三花九子膏 The Three-Flower Nine-Seed Ointment
行者道：「果然，果然。我們雖不是神仙，神仙還是我的晚輩。這條命急切難休，卻只是吹得我眼珠酸痛。」那老者道：「既如此說，也是個有來頭的人。我這敝處卻無賣眼藥的。老漢也有些迎風冷淚，曾遇異人，傳了一方，名喚三花九子膏，能治一切風眼。」行者聞言，低頭唱喏道：「願求些兒，點試點試。」那老者應承，即走進去，取出一個瑪瑙石的小罐兒來，拔開塞口，用玉簪兒蘸出少許，與行者點上，教他不得睜開，寧心睡覺，明早就好。點畢，收了石罐，徑領小介們退於裡面。行者道：「果然，果然。我们虽不是神仙，神仙还是我的晚辈。这条命急切难休，却只是吹得我眼珠酸痛。」那老者道：「既如此说，也是个有来头的人。我这敝处却无卖眼药的。老汉也有些迎风冷泪，曾遇异人，传了一方，名唤三花九子膏，能治一切风眼。」行者闻言，低头唱喏道：「愿求些儿，点试点试。」那老者应承，即走进去，取出一个玛瑙石的小罐儿来，拔开塞口，用玉簪儿蘸出少许，与行者点上，教他不得睁开，宁心睡觉，明早就好。点毕，收了石罐，径领小介们退于里面。
逐句解 Line by line
"Just so," said the Pilgrim, "just so. We are not immortals, to be sure — the immortals are our juniors.
還 is hái. The old man has just allowed one exception — only an immortal survives that wind — and the Pilgrim answers by placing himself above the exception. It happens to be true, and the old man, being a spirit, knows it perfectly well.
This life of mine is not to be finished in a hurry. It is only that the wind has left the balls of my eyes aching sourly."
急切難休: 難 is nán. Having claimed to outrank the immortals, he goes straight back to the small complaint he came in with. The comedy of the chapter lives in exactly this disproportion.
Said the old man, "If that is how it stands, you are a person of some origin after all. In this poor place of mine there is no one who sells eye-medicine.
有來頭的人, literally "a person with an origin" — vernacular for somebody whose background is not ordinary, said with a raised eyebrow. 敝處, "my poor place," is the humble form for one's own home.
But I too have the cold tears that come with the wind, and I once met an extraordinary man who taught me a prescription. It is called the Three-Flower Nine-Seed Ointment, and it can cure every disorder of the eyes brought on by wind."
迎風冷淚 is a genuine term from Chinese eye medicine: watering of the eyes on exposure to wind. So the old man is not inventing a diagnosis; he is producing the correct clinical name for the two symptoms the Pilgrim described two passages back. In 三花九子膏 the 子 reads zǐ, "seed." Neither the three flowers nor the nine seeds are ever named, here or anywhere else in the book.
Hearing this, the Pilgrim bowed his head and made a salutation. "I beg a little of it, to try upon my eyes."
喏 reads rě (a standing fix): a salutation made with a spoken word and a bow together. 點試點試 doubles the verb, which turns a request into something closer to a suggestion.
The old man consented, and went inside, and brought out a small jar of agate stone. He drew the stopper,
應承 takes 應 as yìng, "to consent." The agate jar and the jade hairpin are the professional properties of a physician who does not exist.
took up a little of the salve on a jade hairpin, and applied it to the Pilgrim's eyes, bidding him not to open them, but to lie quiet and sleep, and by morning all would be well.
蘸出少許, to dip out the smallest quantity. 教他不得睜開: 教 is the causative jiào, 得 the "able to" dé. The instructions are precise — keep them shut, lie quiet, sleep — and the Pilgrim, who takes orders from almost nobody, follows them exactly.
When he had applied it, he put the stone jar away and led his servants back into the inner rooms.
小介們, the servants of the phantom household, ushered off the stage. Every one of them will have ceased to exist by the fifth watch.
The second half of the paragraph divided at the previous passage. The old man has just said that nothing short of an immortal could survive the Yellow Wind; the Pilgrim replies that immortals are his juniors, and then complains that his eyes sting. Both statements are true. The gap between them is the whole portrait of Sun Wukong in this chapter.
What follows is the most domestic scene the novel has yet produced. An agate jar, a jade hairpin, a salve dipped out in the smallest possible quantity, and an instruction to keep the eyes shut and go to sleep. The guardian spirits, forbidden to appear as themselves, have settled on helping the Great Sage Equal to Heaven by impersonating an old farmer with a remedy for watery eyes. It is worth remembering, when the ointment works, that there is no such ointment.