The Bodhisattva asked: 'Why are you not guarding the Tang Monk? On what business have you come to see me again?'

為甚事, 'on what business?' (為 wèi; 甚 is shén, standing for 什麼). Her first words assume he has walked off the job. It is a gentle reproof, and he has to answer it before he can ask for anything.

The Pilgrim reported: 'Bodhisattva, at Old Gao's Manor my master took on another disciple, called Zhu Bajie,

高老莊, Old Gao's Manor, is where Bajie was recruited a few chapters back — hired as a farmhand son-in-law, and rather good at the work until his face gave him away. The monkey opens with the company's recent history, the way you would brief a superior before asking a favour.

'and by your grace, Bodhisattva, he was given the religious name Wuneng. We have just passed Yellow Wind Ridge, and now we have reached the eight-hundred-lǐ River of Flowing Sands,

法諱悟能, 'the dharma-name Wuneng' — 'Awakened to Ability' — was Guanyin's own gift (行 xíng). Notice the shape of these names. Wukong, Wuneng, and shortly Wujing: all three begin with the same character, 悟, 'awakened to.' The Bodhisattva names her converts in a matched set, which is a quiet way of telling you that she has been assembling this company on purpose.

'which is three thousand of Weak Water — already too hard for the master to cross; and in the river there is besides a monster,

弱水三千, 'three thousand of Weak Water' — the same figure the stele gave in the opening scene, in lǐ (難 nán, 中 zhōng). The river alone would have stopped them. The demon is an additional problem on top of an already impossible one.

'mighty in the martial arts; it was much thanks to Wuneng that we fought him three times on the water's face,

甚虧了, 'very much thanks to' — here 甚 is shèn, 'greatly,' and 了 is the ordinary toneless le; the two are not a fixed compound. The monkey gives Bajie full credit for the three duels, which is handsome of him, given whose cudgel spoiled two of them.

'only we could not win, and being barred by him, we cannot cross the river.'

不能取勝, could not take the victory, and 攔阻, blocked. The report ends where the chapter has been stuck for two days.

'And so I come expressly to inform you, Bodhisattva, hoping you will show compassion and help us across.'

望垂憐憫, 'hoping you will bend down your pity' — the verb 垂 is 'to let hang down,' the motion of a superior stooping toward an inferior, and it is the standard verb for divine favour. 濟渡他一濟渡, 'deliver us, do just deliver us across,' doubles the word the way a petition does. Note that 渡 means both to ferry over water and to carry across to salvation; the whole chapter lives in that double sense.

The Bodhisattva said: 'You monkey, showing off your conceit again — you wouldn't come out and say you were guarding the Tang Monk, would you?'

逞自滿, 'parading your own conceit' (子 the light zi). She is teasing him, and the joke has teeth: she knows exactly who is in that river, and she can see that he has spent two days hitting somebody he could have recruited with one sentence.

The Pilgrim said: 'We only meant to take him and make him ferry my master across. As for doings in the water, I'm not too deft at them.'

弄不得精細, 'can't manage it finely' (得 de, 教 jiào). He owns the water problem again. It is the honest half of the answer, and it is not the half that matters.

'It was only Wuneng who found his lair and had words with him; I suppose he never told him about the scripture-quest.'

尋著他窩巢, 'found out his den' (著 zháo, the reading for arriving at a result). And here, without knowing it, the monkey names the actual mistake: Bajie went down, found him, exchanged words with him — and, he supposes, never mentioned the scriptures. He is right, and he has just diagnosed his own chapter.

The Bodhisattva said: 'That monster of the Flowing Sands is the Curtain-Raising General come down to the mortal world,

捲簾大將臨凡, 'the Curtain-Raising Grand General come down to the mortal world' (那 nà, 將 jiàng). The reader has known this since the demon sang it himself, down on the river-bed. The pilgrims have not, because nobody was listening.

'and he too is a convert I won over, whom I bade await and protect the scripture-pilgrims.'

And here is the part nobody could have guessed. 我勸化的善信, 'a devout convert I talked round' (教 jiào) — the demon is not an obstacle placed in the road but a recruit posted at it, told to wait for these very travellers and protect them. He has been on the payroll the whole time.

'If you had only been willing to say you were the scripture-seekers from the Eastern Land, he would never have fought you, but would surely have submitted.'

東土取經人, 'the scripture-seekers from the Eastern Land,' is the password, and it was in their pockets all along. Say it, and the fight never happens. Two days of combat, three rhapsodies and a trip to the Southern Sea, all because nobody thought to introduce themselves.

The Pilgrim said: 'That monster now shrinks from fighting, won't come up on the bank, but only lurks hidden in the water —

怯戰, shy of fighting, and 潛蹤, keeping his tracks hidden (那 nà). The monkey raises the practical snag, and it is a real one: the demon is now too wary to be reached at all, even by someone who only wants to talk.

'how are we to get him to submit? And how is my master to cross the Weak Water?'

如何得他歸順, 'how are we to get his submission?' — and both instances of 得 here are dé, the modal of managing to bring something off, which is the reading this 如何得 pattern always takes. Two questions: how to win the demon, and how to cross the water. The answer she gives turns out to be one object that solves both.

The Bodhisattva at once summoned Hui'an, took from her sleeve a little red gourd, and instructed him: 'Take this gourd,

惠岸, Hui'an, is the religious name of Mokṣa, Guanyin's disciple — the same envoy who brought Bajie in. Out of her sleeve comes a 紅葫蘆, a little red gourd (中 zhōng, 將 jiāng). Against eight hundred lǐ of water that floats nothing, the remedy is a bottle gourd.

'go with Sun Wukong to the surface of the River of Flowing Sands, and just call "Wujing" — he will come out at once. First bring him to take refuge with the Tang Monk;

悟淨, 'Awakened to Purity' — the third of the matched names, and it was assigned before any of this happened. Call it and he will come. Then 歸依, take refuge: the formal act of putting oneself under the protection of the Buddha, the teaching and the community, which is what makes somebody a monk rather than merely a follower. Conversion first, transport second.

'then string his nine skulls together in one place, set them out in the pattern of the Nine Palaces, and put this gourd in the middle —

九個骷髏, the nine skulls (那 nà), strung together and laid out 九宮佈列, in the pattern of the Nine Palaces (中 zhōng) — the three-by-three magic square in which every row, column and diagonal adds to the same total. It is the oldest and most reliable diagram in Chinese cosmology, the grid on which everything from divination to city planning was laid out. The gourd goes in the centre square.

'and it becomes a dharma-boat, able to ferry the Tang Monk across the bounds of the Flowing Sands.'

法船, a 'dharma-boat.' The image is an old one in Chinese Buddhism — the teaching as the vessel that carries beings over the sea of suffering to the far shore — and here the novel simply builds one. The ornament of horror from the demon's first appearance turns out to be the ferry.