The Tang Monk said, "There is something in what you say. Stop your shouting a moment, and let me question them.

Tripiṭaka concedes the point at once, which is characteristic and also, in the circumstances, unwise. 說得是 takes the light de.

If they did steal it, I will have them make it good to you."

教他賠你 takes the causative 教, jiào — "I will have them make it good."

Bright-Moon said, "Make it good!

And Bright-Moon's incredulity is entirely justified.

Where would there be any to buy, even with money?"

Where would you buy one? Here 那裡 is nǎ lǐ, the interrogative. The fruit is not expensive; it is unpurchasable, and the offer of restitution is meaningless.

The Tang Monk said, "Even with money and no place to buy it — the old saying has it, 'Right conduct is worth a thousand in gold.'

仁義值千金, "right conduct is worth a thousand in gold." Tripiṭaka's instinct under pressure is to reach for a maxim, and the maxim he reaches for is Confucian rather than Buddhist — the novel's three teachings sit in one another's pockets throughout.

Let them make you an apology, and let that end it.

賠個禮, péi gè lǐ, to offer an apology — a pun on the 賠 of "compensate" two lines above. If you cannot repay the thing, repay the courtesy.

And it is not yet even known whether it was they or not."

And a last, hopeful qualification: we do not actually know it was them.

Bright-Moon said, "How could it not be them?

Bright-Moon does know.

Over there they're squabbling that the shares aren't even, still bawling away."

And here is how he knows, and it is perfect: they are next door squabbling about the split. 分不均 takes 分 as fēn, the verb "to divide." Here 那裡 is the demonstrative nà lǐ, "over there" — the interrogative reading appeared five lines ago, so the two sit close together for comparison.

The Tang Monk called out: "Disciples — all of you, come here."

Tripiṭaka calls his disciples, in good faith, to clear their names.

Sha Monk heard and said, "This is bad — the game's up.

決撒了, jué sā le — vernacular for "it's blown, the game is up," with 撒 as sā. Sha Monk works out what has happened before either of the others does.

The old Master calls us, and the little Daoist boys are cursing all round — if the old business hasn't leaked, what else is it?"

走了風, "the wind got out" — the leak Bājiè warned Pilgrim about before the theft, now sprung by Bājiè. 舊話兒, "the old business," takes the er suffix; 甚的 takes 甚 as shén.

Pilgrim said, "Mortifying, this.

活羞殺人, huó xiū shā rén, "shames a man to death" — 殺 as an intensifier rather than a verb, the construction of 笑殺人, "kills one laughing."

This is only a matter of eating and drinking; but if it comes out, we'll be branded as filchers — so simply deny it."

And this is the chapter's moral hinge, delivered in a single shrug. It was only food; if we admit it we'll be branded as filchers; so deny it. Pilgrim, who has faced down the massed armies of Heaven, cannot face being thought petty, and chooses to lie about a fruit. 偷嘴, tōu zuǐ, is precisely the small domestic word for snitching food from a kitchen — the pettiness is in the vocabulary.

Bajie said, "Just so, just so — deny it and be done."

昧了罷 — 昧, mèi, to keep dark, to disavow. The 罷 is the soft ba that turns an instruction into a suggestion, not the bà of "enough."

So the three of them could only leave the kitchen and go up to the hall.

只得, they had no choice — which is not true. They had one.

In the end there is no telling how they will brazen it out — so listen to the telling of the next chapter.

畢竟不知…且聽下回分解 is the storyteller's formula that closes every chapter of the novel: "in the end there is no telling — listen to the next instalment." It preserves the rhythm of the marketplace performances the written novel grew out of, where the teller stopped at the tense moment and passed the bowl round. 抵賴, dǐ lài, to flatly deny. Chapter 24 is one of the minority that ends without a closing couplet: the narrator goes straight from the three of them walking up to the hall to the formula.