The story tells how the Tang Monk and his three disciples, having come through their ordeal, pressed on ahead; in less than a day they had passed Yellow Wind Ridge, and going westward came upon a stretch of level, open plain.

話說 ('the story tells') is the storyteller's set opening, resuming the thread from the escape of the last chapter. 脫難 ('escaped the ordeal'): 難 here is nàn, 'calamity, ordeal,' not nán 'difficult' — the ordeal is the Yellow Wind demon just subdued. 一脈平陽之地, 'a vein of level, sunlit land,' is the calm that regularly follows a trial in the pilgrimage's rhythm.

Time sped swiftly on; summer passed and autumn came, and they saw cold cicadas shrilling among the withered willows while the Great Fire star slid toward the west.

大火向西流 echoes the Shijing line 七月流火: the 'Great Fire' is the star Antares (心宿), whose westering marks the turn from summer's heat to autumn — a seasonal sign, not a literal blaze. 寒蟬鳴敗柳 ('cold cicadas cry in the ruined willows') sets the melancholy autumn key.

Just as they were going along, there appeared a great sweep of raging water, its muddy billows heaving and surging.

正行處 ('right where they were travelling'; 行 xíng) — the abrupt 只見 ('they suddenly saw') is the narrator's device for springing a new obstacle. 狂瀾 ('mad waves') and 渾波湧浪 ('turbid waves welling up') announce the third great river-barrier of the journey.

Sanzang, upon his horse, cried out in haste: 'Disciples, see how broad the water is up ahead, and yet not a boat is to be seen plying it — however are we to cross over?'

那前邊 ('that stretch ahead'; 那 nà, demonstrative) set against 從那裡過去 ('cross from where?'; 那 here nǎ, the interrogative 哪, standard in Ming vernacular). 三藏 (Sānzàng, 藏 zàng) is Xuanzang's dharma-title, 'Three Baskets [of scripture].' The master's helpless dismay opens the scene's set triangle of reactions.

Bajie looked and said: 'It is a raging flood indeed, and there is no boat to ferry us across.'

八戒 ('Eight Rules,' Bājiè) supplies the blunt confirmation — 無舟可渡, 'no boat can ferry us' — the plain-spoken foil to the master's alarm and the monkey's boast that follows.

The Pilgrim sprang up into the air, raised a hand to shade his eyes like an awning and looked; and he too took fright, saying:

搭涼篷 ('to make an awning [with the hand]') is the stock gesture for shading the eyes to peer into the distance. That even the airborne 行者 (Xíngzhě, 'the Pilgrim') is dismayed — 他也心驚 — measures the barrier: this is no fight he can simply win.

'Master, it is hard indeed, hard indeed! As for this river, if it were a question of old Sun's own crossing, I need only give my waist a twist and I'd be over;

The doubled 真個是難 ('truly hard'; 難 nán, 'difficult,' distinct from the nàn of 脫難 above) frames the monkey's swagger. 老孫 ('old Sun') is Wukong's brash self-name; 扭一扭 ('give it a twist') dismisses eight hundred li as nothing — for him alone.

but for the Master, it is truly a thousandfold hard to ford, ten thousand years hard to traverse.'

千分…萬載 ('a thousand parts … ten thousand years'; 分 fēn, 載 zài) is hyperbolic parallelism: the flesh-bound master cannot do what the monkey does in a twist. The couplet quietly states the chapter's real problem — the mortal body must be carried, and no shortcut will serve.

Sanzang said: 'From here I gaze out and see no bound — just how wide is it, in truth?'

端的 ('exactly, in truth'; here 的 dì, the adverbial reading of this Ming-vernacular binome, not the particle de). 一望無邊 ('one glance, no edge') conveys the river's dismaying breadth from the mortal's vantage.

The Pilgrim said: 'Reckoning by the crossing, it is some eight hundred li across.'

里 (lǐ, the Chinese mile of about half a kilometre) is kept untranslated. The precise figure is the monkey's boast made concrete, prompting Bajie's incredulous question.

Bajie said: 'Elder brother, how can you fix the figure of its breadth so exactly?'

定得個…之數 ('settle a number for it'; 得 de, the potential-complement particle). Bajie's 怎的 ('however could you') sets up the monkey's account of his far-seeing eyes.

The Pilgrim said: 'I'll not deceive you, worthy brother — with this pair of eyes old Sun can, in broad daylight, make out fortune and disaster a thousand li down the road.'

看得千里 ('can see a thousand li'; 得 de). The monkey's 火眼金睛 ('fiery eyes, golden pupils'), forged in Laozi's furnace, are the running token of his supernatural sight; 吉凶 ('good and ill fortune') hints they read more than distance.

'Just now, looking down from the air, I could not tell how far the river runs upstream and down; but I could see that at this crossing it is a full eight hundred li.'

卻才 ('just now') and 不知多遠 ('cannot tell how far') temper the boast — even his sight has limits along the river's length, though the crossing he reads exactly at 足有八百里 ('a full eight hundred li').

The elder, sighing in his vexation, reined his horse around, and of a sudden saw upon the bank a stone tablet.

長老 ('the elder'; 長 zhǎng) is the reverent epithet for the monk. 一通石碑 — 通 is the measure-word for steles and documents; the tablet's appearance turns the scene from lament to discovery.

When the three came together to look, they saw three seal-script graphs upon it, reading 'The River of Flowing Sands'; and on its face were four small lines of regular script, which ran:

篆字 ('seal script') names the river; the 四行真字 ('four lines of standard-script graphs') carry the verse — 行 here is háng, 'a line, a row' (its one legitimate háng in the whole book), and 真字 ('true/regular characters') sets the clerkly hand against the seal-script of the name. 腹上 ('on the belly') is the stone's broad face.

Eight hundred li — the realm of Flowing Sands; three thousand fathoms — the Weak Water's deep.

The stele's opening couplet fixes the barrier's scale. 弱水 ('Weak Water') is the mythic current named in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, so wanting in buoyancy that nothing floats upon it — the premise the next couplet drives home.

A goose-down feather will not drift atop it; a reed-flower, cast, sinks straight to the bed.

鵝毛飄不起 ('a goose feather cannot float') and 蘆花定底沉 ('reed-down surely settles to the bottom') are the classic emblem of 弱水: where even the lightest things sink, no ferry can serve, and the crossing must be won by other means.