真身打噤 The Shudder on the Road
及打到行者，那行者在路，偶然打個寒噤道：「不好了！」三藏問道：「怎麼說？」行者道：「我將四顆柳樹變作我師徒四眾，我只說他昨日打了我兩頓，今日想不打了，卻又打我的化身，所以我真身打噤。收了法罷。」那行者慌忙念咒收法。及打到行者，那行者在路，偶然打个寒噤道：「不好了！」三藏问道：「怎么说？」行者道：「我将四颗柳树变作我师徒四众，我只说他昨日打了我两顿，今日想不打了，却又打我的化身，所以我真身打噤。收了法罢。」那行者慌忙念咒收法。
逐句解 Line by line
But when he came to beat the Pilgrim's, that Pilgrim, out on the road, gave a sudden shudder and said, "This is bad!"
And then the trick reveals its price. 打個寒噤, dǎ gè hán jìn, is a cold shudder, the involuntary shiver — 噤, jìn, is the clenching of the jaw. His blood made those willows, so his body still feels what happens to them.
Sanzang asked, "How do you mean?"
怎麼說, "what do you mean?" — the master, as usual, needing it explained.
The Pilgrim said, "I changed four willows into us four, master and disciples. I reckoned that, having beaten me twice yesterday, he would think better of it today—but he is beating my substitute-body instead, and so my true body shudders.
He works it out aloud and gets the reasoning exactly right, including the wrong assumption that caused it: having taken two beatings yesterday, he had not expected a third today. 化身, huà shēn, is a transformed or substitute body; the word is Buddhist, used of the forms a buddha takes in the world, and applying it to four willow trees is a small piece of cheek. 將四顆柳樹變作 takes 將, jiāng. 打噤, the shudder again.
"Let me withdraw the spell."
收了法罷, "let me take the spell back" — the only way to stop it, and it gives the game away.
That Pilgrim hastily recited a spell and withdrew the magic.
慌忙, in a hurry — and the moment he recites, four monks in the abbey turn back into logs.
The willows cost Wukong something he did not price in. The doubles were made with his own blood, so the link runs both ways: whip the substitute and the original shudders on a road a night's hard riding away. He has been using decoys all chapter as a way of not being present, and here the method quietly reminds him that a copy of you is still, in part, you.
His deduction is quick and slightly wounded. He had assumed that two beatings yesterday would be the end of it, and the fact that they were not is what he complains about — not the pain, the unfairness of the schedule. Then he recalls the spell, which is the only way to make it stop.
And that recall is what springs the trap. Four monks in the abbey become four willow logs in front of the men beating them. Wukong has saved himself a shudder and bought the Great Immortal a second pursuit.