戀土難移 Clinging Fast to the Earth
只見那小仙報道：「師父，油鍋滾透了。」大仙教：「把孫行者擡下去。」四個仙童擡不動，八個來也擡不動，又加四個也擡不動。眾仙道：「這猴子戀土難移，小自小，倒也結實。」只见那小仙报道：「师父，油锅滚透了。」大仙教：「把孙行者抬下去。」四个仙童抬不动，八个来也抬不动，又加四个也抬不动。众仙道：「这猴子恋土难移，小自小，倒也结实。」
逐句解 Line by line
Then that little immortal reported: "Master, the oil-cauldron has come to a rolling boil."
滾透了, boiled right through — 透 is thorough, all the way. The oil is ready.
The Great Immortal ordered: "Carry Sun the Pilgrim down into it."
擡下去, carry him down — into it. Six words, given as an ordinary instruction.
Four immortal lads could not lift it; eight more came, and still could not lift it; another four were added, and still they could not lift it.
And here the passage simply counts. Four cannot lift it; eight cannot lift it; four more are added and twelve cannot lift it. The sentence repeats 擡不動 three times without varying a word, and the flat repetition is the whole joke.
The immortals said, "This monkey clings to the earth and is hard to shift—small as he is, he is solid after all."
The explanation they arrive at is beautifully wrong. 戀土難移, liàn tǔ nán yí, "attached to the earth and hard to shift," is normally said of a person who will not leave home — the countryman who cannot be got to move to the city. Applied to a monkey it means something like "he's clinging on out of sheer stubbornness." 小自小，倒也結實, small he may be, but solid all the same, with 倒 as dào, "even so." They have talked themselves into admiring the density of a statue.
Broad physical comedy, and the passage trusts it completely. Four immortal lads, then eight, then twelve, all heaving at a bound monkey who will not come off the ground; 擡不動 three times in one sentence, with no variation and no commentary.
The punchline is their explanation. 這猴子戀土難移 — this monkey is attached to the earth and hard to shift — is a phrase normally used of somebody who will not move away from his home village, and they apply it, quite seriously, to a stone lion. Then they compliment it on being solidly built. Twelve immortals, and not one of them looks down.