The old fiend came out through his gate and cried in a stern, high voice, "Which of you is Sun Xingzhe?"

出得門來 takes 得 as de, the resultative infix of a directional compound. 那個是孫行者 — here 那 is interrogative nǎ, "which," not the demonstrative; the fiend does not know which of the figures before him is the one he wants.

The Pilgrim, the tiger-fiend's hide trodden underfoot and the as-you-will iron rod held in his hand, answered, "Your Grandpa Sun is here.

腳屣著: 屣 (xǐ) is the verb, "to wear as a slipper, to tread on," and 著 is the aspect marker zhe. The Pilgrim is standing on the flayed skin of the Tiger Vanguard while he asks for his master back. 孫外公, "Grandpa Sun," is his standing self-address in insult.

Send out my master!" The fiend looked him over carefully, and saw that the Pilgrim was mean and stunted of body, gaunt of face, and not a full four chǐ in height.

鄙猥 and 羸瘦 are both graphs of the literary register, oddly formal for what they describe. 四尺 is left as chǐ: a Ming chǐ ran to about thirty-two centimetres, so the Pilgrim stands something under four feet.

He laughed and said, "A pity! A pity! I had taken you for some champion no man could throw over. You are nothing but a sickly ghost, a skull and no more."

扳翻不倒 — 扳 reads bān here, "to haul over," not the pān (= 攀) of ch17's 奉扳清賞. Because 倒 is corrected to dǎo (third tone), the preceding 不 takes bù, not the mechanical bú. 骷髏的病鬼: a sick ghost made of skull.

The Pilgrim laughed. "You son of mine, you have no eye in your head at all. Your Grandpa may be small, but if you will strike me one blow on the crown with the butt of that trident, I shall grow three chǐ."

兒子 reads ér zǐ — lexical, and used as abuse. 忒 (tè) is the vernacular intensifier, "far too." 沒眼色 is to lack the discernment to read a situation. 長 here is zhǎng, "to grow."

"Harden your head, then," said the fiend, "and take a stroke of my shaft." The Great Sage stood wholly unafraid.

硬著頭: 著 as zhe, a state maintained — "keep your head hard." 吾 in the fiend's mouth is a stiff literary pronoun, and characterises him: he speaks as an officer, not a beast.

The fiend did strike, one blow. The Pilgrim bent his waist in a bow, and grew a good three chǐ, so that he stood a zhàng in height.

The two occurrences of 長 in this segment take different readings and require a positional fixspec: 足長了三尺 is zhǎng, "grew"; 一丈長短 is cháng, "length." 丈 and 尺 are left untranslated: ten chǐ make one zhàng.

In alarm the fiend held his trident still and shouted, "Sun Xingzhe! Why do you bring this body-guarding trick of transformation and play it off before my gate?

慌得 takes de (the fiend was alarmed into holding his weapon still). 法兒 ends in the diminutive er. Note that the fiend calls the trick 護身的變化法 — he supposes the growth defensive, when it is in fact the Pilgrim mocking him.

No empty flourishes! Come forward, and let the two of us try our arts."

虛頭 is vernacular for an empty show, a feint made to impress. 見見手段 — reduplication of the verb softens it into an invitation: "let us have a look at each other's skill."

The Pilgrim laughed. "My son, the common saying has it: he who spares does not raise his hand; he who raises his hand does not spare.

The proverb 留情不舉手，舉手不留情 is a parallel couplet, but it is spoken inside dialogue and untagged; by the ch18 ruling it is prose, and carries no v flag.

Your Grandpa's hand is a heavy one. I fear you will not bear this single stroke of my rod."

手兒重重的: 兒 is the diminutive er, and the doubled 重 is zhòng zhòng, "heavy," not chóng. 捱 (ái) is to endure a blow.

The fiend would hear no argument. He whirled the steel trident about and thrust straight at the Pilgrim's breast;

那容分說 — 那 is again the rhetorical nǎ: "how should he allow argument?" The ； is the author's, marking the pivot from the fiend's thrust to the Pilgrim's parry.

and the Great Sage — for the practised man is never hurried, and the hurried man is never practised — brought his iron rod round, used the posture called Black Dragon Sweeping the Ground, knocked the trident aside, and struck again at his head.

會家不忙，忙家不會 is a proverb of the fighting-manual register, turning on a chiasmus that cannot quite be kept in English. 烏龍掠地勢 is a named posture — the rod swept low along the ground, as a black dragon skims the earth.

There at the mouth of the Yellow Wind Cave the two of them fought; and it was a fine slaughter:

好殺, "a fine slaughter," is the standing lead-in to a battle-rhapsody, and stays in the prose segment.

The fiend-king in his fury; the Great Sage in his might.

The rhapsody opens with a four-four line that will be unfolded, clause by clause, over the two units that follow — a standard device of the battle-賦.

The fiend-king in his fury would take the Pilgrim to answer for his Vanguard;

The ； at the close marks the first half of a matched pair, kept split as a verse unit of its own per the ch17 ruling. 抵 is "to answer for, to make good."

the Great Sage in his might would seize the sprite and save the elder.

長老, "the elder," is Sanzang; 長 reads zhǎng. 精靈 is the sprite, a slighting word for the fiend.

Trident comes, rod parries; rod goes, trident meets it.

Four graphs, two verbs each way, and the whole exchange of a duel compressed into eight syllables.

The one, Grand Marshal who holds the mountain; / the other, the Handsome Monkey King who guards the Law.

都總帥 — 都 reads dū, the prefix of high military office ("Commander-in-Chief"), not the adverb dōu. The fiend's title and the Pilgrim's are set against each other as equals.

At first they fought amid the dust; / afterwards each rose into the middle air.

還 is hái, "still, as yet." The rise from earth to air is the standard escalation of these combats; from here the poem turns to the weapons.

The tempered steel trident, its points bright and keen;

The second matched pair joined by ；, and again kept split.

the as-you-will rod, its shaft black and its bands yellow.

箍黃: the golden bands at either end of the rod, from which it takes its name 金箍棒.

Whom it pierces, his soul goes home to the shades; / whom it strikes, he shall surely see King Yama.

Both occurrences of 著 are zháo, the resultative — the goal is attained, the target is hit. 閻王 is Yama, judge of the dead.

All rests upon a quick hand and a quick eye; / all requires a stout arm and a strong frame.

全憑著 takes zhe (a state relied upon), against the zháo of the preceding unit: the contrast within two adjacent lines is why every 著 in this project carries an explicit ruling.

Both cast off life and forgot death in the fight; / and who could tell which would come off whole, and which would take the wound?

Both occurrences of 那個 are interrogative nǎ. The rhapsody ends, as such pieces almost always do, on a question the narrator declines to answer.