The pilgrim, who could not take in all the immortal scenery, went straight on into Penglai.

看不盡 ("cannot look one’s fill") — the vista outruns the eye; 徑入, "to go straight in." 蓬萊 (Pénglái) is the first of the three sacred isles of the eastern sea.

Just as he was walking along, he saw, outside the White Cloud Cave, in the shade of the pines, three old men at a game of go: watching the board was the Star of Longevity, and playing the match were the Stars of Fortune and Rank.

白雲洞 ("White Cloud Cave"); 圍碁 (= 圍棋), the game of go. The three are the 福祿壽三星: 壽星 (Longevity), 福星 (Fortune), and 祿星 (Rank), the popular trinity of blessing-gods. Here 觀 is the verb "to watch" (guān); 老兒 is a colloquial "old fellow," with 兒 the toneless suffix er.

The pilgrim stepped up and called out, “Greetings, old brothers — my respects to you!”

老弟 ("old younger-brothers") is a familiar, faintly presumptuous address from Wukong to his elders; 作揖, the cupped-hand bow of greeting.

Seeing him, the three Stars swept aside the go-board, returned his bow, and said, “What brings the Great Sage here?”

拂退碁枰 — "to brush the go-board away," setting the game aside; 碁枰, the playing board. 大聖, "Great Sage," is Wukong’s self-styled title 齊天大聖.

The pilgrim said, “I’ve come on purpose to look you up for a bit of fun.”

耍子 ("to play, to amuse oneself"), with 子 the toneless suffix zi. Wukong’s breezy pretext masks the favor he means to ask.

Said the Star of Longevity, “I have heard that the Great Sage forsook the Dao for the Buddha, risking life and limb to guard the Tang Monk on his journey west for the scriptures, toiling day after day along the mountain roads. Where would you find the leisure to come amusing yourself?”

棄道從釋 ("to abandon the Dao and follow Śākya") names Wukong’s turn from Daoist adept to Buddhist pilgrim. 脫性命, "to hazard one’s life"; 那些兒得閑 — "what bit of leisure," with 得 read dé ("to obtain") and 兒 the suffix er.

The pilgrim said, “To tell you gentlemen the truth, old Monkey, on the road west, has met with a bit of a hitch halfway along, and I’ve come with a small matter to ask of you — I wonder whether you’ll oblige?”

不瞞…說 ("not to hide it from you") is a set opener for a candid request; 阻滯, "an obstruction, a holdup"; 欲干, "wishing to beg [a favor]"; 肯否, "will you or won’t you."

Said the Star of Fortune, “And what place was this?”

甚地方 — "what place," with bare 甚 read shèn in the house convention. The Star asks where the trouble arose.

“What has held you up?”

因何, "for what cause, why." The question presses Wukong for particulars.

“Pray set it out plainly for me, that I may deal with it.”

乞為明示 — "I beg you, for my sake, to explain clearly," where 為 is the coverb wèi ("for"), distinct from the copula wéi. 裁處, "to judge and dispose of, to handle."

The pilgrim said, “It was in passing the Five-Villages Abbey on the Mountain of Ten Thousand Years that I ran into trouble.”

萬壽山 ("Mountain of Ten Thousand Years") and 五莊觀 ("Five-Villages Abbey") are Zhenyuan’s domain; here 觀 is the temple-reading guàn.

The three elders said in astonishment, “The Five-Villages Abbey is the immortal palace of the Great Immortal Zhenyuan — don’t tell us you’ve gone and stolen and eaten his ginseng fruit?”

莫不是 ("could it be that…?") frames a shocked guess. 人參果 is the ginseng fruit of the deathless tree — 參 read shēn (as in 人參, ginseng), overriding the common cān.

The pilgrim laughed. “And what would stealing and eating a few of them amount to?”

能值甚麼 — "what is it worth, what does it matter," with 甚麼 read shénme. Wukong makes light of the sacrilege — to the Stars’ horror.

The three elders said, “You monkey, you don’t know good from bad!

不知好歹 ("not to know good from ill") is a stock rebuke; 猴子, "monkey," with 子 the suffix zi.

That fruit — merely to smell it is to live three hundred and sixty years;

聞一聞 ("to give it a sniff"). The Stars begin the catalogue of the fruit’s marvels; 果子, "the fruit," with suffix 子 = zi.

and to eat but one is to live forty-seven thousand years.

The extravagant numbers mark the ginseng fruit as a supreme elixir of longevity, second only to the peaches of immortality.

It is called the Grass-of-Ten-Thousand-Years Reverted Elixir.

萬壽草還丹 — "the myriad-longevity herb, a reverted elixir." 還丹 (huándān, "returned cinnabar") is the alchemists’ term for the perfected elixir of immortality; 還 is read huán, not hái.

Our own attainment in the Dao falls far short of his.

不及他多矣 — "does not reach his by much," i.e., is greatly inferior. Even the blessing-gods rank the tree’s master above themselves.

He came by it very easily, and may live as long as heaven itself; but we must still nourish the essence, refine the breath, and preserve the spirit, harmonize dragon and tiger, seize kan and fill li — who knows at what cost of labor.

與天齊壽, "to be coeval with heaven." The rest is the vocabulary of inner alchemy (內丹): 養精、煉氣、存神 (tending the three treasures), 調和龍虎 ("harmonizing dragon and tiger," the lead and mercury of the work, 調 read tiáo), and 捉坎填離 ("seizing the trigram 坎 to fill 離"), the restoration of the primal yang.

How can you say his fruit is of so little account?”

能值甚緊 — literally "worth what urgency," i.e., "of what importance"; bare 甚 read shèn. The Star throws Wukong’s dismissal back at him.

In all the world there is only this one numinous root.”

靈根 ("numinous root") names the ginseng tree as a unique growth of cosmic power — the phrase sets up Wukong’s grim pun in the line that follows.

The pilgrim said, “Numinous root, numinous root — well, I’ve gone and given his root a clean cut!”

斷根 ("to sever the root") answers 靈根 with a bleak play on words: the numinous root is now a severed one. Wukong’s flippancy only deepens the elders’ dismay.

The three elders said in alarm, “How — severed at the root?”

怎的 ("how, in what way"), a colloquial interrogative. The elders’ shock cues the full account that follows.