandhi: 一班 = yì bān.
At that moment they all resented him bitterly and looked on him with contempt and disgust.
報怨 (bào yuàn): "to resent, bear a grudge" — here = 抱怨, with 報 = bào. 嫌惡 (xián wù): "to detest"; 多音字 惡 = wù "to hate" (not è "evil" or ě "nauseous").
But Wukong was not the least put out; his whole face was wreathed in an ingratiating smile.
一些兒 (yì xiē er): "the least bit"; 兒 = er, the 兒化 suffix (neutral, as in 道氣兒). 陪笑 (péi xiào): "to smile ingratiatingly, force a smile." Sandhi: 一些 = yì xiē; 不惱 = bù nǎo (不 before 3rd-tone 惱).
For the truth was that the Monkey King had already cracked the riddle of the platter, and kept it secret in his heart — which was why he would not wrangle with the others, but only bore it in silence.
盤中之謎 (pán zhōng zhī mí): "the riddle within the platter" — an idiom for a hidden meaning that must be decoded; here the master's coded summons (the three blows and the back-door exit), which Wukong alone has grasped. 爭競 (zhēng jìng): "to contend, quarrel." Sandhi: 不與 = bù yǔ (不 before 3rd-tone 與).
The master's striking him three times was to have him fix his mind on the third watch; and the clasping of hands and walking off inside, the shutting of the middle door, was to have him come in by the back door, that the Way might be passed to him in secret.
This sentence decodes the riddle. 三更 (sān gēng): "the third night-watch" (roughly 11 p.m.–1 a.m.) — the three blows signify the hour; 多音字 更 = gēng "night-watch" (not gèng "more"). 存心 (cún xīn): "to fix the mind, bear in mind." 教 here = jiào, the causative "to make / have [him]" (教他…存心 / 教他…進步) — distinct from jiāo "to teach (a skill)" used in 其一–其五: the blows and the shut door were to have him act, not to instruct him outright. 進步: here "to step in, come forward" (= 進), not the modern "progress." 秘處 (mì chù): "in a secret place, secretly"; 多音字 秘 = mì (not bì, 秘魯 Peru). 也: the classical explanatory final particle.
This is the famous scene of the 盤中之謎, the "riddle within the platter." The Patriarch's explosion of temper — the shout, the ferule, the three blows, the abrupt retreat behind a shut door — looks to the whole assembly like the disgracing of an insolent pupil, and they react accordingly, rounding on Wukong with contempt. But the narrator pulls back the curtain at once: the rage is a cipher. Three strokes on the head mean the third watch, 三更; the hands clasped behind the back, the retreat within, and the deliberately unbarred rear gate mean come to me secretly by the back door. The master has delivered an appointment in the one form that screens it from everyone unready to read it.
The device belongs to a deep tradition of esoteric, mind-to-mind transmission. Its nearest ancestor is the Chan founding legend in which the Buddha, instead of preaching, simply holds up a flower, and only Mahākāśyapa smiles — the wordless 心傳 passing "outside the teaching," beyond doctrine and scripture. The novel has been preparing this since the lecture-poem of 其二, where the whole sublime teaching was said to resolve into 開明一字, the laying-bare of a single word; here that promise is kept, but in private and by riddle rather than in the grand public discourse. The point — dear alike to Chan and to the internal-alchemy lineages the book draws on — is that the highest teaching cannot be handed over like the four gateways just refused; it can only be recognized by a mind already prepared to recognize it.
And so the scene is, above all, a test of mind — fitting for a hero the novel will repeatedly call the 心猿, the "mind-monkey." Wukong's defining gift here is not strength but quickness of wit: while the conventional disciples see only an outburst and panic, he alone reads the figure, keeps it locked in his heart, and answers their abuse with nothing but an ingratiating grin — the comedy of a creature who knows the secret the room has missed. The appointed hour itself carries weight in the alchemical key: 三更, the dead of night about 子時, is the moment of 一陽來復, the first stirring of yang within deepest yin, the canonical instant at which the work of cultivation begins. The monkey who could not count his own years has just proved he can read the one sign that matters.