For that elder had ridden all night without the horse resting a hoof, yet had gone only a hundred and twenty li; while the Great Immortal's cloud, at a single bound, had overshot by nine hundred li and more.

The narrator gives us the numbers so we can do the arithmetic ourselves, and they are humiliating. A whole night at a hard gallop: 一百二十里, a hundred and twenty lǐ. One bound of the immortal's cloud: 九百餘里, nine hundred and more, and that was the overshoot. 馬不停蹄 again, the horse never resting its hooves; 行 is xíng, "to travel." 一縱, yí zòng, at a single leap.

An immortal lad said, "Master, the one sitting under the tree by the roadside is the Tang Monk."

And there he is, sitting under a tree by the road.

The Great Immortal said, "I have already seen him.

我已見了 — the master had spotted him before the boy pointed. A small line, doing a lot of work.

"You two go back and lay out the ropes; wait, and I shall take him myself."

He sends the witnesses home to lay out the ropes and proposes to make the arrest alone. 自家拿他, zì jiā ná tā, "take him myself" — not bravado, just a man who does not expect to need help.

Clear Wind and Bright Moon went back first—of that no more.

不題 again, the storyteller setting a thread aside; the boys leave the story here and the stage clears for two figures under a tree.