九老無方 No Cure at Yingzhou
行者認得是九老，笑道：「老兄弟們自在哩。」九老道：「大聖當年若存正，不鬧天宮，比我們還自在哩。如今好了，聞你歸真向西拜佛，如何得暇至此？」行者將那醫樹求方之事，具陳了一遍。九老也大驚道：「你也忒惹禍，惹禍！我等實是無方。」行者认得是九老，笑道：「老兄弟们自在哩。」九老道：「大圣当年若存正，不闹天宫，比我们还自在哩。如今好了，闻你归真向西拜佛，如何得暇至此？」行者将那医树求方之事，具陈了一遍。九老也大惊道：「你也忒惹祸，惹祸！我等实是无方。」
逐句解 Line by line
The pilgrim knew them for the Nine Elders and said with a laugh, "You old brothers do take your ease!"
認得 is to recognise, 得 the toneless de. 自在 is at ease, unfettered -- and Wukong, who has three days to save his master, says it with some feeling. He greets nine ancient sages as old brothers, which is his habit with everybody.
The Nine Elders said, "Great Sage, had you in those days kept to the right and not made havoc in Heaven, you would be freer even than we."
A gentle piece of moralising, delivered as a compliment. 當年 is in those days, 當 = dāng; 存正 is to hold to what is right; 鬧天宮 is to make an uproar in the Heavenly Palace, the standard shorthand for Wukong's rebellion. 比 ... 還自在 is freer still, 還 = hái. Had you behaved, they say, you would be idling here with us.
"But it has turned out well: we hear you have returned to the true path and turned west to worship the Buddha — so how do you come to have leisure to be here?"
歸真 is to return to the true -- to take up religious life. 得暇 is to find the leisure, 得 = dé, to obtain. Underneath the teasing sits a real question: if you are on a pilgrimage, what are you doing here?
The pilgrim laid out the whole matter of healing the tree and seeking a remedy, from beginning to end.
將 ... 具陳 is to set the whole thing out, 將 the jiāng that puts the object first; 一遍 is once through, the whole account. The novel spares us a fourth retelling and simply reports that he told it.
The Nine Elders too were greatly startled: "What a maker of trouble you are — trouble indeed!"
忒惹禍 is far too apt to stir up disaster, and it is doubled for emphasis -- trouble, and trouble again. 忒 is read tè, carrying the vernacular sense of far too much, a usage still heard in northern speech.
"We truly have no remedy."
實是無方, genuinely without a cure. That is three refusals now, from every quarter of the Daoist heavens -- and the exhaustion of the list is itself the point.
The Nine Elders' greeting carries a gentle moral. Had Wukong kept to the right in his youth and not made havoc in Heaven, they observe, he would now be freer than they are -- a light rebuke that recalls his rebellious past even as it welcomes his reform. It is the kind of quietly instructive aside the novel likes: the immortals do not lecture, but the contrast between their perfect liberty and his harried errand makes the point for them.
With their flat we truly have no remedy, the tour of the three isles reaches its foregone conclusion. Three times now -- at Penglai, at Fangzhang, and here -- Wukong has asked the highest immortals for a cure, and three times been refused. Millet-grain elixirs and nine-times-refined pills cannot mend a slain divine tree. The exhaustion of the whole avenue is itself the point: if the remedy exists it lies somewhere else, and the reader can feel the search beginning to turn toward Guanyin.