Now the Tang Monk and his three disciples were roaming the mountain when of a sudden, raising their heads, they saw a cluster of pine and bamboo, and towers rising storey on storey.

Back to the pilgrims, who have been sightseeing while all that was arranged. 四眾, sì zhòng, the party of four. 松篁, sōng huáng, pine and bamboo; 樓閣數層, storeyed towers.

The Tang Monk said, "Wukong, look — what place is that yonder?"

那裡 here is nà li, the demonstrative — Tripiṭaka is pointing at something he can see. 去處, qù chù, a place.

Pilgrim looked and said, "That place — if it is no Daoist abbey, then surely a Buddhist cloister.

Pilgrim hedges: Daoist abbey or Buddhist monastery, one or the other. 觀宇, guàn yǔ, a Daoist temple, with 觀 in its guàn reading; 寺院, sì yuàn, a Buddhist one. The distinction is about to matter a great deal.

Let us step along; once there, we shall know the truth of it."

那廂, nà xiāng, over there. 端的, duān de, the truth of the matter — a vernacular favourite of this novel.

In no long while they came before the gate to look, and saw:

Another verse cue, the same shape as the mountain's. 見那 and then a colon: what follows is description, not speech. 門首觀看 takes 觀 as the verb guān — the reading that stands opposite the temple-noun guàn two lines above.

The pine-slope, cool and still; the bamboo path, pure and secluded.

冷淡, lěng dàn, here means quiet and unfussy rather than unfriendly; 清幽, qīng yōu, secluded and still. The rhapsody starts in a lower key than the mountain's did.

White cranes came and went, escorting the drifting clouds; up and down, gibbons now and again presented fruit.

Cranes escorting clouds and gibbons bringing fruit are the standard livestock of an immortal's estate — the animals behave like well-trained staff. 往來, wǎng lái, to and fro; 獻果, xiàn guǒ, to present fruit. Given what the chapter is about, that last phrase is quietly loaded.

Before that gate the pool lay broad, the tree-shadows long; the stones were split, the moss-flowers breaking through.

A note of age in among the splendour: split stone, moss forcing through the cracks. 長 here is cháng, "long," describing the tree-shadows — not the zhǎng of "Elder" that this chapter also uses.

The halls stood ranged in rank on rank, the Purple Pole soaring high; the terraces, dim and remote, where cinnabar cloud came drifting down.

紫極, zǐ jí, the Purple Culmen — the pole-star palace, the highest address in the Daoist heavens. 縹緲, piāo miǎo, faint and remote; 丹霞, dān xiá, cinnabar-coloured cloud.

Truly a blessed ground, a numinous domain — a cloud-grotto of Penglai.

福地靈區, blessed ground and numinous domain, both technical terms for consecrated Daoist sites. 蓬萊, Péng lái, the immortals' island — invoked in the mountain rhapsody a few passages back and again here, so the two set-pieces rhyme.

In the pure void, the affairs of men grow few; in the stillness, the heart of the Way is born.

The couplet states the theory of the place: fewer human affairs, therefore more stillness; more stillness, therefore the 道心, the mind attuned to the Way, can grow. 清虛, qīng xū, pure emptiness. 少 is shǎo, "few."

The blue bird ever bore the Queen Mother's letters; the purple simurgh often carried Lord Lao's scriptures.

Two celestial couriers. The 青鳥, blue bird, is the messenger of the Queen Mother of the West and a standing poetic shorthand for a letter from someone you long for; the 紫鸞, purple simurgh, carries Lord Lao's scriptures. The abbey is on the mailing list of both.

Beyond all seeing was that lofty air of the Way and its Power — a boundless, silent dwelling of the immortals indeed.

看不盡, more than the eye can take in — and the 不 shifts to bú before the fourth-tone 盡 (jìn). This phrase recurs three more times in the chapter, each time with the same shift. 道德, the Way and its Power, the title of the Daoist classic; 漠漠, mò mò, vast and silent.