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 ("to recognize," 得 the complement de); 自在 ("at ease, unfettered"). Wukong greets even these ancient sages as familiars.
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.”
當年 ("in those years," 當 = dāng); 存正 ("to hold to rectitude"); 鬧天宮 ("to make an uproar in the Heavenly Palace"), Wukong’s famous rebellion. 比…還自在 ("freer still," 還 = hái).
“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 ("to return to the true," to take up the religious life); 得暇 ("to find leisure," 得 = dé, to obtain). The elders’ gentle teasing carries a real question about his errand.
The pilgrim laid out the whole matter of healing the tree and seeking a remedy, from beginning to end.
將…具陳 ("to set forth in full," 將 the disposal marker jiāng); 一遍, "once through, the whole account." Wukong recounts his business plainly.
The Nine Elders too were greatly startled: “What a maker of trouble you are — trouble indeed!”
忒惹禍 ("far too apt to stir up disaster," 忒 = tē, excessively); the doubled 惹禍 ("courting calamity") registers their alarm at what Wukong has done.
“We truly have no remedy.”
實是無方 ("genuinely without a cure"); the Nine Elders, like the Stars and Donghua before them, must confess their helplessness. The third refusal completes the pattern.
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 — a light rebuke that recalls his rebellious past even as it welcomes his reformation. It is the kind of quietly instructive aside the novel favors: the immortals do not lecture, but the contrast between their perfect liberty and Wukong’s harried errand makes the point for them.
With the Nine Elders’ 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 at Yingzhou — Wukong has sought a cure among the highest immortals, and three times been refused; the millet-elixirs and nine-cycle pills of the deathless cannot mend a slain divine tree. The exhaustion of this avenue is itself the point: the remedy, if it exists, must lie elsewhere — and the reader senses the search turning, at last, toward Guanyin.