The good Bajie wiped his face, roused his spirits, gripped his rake in both hands, went to the riverside, parted a path through the water, and once more descended to the demon's lair.

好八戒, 'the good Bajie' — the storyteller's little flourish of approval before somebody does something impressive; the novel uses it like a drum roll. Then the same sequence as yesterday: rake up (鈀 pá), 分開水路, and down.

The monster had only just woken when he heard the splash of someone thrusting through the water; he turned his head sharply, opened his eyes wide to look, and saw Bajie coming, rake in hand.

推得水響, 'the splash of somebody shoving through the water' (得 de, 那 nà). The demon was asleep. The same noise that summoned him yesterday summons him again — the chapter is repeating its own scene deliberately.

He sprang out, barred the way head-on, and shouted: 'Not so fast, not so fast — mind the staff!'

當頭阻住, blocked him head-on, and the doubled 慢來, 'slow down, slow down.' It is a formal challenge, and it is the mirror of Bajie's own from the previous encounter.

Bajie brought up his rake to parry and said: 'What sort of funeral-cudgel is that, that you'd bid your grandsire mind it?'

哭喪杖 is the staff a chief mourner leans on at a funeral: a prop for grief, not a weapon. Bajie has just called the demon-subduing staff a walking stick for a wake (甚 shén, in 甚麼). It is a good insult, and it costs him twelve couplets of listening.

The monster said: 'You wretch, how little you know. This staff of mine —'

甚不曉得, 'how very little you know' — and note that 甚 is shèn here, 'exceedingly,' not the 什麼-sense it carried one line above. Then 我這, 'this — of mine,' and the quotation opens again, this time on twelve couplets in praise of a stick. The closing bracket waits until the end.

This precious staff is one of great renown; its very stock is a branch of the moon's sala tree.

梭羅 here writes what is elsewhere 娑羅, the sala tree — the tree the Buddha died under. This version puts it on the moon, which folds it together with the older legend of the cassia growing there. The staff is given a celestial pedigree in its opening line, before anything is said about what it does.

Wu Gang hewed a limb of it down; Lu Ban wrought it with unequalled craft.

Two of the best-known names in Chinese story, one line apart. 吳剛, Wu Gang, was sentenced to fell the tree on the moon and discovered it heals itself at every stroke — the Chinese Sisyphus, still chopping. 魯班, Lu Ban, is the master carpenter, patron of all builders, and so far beyond ordinary skill that showing off your woodwork in front of him has been proverbial for centuries. So: a branch cut by a man who cannot stop cutting, worked by the finest hands that ever held a tool.

Within runs a core of gold true to the heart; without, ten thousand strands of pearl-thread and jade.

金趁心, a core of gold running true down the centre, and 珠絲玠, pearl-thread and jade about the outside. The staff is being itemised like a valuation.

Its name is the Precious Staff, apt to subdue demons; forever it warded the Hall of Divine Mists and could quell fiends.

善降妖, 'good at subduing demons' (降 xiáng) — and there is the irony sitting in plain sight. The weapon, like the man holding it, was made to keep order at the 靈霄, and both of them are now on the wrong side of that job description.

Because I was appointed Grand General, the Jade Emperor bestowed it for me to bear at my side.

官拜大將軍, 'appointed Grand General' (將 jiàng, the rank). The staff was not bought or found. It was issued with the post, by the Jade Emperor personally — which makes it, in effect, a piece of government property he has been carrying around since he was sacked.

Now long, now short, it answers to my will; thick or thin, it follows my very mood.

或長或短任吾心, long or short as the mind likes (長 cháng), thick or thin as the mood takes it. Any reader will hear the echo: this is precisely the trick of the monkey's own cudgel. Changing size on command is the standard mark of a weapon with a spirit in it.

It has guarded the throne at the Peach Banquet; it has attended court and dwelt in the upper realm.

護駕宴蟠桃, guarding the throne at the peach banquet, and 隨朝居上界, in attendance at court in the upper world (朝 cháo). The staff's biography is quietly retelling its owner's — including, without comment, the banquet where everything went wrong.

On palace duty it was saluted by all the sages; raising the curtain, it saw the immortals bow.

捲簾曾見諸仙拜, 'raising the curtain, it saw the immortals bow.' The line ties the staff directly to the office of the 捲簾大將 — it was there, in his hands, at the exact moment of his greatest standing.

Nurtured to a numinous nature, a divine weapon; no common implement of the mortal world.

養成靈性, 'raised up into a spiritual nature' — the verb is the one used for rearing a child or nursing a plant, and it implies time and care rather than manufacture. Hence 神兵, a divine weapon, and emphatically not a 凡器械, a piece of mortal hardware. This is the boast's central claim.

Since I was banished down through the Gate of Heaven, it has ranged at will, roaming beyond the seas.

遭貶下天門, 'banished down through Heaven's Gate.' The staff fell with him and has been roving 海外, beyond the seas, ever since. Even the vaunt cannot avoid the shape of the story: everything about this creature points backward to a better position.

It is no rash boast to praise it so: no spear or blade under Heaven could match it in contest.

不當大膽自稱誇, 'this is no over-bold self-praise' (稱 chēng) — the traditional disclaimer that always precedes the least modest line. And here it comes: 難比賽, nothing under Heaven can match it in a contest (難 nán).

Look at that rusty rake of yours — fit only to hoe fields and tamp down cabbage-beds!

那個鏽釘鈀, 'that rusty nailed rake of yours' (那 nà, 鈀 pá), fit for 鋤田與築菜 — hoeing fields and tamping down the cabbage beds. Twelve couplets of moon-trees and jade and divine nature, and it all ends in calling the other man's weapon a garden tool. Which, to be fair, it is.