The Idiot set one foot on his backbone and, gripping the rake in both hands, struck him again.

一腳屣住他的脊背: 屣 is xǐ, to tread on as with a slipper, as at 屣平了你住處 at the cave door; 脊 is jǐ. Bajie strikes a dead fiend a second time, with his foot on its spine.

The Pilgrim saw it and was greatly delighted. "Brother, that is just the way of it.

正是這等, "that is just the way of it." The Pilgrim's approval arrives one blow too late to be needed.

He led out some scores of little fiends and dared give battle to Old Monkey, and I beat him;

敢與老孫賭鬥 — the boast is at second hand, and the sentence is entirely about who beat whom.

and instead of running back into the cave he ran up here to look for his death. It is thanks to you that you caught him; otherwise he would have got clean away."

虧你接著: 著 is zháo, the "and got there" reading — you did not merely reach for him, you got him. A verb of interception with the goal attained, on the pattern of 撞著 and 見著 elsewhere in this chapter.

Bajie said, "Was it he who raised the wind and carried our master off?"

弄風攝師父, to work a wind and snatch the master away. Bajie asks the one question that matters, and has to be the one to ask it.

The Pilgrim said, "It was; it was." Bajie said, "And did you ask him what became of our master?"

下落, "whereabouts." The Pilgrim did not ask. He fought.

The Pilgrim said, "This fiend has our master in the cave, to make a dish of meat for some cursed king of theirs.

甚麼鳥大王 is contemptuous — "some bird of a king" — and the character 鳥 in this construction is a coarse expletive in Yuan and Ming vernacular. 做下飯, a dish to go with rice, keeps unbroken the kitchen register that has governed every demon's speech in this chapter.

Old Monkey lost his temper and fought him all the way up here — and it is you who have taken his life.

鬥將這裡來 takes the direction-marking 將, jiāng. 卻被你送了性命 — and it was you who despatched him. He says it plainly.

Brother, this merit is reckoned yours.

兄弟啊，這個功勞算你的. Ten characters, and the Great Sage, who concedes nothing to anybody, hands the credit to the pig without being asked for it.

Do you go on keeping the horse and the luggage; and let me drag this dead fiend off, and go again to the cave door and give them challenge.

索戰, to demand battle. And Bajie is sent back to the horse and the luggage, as before.

We must take the old fiend himself, and only so can our master be saved."

拿得 and 救得 are both "manage it" constructions and both take 得 as dé. The strategy is unchanged from before the first fight, and the chapter will close before it is tested.

Bajie said, "There is reason in what my brother says. Go, then, go.

說得有理 takes toneless de. Bajie agrees — and then amends the plan.

If you beat this old fiend, drive him back up this way, and let Old Hog cut him off and kill him."

He amends it in his own favour: 還趕將這裡來，等老豬截住殺他 — drive him back up this way, and Old Hog will cut him off and kill him. Having been given the credit once, he arranges to be given it twice.