The two came out of the garden and up to the hall, and pointing at the Tang Monk — 'bald this' and 'bald that' — reviled him without stop in filthy, foul language; 'thief-head, rat-brain,' 'stinking-short and reeking-long,' they raged and railed with no good temper.

A torrent of Ming abuse, and the novel enjoys every syllable. 禿前禿後, "bald in front, bald behind," mocks his shaven head. 賊頭鼠腦, thief-head and rat-brain. 臭短臊長, "stinking-short and reeking-long," is a rhyming abuse-pair with no literal sense worth chasing — the force is entirely in the sound, and 長 is cháng. 指著 takes the durative zhe.

The Tang Monk, unable to bear it, said, "Immortal boys — what is this uproar you make?

And the monk's response to being screamed at is to ask them to speak more slowly, which is both funny and exactly in character.

Calm yourselves a little; if you have something to say, say it slowly — no harm in that — but do not talk such loose nonsense."

消停, xiāo tíng, to calm down, ease off. 胡說散道, hú shuō sàn dào, loose scattered talk, with 散 as sàn.

Pure-Wind said, "Are your ears deaf?

Pure-Wind is past courtesy.

Am I speaking some barbarian tongue you don't understand?

蠻話, mán huà, "barbarian speech" — am I talking some foreign gibberish you can't follow? 省得 takes 省 as xǐng, "to be aware," with the light de.

You stole and ate the ginseng-fruit — how can you not let me speak of it?"

The charge, finally stated plainly.

The Tang Monk said, "And what does a ginseng-fruit look like?"

And Tripiṭaka's reply is the reply of a man who genuinely does not know what they are talking about.

Bright-Moon said, "The very thing just brought for you to eat — did you not say it was like a child?"

Bright-Moon reminds him, and the reminder is unanswerable: the thing we brought you, that you said looked like a child.

The Tang Monk said, "Amitābha!

阿彌陀佛, Ē mí tuó Fó, Amitābha — the Buddha of the Western Paradise, whose name is recited as a pious ejaculation much as one might say "Heaven help us." 佛 is always fó.

At the mere sight of that thing my heart quailed — how should I dare steal and eat it?

心驚膽戰, xīn jīng dǎn zhàn, heart-struck and gall-trembling — the gall bladder being the seat of courage in Chinese physiology, so the compound means terrified to the core. And his defence is unarguable: I was too frightened of the thing to touch it.

Even were I sick with gluttony, I would not dare do so thievish a thing.

饞痞, chán pǐ, a "gluttony-blockage" — a mock ailment, greed treated as a diagnosable complaint of the abdomen. Even if I had that disease, he says, I would not do a thief's deed.

Do not wrongly blame a man."

錯怪了人 — the same phrase the Earth-God used to Pilgrim, and that Pilgrim used back. Third time in the chapter, and the only occasion where the person saying it is entirely innocent.

Pure-Wind said, "Even if you did not eat it, there are your underlings who would."

And Pure-Wind shifts the accusation exactly where it belongs. Not you — your men. Which is precisely what the master warned about before he left.