Bajie saw him and was greatly pleased. "Elder brother," he said, "the common saying has it: if you would know the road below the hill, ask the man who has come along it.

要知山下路，須問去來人 — a proverb, parallel and rhymed, spoken in dialogue and carrying no verse tag. Prose, by the ch18 rule.

Go up and ask him a word, why not?" So the Great Sage put away his iron rod, let down the skirt of his robe, went up and called out, "Venerable sir, I salute you."

藏了鐵棒: 藏 is cáng, "to put away." 放下衣襟 — to let the tucked-up skirt of the robe fall, so as to look respectable. The Pilgrim is on his manners again.

The old man returned the bow with half a bow, and said, "Where do you come from, monk? What business have you in this open waste?"

半答不答的還了個禮: 還 is huán, "to return" a courtesy — not hái. The old man returns the bow with half of one, which is deliberate. The two 那 take different readings: 那老者 is nà, 你是那裡和尚 is interrogative nǎ.

Said the Pilgrim, "We are holy monks who go to fetch the scriptures. Yesterday we lost our master in this place, and I have come to ask you a word: where does the Bodhisattva Lingji dwell?"

在那裡住: 那 is nǎ, "where." The Pilgrim asks the exact question he had asked aloud on the road a moment before, with no idea that this is why the old man is here.

Said the old man, "Lingji lies due south, and it is three thousand lǐ from here to there.

直南, due south. 還有三千里路 takes 還 as hái, "yet"; 里 stays untranslated as lǐ.

There is a mountain, called Little Mount Sumeru; and in that mountain is a place of the Way, which is the Bodhisattva's monastery for the exposition of the scriptures.

小須彌山 — Little Mount Sumeru, named for the world-mountain at the centre of the Buddhist cosmos. 道場 is a place set aside for practice, Sanskrit bodhimaṇḍa.

Is it his scriptures you go to fetch?" Said the Pilgrim, "It is not his scriptures. I have a business to trouble him with, and do not know by which road to go."

汝等 is the literary "you" plural, and it is the first false note: no farmer says 汝等. 不知從那條路去 — interrogative nǎ, "which road."

The old man pointed south with his hand. "This sheep's-gut path is the one," he said.

羊腸路, a "sheep's-gut road," winding and narrow. The old man's directions are entirely accurate and entirely a pretext.

And when he had thus tricked the Great Sage into turning his head to look at the road, the old man changed into a pure wind and was gone without a sound.

哄得: 哄 is hǒng, "to trick, to coax," and 得 is the resultative de. 寂然不見 — the disappearance is soundless, and the wind is 清風, a pure wind, set against the yellow wind of this whole chapter.

Only, on the roadside, he had left behind a slip of paper, and on it were four lines of a gāthā, which said:

傍 reads páng (= 旁). 簡帖 takes 帖 as tiě, a written slip. 四句頌子云： is the explicit verse tag, as at block 14: 頌 names the gāthā and 四句 counts its lines. The verse is written, not spoken, so no closing quotation mark falls inside it.

A word for the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, that he may hear: / the old man was none other than Li Changgeng.

上覆 is the formula that opens a written report to a superior: "respectfully submitted." 李長庚 — 長 reads cháng: Chang-geng is the ancient name of the evening star, and thus of the Planet Venus, 太白金星.

On Mount Sumeru there is a Flying-Dragon Staff; / Lingji received it, in that year, as a soldier of the Buddha.

當年 takes dāng. 受佛兵, "received as the Buddha's soldier" — Lingji holds the staff as an appointment, and the appointment is the whole reason he can be commanded to come. The gāthā gives the Pilgrim a name, a place, and a weapon, in twenty-eight graphs.