Bajie said: 'In my day old Hog was Grand Marshal of the Heavenly River, with command over eighty thousand marine troops, and so I did pick up some knowledge of the water.'

Bajie's résumé, produced at exactly the right moment. 總督天河 — Grand Marshal of the Heavenly River, his old celestial rank as 天蓬元帥 — with 八萬水兵, eighty thousand marines, under him. 學得知些水性, 'so I did pick up something of the water's ways' (得 de). The modesty is false and doing a lot of work: he is the only one here who can do this job at all.

'My only fear is that down in the water he may have kinsfolk, young and old — the whole brood of seven nests and eight generations coming at once,

And immediately the nerve goes. 七窩八代 — 'seven nests and eight generations' — is vernacular hyperbole for a whole swarming clan, the Chinese for every cousin twice removed turning up at once. 甚麼眷族, 'relatives of some sort' (甚 shén), and 都來, all of them arriving together (都 dōu).

'and then I'd be no match for him — might I not, for once, be dragged off by him?'

弄他不過, 'I'd not get the better of him,' and 不被他撈去 — 'mightn't I get fished out?' (Both instances of 不 lift to bú before the falling tones that follow.) The worry is perfectly in character: he volunteers, then at once pictures the worst thing that could happen to him personally.

The Pilgrim said: 'When you get down into the water and close with him, don't get drawn into a long fight — you may lose, but you mustn't win;

中 is zhōng. The instruction is the interesting part: 不要戀戰, do not fall in love with the fight — and then the paradox, 許敗不許勝, 'you are permitted to lose; you are not permitted to win.' It is a genuinely elegant piece of tactics. Its only flaw is the man giving it.

'lure him out, and wait for old Sun to lend a hand.'

引將出來, 'draw him out' (將 jiāng, that directional shove again). Water to Bajie, land to the monkey — a clean division of labour that will fail twice, for a reason neither of them has thought of yet.

Bajie said: 'Rightly spoken — I'll go.'

言得是, 'rightly spoken' (得 de). Three characters, and the talking stops.

With a word he was off: he stripped off his blue brocade cassock, kicked off his shoes, brandished his rake in both hands, and parted a path through the water,

Gown off, shoes off, rake up, and the water opens. The 青錦直裰 is the blue brocade monk's robe — he takes the monk off to do this — and 分開水路, 'parting a road through the water,' is an old skill coming back to hands that used to know it.

and calling up the old skills of former days, he leapt the billows and churned the waves, plunged straight in, went down to the very bed of the river, and pressed forward.

那當年舊手段, 'those old skills of years back' (那 nà), and 撞將進去, 'barged his way in' (將 jiāng). For a few lines Bajie stops being the greedy comic and is simply a marine going back down where he belongs.