The Pilgrim ran up and raised his rod to strike, but the Bodhisattva held him off. "Great Sage," he said, "do not take his life. I must still carry him to see the Tathāgata."

還 is hái, "still, yet" — the third reading of this character in two passages, after two turns as huán. And notice the reason Lingji gives for stopping the killing. It is not mercy. It is jurisdiction.

And he said further to the Pilgrim, "He was in truth a rat who had gained the Way, living at the foot of Vulture Peak; and because he stole the pure oil out of a glass lamp,

得道老鼠: 得 is dé, "attained." 因為 takes wèi. A 琉璃盞 is a glass lamp — 琉璃 is a material made in a furnace, which is how the 康熙字典 distinguishes it from the natural stones it resembles, and not the same thing as rock crystal, 水晶. What it holds is 清油, the clear oil burning before the Buddha. The entire catastrophe of this chapter began with a rat drinking lamp-oil.

so that the lamp burned dim, and because he feared the vajra-guardians would take him, he ran away, and here he set up as a spirit and worked mischief.

金剛 are the vajra-guardians of the monastery — the same eight who were shouting in confusion in the wind-poem near the start of this chapter, blown about by the breath of the creature they once failed to arrest. 處 is chù.

The Tathāgata beheld him and saw that he was not guilty to the death, and so he made me his warden — but now that he has killed and worked sin, he shall be brought up to Vulture Peak.

故著我轄押: 著 is the causative zhuó, "caused me to." 轄押 is a warden's word again, and 不該死罪 is the language of sentencing — not a capital case. The Tathāgata reviewed the file and commuted it.

And today he has affronted the Great Sage besides, and betrayed the Tang monk to his ruin. I shall take him to see the Tathāgata, and have his offence made plain and pronounced upon; and only then may this be reckoned an achievement."

明正其罪 is to have an offence formally declared and judged. 才算這場功績 — only then does it count as an achievement, with 哩 as li. Lingji will not tick the capture off until the paperwork has been done.

Hearing this, the Pilgrim thanked the Bodhisattva. And the Bodhisattva returned to the west, of whom no more.

菩薩西歸不題 — "of whom no more," the storyteller putting a thread down, exactly as he did with the fiend after the first combat.

Now we tell how Zhu Bajie, in the wood, was thinking of the Pilgrim, when he heard a shout from below the mountain slope: "Brother Awakened to Power! Bring the horse and the luggage-pole!"

思量 takes 量 as liáng, "to ponder." 挑擔: 擔 is dàn, the load. Bajie has been sitting in that wood since he was told to, and has not moved.

The Idiot knew the Pilgrim's voice. He gathered his things in haste and ran out of the wood, and seeing the Pilgrim he said, "Elder brother, how did the business go?"

認得 hangs its result on de. 怎的幹事來 is pure vernacular: "how did the business go?"

Said the Pilgrim, "I begged the Bodhisattva Lingji, and he used a Flying-Dragon Staff and took the fiend;

The Pilgrim summarises the entire chapter in twenty characters and gives Lingji the whole of the credit, without a word of complaint about it.

and it turned out to be a yellow-furred marten grown into a spirit, and the Bodhisattva has carried him off to Vulture Peak to see the Tathāgata.

成精 is to become a spirit by long cultivation — what an animal does with several centuries and some discipline. 靈山 is Vulture Peak, the Sanskrit Gṛdhrakūṭa, the Tathāgata's own mountain. It is also, of course, the destination the pilgrims are themselves walking toward, and they will not arrive for a very long time yet.

Come with me into the cave now and rescue our master." And then the Idiot was full of joy.

歡歡喜喜: four characters, and the Idiot's entire character.

The two of them charged inside, and that whole nest of cunning hares, fiend-foxes, musk-deer and antlered stags

一窩, one nest or burrow. The four creatures named — hare, fox, musk-deer, antlered stag — are all game animals, and not one of them has done anything at all.

they beat to death, every one of them, with a fall of the muckrake and the iron rod; and then they went round to the back garden to bow to their master and set him free.

鈀 reads pá, the nine-toothed muckrake. 盡情打死 takes 盡 as jìn, "to the full." The pilgrims kill every animal in the cave, and the novel does not pause over it for so much as a clause.

The master came out through the door and asked, "How did the two of you take the fiend? And by what means was I saved at last?"

Three 得 in two readings, so a positional fixspec is needed: 出得門來 is the result-hanging de, while 捉得 and 救得 are the attainment dé. Sanzang, untied about four seconds ago, wants to know how it was managed.

The Pilgrim laid out for him the whole matter of begging Lingji to come and subdue the demon. The master thanked him beyond all thanking.

將 is jiāng, setting up what is about to be laid out; 降妖 takes xiáng. In 謝之不盡 the global rule raises 盡 to jìn, fourth tone, so the 不 in front of it must shift to bú — the only such tone adjustment in the chapter's closing movement, and one that has to be declared explicitly because the reading was corrected after the automatic pass.

The brothers gathered up such fasting food as was in the cave, prepared a little tea and rice and ate it, and only then went out through the gate and found the highroad, and went away to the west.

洞中素物: 中 is the locative zhōng. They eat the dead fiend's meatless provisions in the dead fiend's cave, and then they leave.

In the end there is no knowing what came after; you must listen to the next chapter, and it will be explained.

畢竟不知向後如何，且聽下回分解 — the storyteller's closing formula, unchanged in every chapter of this book, and a direct inheritance from the days when someone was being paid by the session to stop exactly here. 分 reads fēn.