After this talk it had all grown dark, and, before they knew it, the moon was up in the east.

天昏, the sky gone dark. 不覺, bù jué, "before anyone noticed," takes 覺 as jué, "to be aware," not the jiào of sleep. 都已, dōu yǐ, "by now already."

The Pilgrim said, "Now every sound is stilled and the ice-wheel shines bright—a good time to be off."

Wukong times the escape by the sky. 萬籟無聲, wàn lài wú shēng, "the ten thousand sounds are silent," is the standard phrase for the hush of deep night; 籟, lài, means the sounds things make of themselves, wind in a hollow. 冰輪, bīng lún, the "ice-wheel," is one of the many poetic names for the moon — the same instinct that gave English "the silver disc."

Bajie said, "Brother, no playing tricks—the gates are all locked shut; where is there to go?"

搗鬼, dǎo guǐ, is to be up to mischief or to fool about; the character is 鬼, ghost, so the picture is of ghost-tricks. 往那裡走, wǎng nǎ lǐ zǒu, "where is there to go?" — interrogative 那 as nǎ.

The Pilgrim said, "Watch my art."

Four words, and then a display. 你看手段, "watch the technique," is Wukong's standard cue before a trick.

Twirling the gold-banded cudgel in his hand, he worked a "lock-loosing spell," pointed it at the gates—and with a rending crash the double bolts of every gate dropped away, and the leaves of the door flew open with a clatter.

A spell for opening locks, and the fun is all in the noises. 解鎖法, jiě suǒ fǎ, is the lock-loosing art. 突蹡, tū qiāng, and 唿喇, hū lā, are pure sound-words: a wrenching crack and a clatter. 雙鐄俱落, shuāng huáng jù luò, "the paired bolts all dropped," with 鐄, huáng, the bolt itself. 聽得 takes the toneless 得, de.

Bajie laughed: "A fine skill! Even a little tinker plying his pick could not be so slick as this."

Bajie's compliment is the best kind, because it is completely unliterary. 小爐兒匠, xiǎo lú'r jiàng, is the travelling tinker who used to go door to door with a little stove for mending pots and picking locks; 使掭子, shǐ tiàn zi, is working a pick or probe. 爽利, shuǎng lì, is deft, clean, slick. Cosmic magic measured against the local locksmith, and the locksmith comes off worse.

The Pilgrim said, "What is so rare about this little door? Were it the Southern Gate of Heaven itself, one point of the finger would open it too."

And the boast to cap it. 南天門, Nántiān Mén, the Southern Gate of Heaven, is the main entrance to the celestial court — the one Wukong stormed during his rebellion. 這個門兒 takes the diminutive suffix 兒, ér; 有甚稀罕, "what's so special about it," has 甚 alone as shèn.