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 — if you want to know the road below the hill, ask somebody who has walked it. A balanced, rhymed proverb, but spoken in dialogue with no announcement, so by the chapter 18 rule it stays prose.

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 is cáng, "to put away." 放下衣襟 is to let the tucked-up skirt of the robe drop back down, so as to look like a respectable person rather than someone about to hit you. The Pilgrim is on his manners again, and the reader should be starting to notice how often that happens in this chapter.

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?"

還 is huán, "to return" a courtesy — not the hái of "still." And what he returns is 半答不答的還了個禮, half a bow, delivered grudgingly. That is a choice, not bad manners; the old man is playing a part. The two 那 take different readings: 那老者 is nà, 你是那裡和尚 is the questioning 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 been asking aloud on the road a moment earlier, with no notion that it is the reason this old man is standing 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." The measure 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, is named after the world-mountain at the centre of the Buddhist cosmos — so this is a scaled-down copy of the axis of the universe, tucked into a mountain range three thousand lǐ south of a demon's cave. 道場 is ground set aside for practice, the 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."

And here is the slip that gives him away. 汝等 is the literary "you" plural, out of the classical language — no farmer on a mountain road says 汝等. It is the only false note in the whole performance, and it is not a supernatural one. 不知從那條路去 takes the questioning 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" — narrow and winding, and still the ordinary word for a mountain track. The directions are completely accurate and completely 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 is hǒng, "to trick, to coax," and 得 hangs the result on it. 寂然不見 — he goes without a sound, and he goes as 清風, a pure wind. That word is set deliberately against the yellow wind of this entire 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, standing for 旁. 簡帖 takes 帖 as tiě, a written slip. 四句頌子云： is the explicit verse announcement, exactly the formula used for the note left on the tree earlier in this chapter: 頌 names the form and 四句 counts the lines. This one is written rather than spoken, so no closing quotation mark falls inside the verse.

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 to." A planet is addressing the Great Sage in the register of an official memorandum. 李長庚: 長 reads cháng. Changgeng is the old name for the evening star, and so for 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 is "received as the Buddha's soldier" — Lingji holds the staff by appointment, and the appointment is the whole reason he can be summoned to use it. In twenty-eight characters the verse hands the Pilgrim a name, a place and a weapon.