The Great Sage leapt up into the air, mounted his cloud-somersault, and went off due south;

觔斗雲: 觔 is jīn, the same word as 筋, and 斗 is dǒu. The somersault-cloud covers a hundred and eight thousand lǐ in one leap, which is why a three-thousand-lǐ errand takes him no time at all.

and truly he was swift: with one nod of his head he passed three thousand lǐ, and with one twist of his waist eight hundred more.

點頭經過三千里，扭腰八百有餘程 is a balanced couplet sitting inside the prose, with no announcement in front of it, so prose it stays. The measure 里 is again left as lǐ.

In a moment he saw a high mountain, and halfway up it auspicious clouds appeared, and lucky vapours lay thick.

須臾, in an instant. 祥雲 and 瑞藹, auspicious clouds and lucky vapours, are this novel's standing signal that somebody holy is underneath.

In a fold of the hills there was indeed a monastery, and he heard the bell and the chime-stone sounding far off, and saw the incense-smoke drifting.

鐘磬悠揚 — the bronze bell and the stone chime, the two instruments that mark time in a monastery. 縹緲 is "faint and drifting," said of smoke.

The Great Sage came up to the gate, and there was a Daoist attendant with a string of beads about his neck, reciting the Buddha's name.

Look at who is on the gate. 道人 is the Daoist word for a lay attendant, and this particular Daoist attendant is telling Buddhist prayer-beads and reciting the Buddha's name outside a bodhisattva's lecture hall. The novel sets the two vocabularies side by side and does not explain itself, here or anywhere else.

Said the Pilgrim, "Attendant, I salute you." The attendant bowed and returned the courtesy. "And whence comes your worship?" he said.

The two 那 take different readings: 那道人 is nà, 那裡來的老爺 is nǎ, "whence." 作揖 is the salutation made with the hands joined in front of the chest.

Said the Pilgrim, "Is this the place where the Bodhisattva Lingji expounds the scriptures?" Said the attendant, "It is indeed. What have you to say?"

講經處: 處 is chù, place. The Pilgrim, who once broke into heaven, is standing at a gate asking politely whether he has the right address.

Said the Pilgrim, "May I trouble you, sir, to carry in a word for me:

累 reads lèi, "to trouble." 傳答傳答 doubles the verb: carry a word in and bring one back out.

I am the disciple of the Dharma Master Sanzang, the sworn brother of the emperor of the Great Tang in the Land of the East, and my name is Sun Wukong the Pilgrim, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven; and I have a business, and would see the Bodhisattva."

Seven pieces of style and standing, twenty-four characters of them, delivered in a single breath: 東土大唐, 駕下御弟, 三藏法師, 徒弟, 齊天大聖, 孫悟空, 行者. In 三藏 the character 藏 is always zàng, as part of the name.

The attendant laughed. "Your worship has many words and many titles, and I cannot remember them all." Said the Pilgrim, "Then say only that Sun Wukong, the Tang monk's disciple, has come."

字多話多, "many characters and many words." The joke lands for two reasons: it is the only time in the book that anyone tells the Great Sage his name is too long, and he takes it entirely in good part.