One day, as they were going along, evening came on of a sudden, and they saw a hamlet standing beside the mountain road.

傍邊 is written for 旁, so the character takes that word's reading, páng — as it does everywhere it appears in this chapter. 村舍, a farmstead: the first human dwelling the pilgrims have laid eyes on since Gao Village.

Sanzang said, "Wukong, look — the sun drops behind the western hills and hides away its mirror of fire; the moon climbs from the eastern sea and shows its wheel of ice.

The monk is pleased with himself, and it shows in the matching: 日落西山藏火鏡 set against 月升東海現冰輪, with 藏 (cáng, "to hide") answered by 現, "to show." The same character in his own name, 三藏, is of course zàng. Both readings stand in this one line.

Happily there is a house beside the way. Let us beg a night's lodging, and go on again tomorrow."

借宿一宵, to borrow a single night. 道傍 is again written for 旁.

Bajie said, "Well said. Old Hog is somewhat hungry himself. Let us beg a little fasting-fare of the house — there will be strength in me then for carrying the loads."

說得是 takes 得 as the linking particle de. 老豬, "Old Hog," is what Bajie always calls himself, answering the Pilgrim's 老孫, "Old Monkey." 化些齋吃: 化 is to beg alms, and 齋 the meatless meal proper to monks.

The Pilgrim said, "You home-hankering ghost. A few days from your own doorway and already you breed complaints."

戀家鬼, "home-hankering ghost," is invented on the spot — and Bajie will fling it straight back a hundred characters later, quoting it word for word as an insult received. 生報怨, to breed a grievance.

Bajie said, "Brother, I am no match for you, who drink the wind and sup the haze.

比不得 is the "cannot" pattern, so 得 reads dé. 喝風啊煙 — making a meal of wind and smoke — is the pig's sour description of an immortal's diet. He has a point: the immortal in question has not eaten since he was let out from under the Five Phases Mountain.

Since I fell in behind our master these few days, I have gone long with a belly half-empty. Did you know that?"

長忍 is cháng rěn, "to endure for a long time," not zhǎng; the automatic reading goes wrong here. 曉得 is the plain verb "to know," and its 得 is toneless de. 半肚饑, half a belly of hunger, is Bajie exactly: not starving, merely not full.

Sanzang, hearing it, said, "Wuneng, if the thought of home lies so heavy on you, then you are no man who has left the household. Go back, and welcome."

心重, the heart weighed down with home, reads zhòng. And here is the threat the Tang Monk reaches for whenever Bajie annoys him — go home, then — which he will go on reaching for for a long time yet. 還 here is the adverb hái.

The Idiot dropped in a fright to his knees. "Master, do not listen to my elder brother. He has a way of fastening dirt upon a man.

慌得跪下 takes 得 as the result-linking de. 贓埋人 means literally "to bury someone in stolen goods," and it was Ming slang for framing a man; both characters are chosen for their sound rather than their sense.

I complained of nothing whatever, and still he says I complain.

甚的 is doing the work of 什麼, so 甚 reads shén, not shèn.

I am a straight-gut simpleton. I said my belly was empty and that we might find a house and beg a meal, and at once he rails at me for a home-hankering ghost.

直腸的痴漢, "a straight-gut fool," is a self-description of considerable cunning: Bajie pleads simplicity inside a perfectly built rhetorical sentence. Watch what he does with the quotations, too. His own words he repeats accurately; his brother's he sharpens.

Master, from the Bodhisattva I received the discipline of the precepts, and from you I have had compassion besides;

戒行, keeping the precepts, reads jiè xíng. The Bodhisattva conferred them on him in chapter 8 and again in chapter 19; the master's pity is about a fortnight old.

willingly I would serve you the whole way to the Western Heaven, and I have sworn to know no drawing back.

誓無退悔 — sworn never to turn back. Coming from a creature who has just been threatened with dismissal over dinner, the vow is both perfectly sincere and completely unreliable, which is Bajie whole and entire in four characters.

This is what men call cultivation in bitter earnest. How can you say it is not the speech of one who has left the household?"

The source puts 恨苦修行 inside the inner quotation marks 『』, so Bajie is citing a phrase, not minting one. 恨苦, "in bitter earnest," intensifies rather than negates; 修行 is xiū xíng.

Sanzang said, "If that is how it stands, get up."

既是如此 concedes without conceding anything. The Tang Monk lets the matter drop, and the party reaches the farmhouse door with the quarrel still live — which is why the Pilgrim loses his temper with the owner within the page.