Just as they were speaking, one of the sons brought in the rice, set it out on the table, and said, "Take your meal, if you please."

拿將飯來: 將 is the direction marker, jiāng. 請齋 is the formula for inviting religious to eat.

Sanzang put his palms together and began to intone the grace before eating. Bajie had already swallowed a bowl.

諷起齋經, to intone the grace before a meal. The joke is built with great care: the monk begins the prayer, and the pig has finished a bowl before it.

The elder's few lines were not yet done when the Idiot had got through three bowls more.

還未了 takes 了 as the full verb liǎo, "to finish" — the only one of the seven in this passage that is not the toneless le. 吃夠三碗, three bowls got through.

The Pilgrim said, "This chaff-stuffer! He must have run slap into a hungry ghost."

饢糠的, "chaff-stuffer," from 饢, náng, to cram food in. 撞著餓鬼 is the "and got there" pattern, so 著 reads zháo — he did not merely run at a hungry ghost, he ran into one. And a 餓鬼 is a preta, the hungry ghost of Buddhist cosmology whose throat is the width of a needle's eye and whose belly is enormous. As insults go it is theologically precise.

Old Wang, for his part, knew what was proper. Seeing how fast he ate, he said, "This elder must be truly hungry. Bring more rice, and be quick."

倒也知趣: 倒 is dào, the "on the contrary" adverb. 著實 is the adverb "truly, downright," and its 著 reads zhuó. Squire Wang, whose table has holes in it, calls for more rice.

The Idiot's belly was capacious indeed. He never once lifted his head, and at a stretch he ate a dozen bowls and more.

食腸大, "the food-gut is large," is the standing formula for Bajie's appetite. 一連, at a stretch; 十數碗, ten-odd bowls. The number is not exaggeration, it is bookkeeping.

Sanzang and the Pilgrim between them did not get through two bowls apiece; and still the Idiot did not stop, but went on eating.

俱各吃不上兩碗 — the master and the Pilgrim between them cannot finish four. 便還吃哩: 還 is hái, "still," and 哩 is li.

Old Wang said, "Having no dainties ready on the sudden, I dare not press you; but take one more mouthful, I beg." Sanzang and the Pilgrim both said, "We have had enough."

倉卒無殽: 卒 is cù here, standing for 猝, "sudden," and 殽 is written for 餚 and reads yáo, "cooked dishes" — both by the borrowed-character rule. 進一箸, "advance one chopstick," is the polite formula for pressing more food on a guest.

Bajie said, "What are you dribbling on about, old man? Who is casting a horoscope with you, that you talk of a fifth line and a sixth? If there is rice, only keep fetching it, and there's an end."

The sharpest thing Bajie says in the chapter, and he says it with his mouth full. 滴答, to dribble, to natter on. 發課 is to cast a divination, and 五爻六爻 are the fifth and sixth lines of a hexagram in the Book of Changes. Bajie has heard his host's polite 一箸, "one chopstick," as a number, and concluded the old man is working out an oracle at the dinner table.

At that one sitting the Idiot ate the whole household's rice clean up, and still said he had got no more than half his fill.

一家子 takes 子 as the toneless suffix zi, and means the household entire. Two jobs for 得 stand in one line: 吃得罄盡 is the result-linking de, and 才得半飽 is the "attained" reading, dé. 罄盡, swept bare.

Only then were the dishes cleared away; and beneath the gate-tower they made up a bamboo couch and a plank bed, and lay down to sleep.

家火, the household gear — here the dishes. 竹床板鋪: the same bamboo couch the old man was dozing on when they arrived. The chapter's one night of rest gets nine characters, 安排了竹床板鋪睡下, and then it is morning and the storm starts.