But the Great Sage had a plan: he climbed the tree, worked the striker with one hand, and with the other pulled up the front of his brocade cassock to make a pouch and hold it ready; then, threading through the branches and parting the leaves, he knocked down three fruits and caught them in his lap.

Now he does it properly, and the change is entirely in the catching. He climbs with the striker in one hand and, with the other, hauls up the front hem of his cassock to make a pouch — so the fruit falls into cloth and touches neither wood nor earth. 直裰, zhí duō, is the long straight-cut robe of a monk. 串枝分葉, threading branches and parting leaves, with 分 as the verb fēn. 兜子, a pouch, and 襟兒, the robe-front, take the suffixes zi and er.

He jumped down from the tree and came straight to the kitchen.

Three fruits, and straight to the kitchen. He has learnt the lesson and applied it within a single passage — which is Pilgrim exactly: careless, then instantly competent.

Bajie said with a laugh, "Brother, did you get any?"

Bājiè has been waiting.

Pilgrim said, "And what are these?

這不是, "and what are these, then" — the rhetorical negative used as a flourish.

Old Sun catches them the instant his hand arrives.

手到擒來 again, the chengyu from the plotting scene, now retroactively justified. It took him two attempts and a lecture from a minor deity, but he is not going to mention that.

And these fruits — let us not keep them from Sha Monk either; give him a call."

And here is the line that separates Pilgrim from Bājiè. Three fruits, three brothers — do not leave Sha Monk out. Bājiè had proposed a theft for two.

Bajie beckoned and called, "Wujing, come here."

悟淨, Wù jìng, "Awakened to Purity," is Sha Monk's dharma-name — the religious name given at ordination — the third of the three Guanyin bestowed.

Sha Monk set down the baggage and ran into the kitchen: "Brother, what do you call me for?"

搬下行李 — he puts the luggage down first. Sha Monk is always carrying something.

Pilgrim opened his lap-pouch: "Brother, look — what thing is this?"

衣兜, the improvised pouch of the robe-front. 甚的東西 takes 甚 as shén.

Sha Monk looked and said, "It's a ginseng-fruit."

He identifies it instantly, which surprises everybody.

Pilgrim said, "Ha!

好啊 — Pilgrim caught out for the second time in one chapter.

So you know it — and where have you eaten it before?"

Here 那裡 is nǎ lǐ, the interrogative "where."

Sha Monk said, "Though I never ate it, in the old days, as Curtain-Rolling Grand Marshal attending the phoenix-carriage to the Peach Banquet, I saw the immortals from over the seas present this fruit to the Queen Mother as a birthday gift.

And Sha Monk, who says less than anyone in the book, produces a memory of the celestial court. 捲簾大將, Juǎn lián Dà jiàng, Curtain-Rolling Grand Marshal, was his rank before he broke a crystal cup and was exiled to the Flowing-Sands River — an office of the Jade Emperor's personal household. He had stood in attendance at the Peach Banquet and watched the immortals from over the seas present this very fruit to the Queen Mother as a birthday gift. Two readings of one character in a single sentence: 大將 takes 將 as jiàng, the military rank, while 將此果 takes it as jiāng, the syllable that picks an object up. 上壽, shàng shòu, to offer birthday felicitations.

See it I did; but eat it I never did.

見便曾見 — "as for seeing, I have seen." A vernacular topic-first construction that English handles with the same inversion: see it I did.

Brother, might you give me a little to taste?"

And then, having established that he once attended banquets where this was served to the Queen Mother of the West, he asks his brother for a bit. The deflation is quiet and rather touching. 些兒 takes the er suffix.

Pilgrim said, "No need to ask — one apiece, brothers."

不消講, no need to say it. One each — Pilgrim divides three ways without being asked twice.