Reckoning that Monkey could not escape him, the Great Immortal ordered Tripitaka, Bajie, and Sha Monk set free.

諒 (liàng) is to reckon or feel sure. Zhenyuan lets three of them go only because he is confident of his grip on the fourth. 三藏 (Sānzàng) is Tripitaka's title, the Three Baskets -- the three divisions of the Buddhist canon. The monk is named after the very scriptures he has been sent to fetch.

Sha Monk said, "Master, there's no telling what mischief our elder brother is cooking up."

搗鬼 is to make mischief, literally to pound up ghosts, and here the two halves have been pulled apart by 得 so the sentence can ask what kind of mischief. 甚麼 is shén me, what. Sha Monk is the party's worrier, and on this occasion he is not wrong to worry.

Bajie said, "What mischief? This is what they call a 'kindness-to-your-face' swindle.

當面人情 is a kindness performed where you can watch it happen -- the favour that exists to be witnessed rather than to help. Bajie has a name for everything, and this is his name for Wukong's offer. 當 is dāng, facing.

The tree is dead — how can it be cured back to life?

醫得活 -- cure it into being alive. The small 得 in the middle, toneless de, is what carries the sense of the treatment actually working rather than merely being attempted. On the plain facts, Bajie's doubt is entirely reasonable.

He's got up a slick-skinned sham cure to look well, and under the pretense of going to cure the tree, means only to slip away and be off — as if he'd still spare a thought for you or me!"

光皮散兒 is a medicine powder with a nice shiny coating and nothing inside it. 散 is sǎn here, a powdered preparation, not the everyday sense of scattering: all packaging, no drug. 者著 is doing the work of 借著, under cover of, and the 兒 is the toneless little tag er. Bajie's reading of the errand is simple -- it is a jailbreak with a cover story.

Tripitaka said, "He would never dare to abandon us.

撒 is sā, to let go of, to drop, to cast off. Tripitaka's faith in Wukong is steadier than Bajie's, and this is one of the quiet places where the novel gives him credit for it.

Let us ask him where he means to go to seek the cure."

那裡 is the question word here, nǎ lǐ, where -- not the pointing there. Tripitaka does the sensible thing and asks before he decides.

So he called out: "Wukong, how did you coax the immortal elder into setting us free?"

哄 (hǒng) is to coax or sweet-talk, the word you use for jollying a child out of a tantrum. 仙長 (xiān zhǎng) is a respectful immortal elder for Zhenyuan; 長 takes its senior reading zhǎng.

The pilgrim said, "Old Monkey spoke true words and honest — how should I have coaxed him?"

真言實語, true words and solid speech. Coming from the most accomplished liar in the book, the protest of good faith is funnier than Wukong intends it to be.

Tripitaka said, "Where will you go to seek the remedy?"

求方 is to go looking for a prescription. 方 is the doctor's word -- a written formula, a recipe of ingredients -- and the entire chapter is a hunt for one.

The pilgrim said, "The ancients had a saying: 'The remedy comes from over the sea.'

方從海上來, the remedy comes from over the sea. Behind the tag sits a very old Chinese conviction that the drug of deathlessness grew on islands somewhere east of the coast, a belief solid enough to send imperial expeditions out into the ocean after it.

Today I mean to go up to the Great Eastern Ocean, to range over the Three Isles and Ten Continents, calling on the immortal elders and holy sages, and to beg a method for raising the dead and restoring life — I warrant I shall heal his tree back to life."

三島十洲, the Three Isles and Ten Continents, is the standard address of the immortals in the eastern sea, and it doubles as the itinerary Wukong is about to work through. 起死回生, raise the dead and bring them back to life, is still the ordinary Chinese phrase for a miraculous recovery -- except that here it is meant literally.

Tripitaka said, "How long before you can return from this journey?"

幾時 (jǐ shí) is how soon. It is the most practical question anybody asks in this chapter, and it starts the clock.

The pilgrim said, "Three days will be enough."

只消, it will take only. Wukong names a figure before he has the faintest idea what the errand involves, which is very much his way.

Tripitaka said, "If that is so, then as you say — I grant you a limit of three days.

三日之限, a term of three days. Tripitaka takes the number Wukong volunteered and turns it into a deadline, which is how the master usually wins these exchanges.

Come within the three days and well and good; but if you are not back by the third day's end, I shall recite that little sutra of mine."

那話兒經 is that-you-know-what scripture -- Tripitaka being coy about the 緊箍咒, the spell that tightens the golden band around Wukong's skull. Everyone in the room knows exactly which text he means, and the coyness is what makes it a threat rather than an announcement. 那 is the pointing nà; 兒 is the toneless er.

The pilgrim said, "At your command, at your command."

遵命, as you command, doubled the way Wukong doubles everything. Half obedience, half a performance of obedience.