殿上究詰 Sanzang Questions His Disciples
卻說他兄弟三眾到了殿上，對師父道：「飯將熟了，叫我們怎的？」三藏道：「徒弟，不是問飯。他這觀裡有甚麼人參果，似孩子一般的東西，你們是那一個偷他的吃了？」八戒道：「我老實，不曉得，不曾見。」清風道：「笑的就是他，笑的就是他。」行者喝道：「我老孫生的是這個笑容兒，莫成為你不見了甚麼果子，就不容我笑？」却说他兄弟三众到了殿上，对师父道：「饭将熟了，叫我们怎的？」三藏道：「徒弟，不是问饭。他这观里有甚么人参果，似孩子一般的东西，你们是那一个偷他的吃了？」八戒道：「我老实，不晓得，不曾见。」清风道：「笑的就是他，笑的就是他。」行者喝道：「我老孙生的是这个笑容儿，莫成为你不见了甚么果子，就不容我笑？」
逐句解 Line by line
Now the three brother-disciples came up to the main hall and said to their master, "The rice is all but done—why have you called for us?"
The three disciples come in from the kitchen expecting to be called to dinner. 三眾 counts them as a set, "the three together" — Wukong, Bajie and Wujing. 殿上 is the main hall of the 五莊觀, Wǔzhuāng Guàn, the Five-Villages Abbey, and 將 here is jiāng in its sense of "about to" — the rice is nearly done — not the verb "to take."
Sanzang said, "Disciples, it is not the meal I am asking about.
Their master has something other than dinner on his mind. 三藏 is Sānzàng, the Tang monk Xuanzang, named for the Tripiṭaka, the "three baskets" of scripture he is travelling west to fetch. That is why the second character reads zàng, "canon, storehouse," and never cáng, "to hide."
"This abbey of his has some sort of ginseng fruit—a thing shaped like a little child. Which of you stole and ate it?"
The accusation, put as a question. 人參果 is literally "ginseng fruit," but it grows in the shape of a newborn baby, which is why English renderings call it manfruit; 參 inside 人參 takes the ginseng reading shēn, not cān. 那一個 is interrogative, nǎ yí gè, "which one of you" — 那 doing a job modern Chinese hands to 哪. And 觀 is guàn, the word for a Daoist abbey, not guān, "to look at."
Bajie said, "I am a plain honest fellow—I know nothing of it, I never even saw it."
Three flat little clauses, which is how a bad liar sounds. In 曉得, "to know," the 得 is the toneless de, a linking word with no weight of its own, not the full verb dé, "to obtain." 不曾 is bù céng, "never yet."
Clear Wind said, "The one grinning is the very one! The one grinning is the very one!"
The boy points at a face and calls it evidence. 清風 is Qīngfēng, "Clear Wind," the elder of the two immortal lads who keep the abbey; his companion 明月 is Míngyuè, "Bright Moon." He takes Bajie's guilty grin for a confession.
The Pilgrim barked back, "This grinning face is simply how I, old Sun, was born! Do you mean that just because you have lost a few fruits, I am not even to be allowed a laugh?"
Wukong is being convicted by his own face, and he knows it. 莫成 is mò chéng, a colloquial "don't tell me that…" — the exasperated opening that expects a no. 為 here is wèi, "on account of, because of," the small linking word, not the verb wéi, "to be, to do." 笑容兒 ends in the diminutive suffix 兒, ér.
Chapter 24 ended with the three disciples walking up to the hall to brazen it out. The abbey of the Earthly Immortal Zhenyuan grows the 人參果, the manfruit, on a tree that is the house's single great treasure; the pilgrims knocked four off it and ate three, and the two boy-attendants, Clear Wind and Bright Moon, have just finished counting the branches and found four short. This passage opens the reckoning, and the reckoning will run the whole chapter.
The comedy turns on Wukong's face. Clear Wind reads Bajie's nervous grin as a confession, and Wukong — who was born with a monkey's fixed grin and cannot put it away — is furious at being convicted by his own features. Anyone who has been told to stop looking so pleased with themselves will recognise the injustice.
The four voices are already sorted into the roles they will keep. Sanzang reaches for propriety, the boys go shrill, Bajie lies badly, and the monkey takes offence first and thinks later. Nothing has been destroyed yet, and everything that follows comes out of this small, ordinary quarrel about who ate what.