徑回花果 Back to Flower-Fruit Mountain
你看他忍氣別了師父，縱觔斗雲，徑回花果山水簾洞去了。獨自個悽悽慘慘，忽聞得水聲聒耳。大聖在那半空裡看時，原來是東洋大海潮發的聲響。一見了，又想起唐僧，止不住腮邊淚墜，停雲住步，良久方去。你看他忍气别了师父，纵觔斗云，径回花果山水帘洞去了。独自个凄凄惨惨，忽闻得水声聒耳。大圣在那半空里看时，原来是东洋大海潮发的声响。一见了，又想起唐僧，止不住腮边泪坠，停云住步，良久方去。
逐句解 Line by line
Look at him: swallowing his anger, he took leave of the master, mounted his somersault cloud, and went straight back to the Water-Curtain Cave of the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit.
忍氣 is swallowing anger, holding it down — the last thing he does before he goes. 觔斗雲 is the somersault cloud, which covers a hundred and eight thousand lǐ in one leap; he is home almost as soon as he starts. And 花果山水簾洞, the Water-Curtain Cave on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, is the kingdom he gave up to follow this man. He is going back to it beaten. (斗 is dǒu.)
Alone and forlorn, desolate with grief, he suddenly heard the sound of water assailing his ears.
獨自個 — all on his own — and then the doubled 悽悽慘慘, which is misery drawn out rather than misery struck once. Into that comes a noise. Just a noise. (聞得 takes the toneless de.)
The Great Sage, looking down from the middle air, saw that it was the roar of the tide surging in the Great Eastern Ocean.
It is the tide coming in on the Eastern Ocean, and it is entirely ordinary. Nothing has happened. That is the point of the detail. (那半空 points: nà.)
At the sight of it he thought again of the Tang Monk, and could not stop the tears from falling by his cheeks; he stayed his cloud and halted his steps, and only after a long while went on.
And this is where the chapter actually ends, emotionally. Not at the writ, not at the refused bow — here, in mid-air, at the sound of the sea. He thinks of Tripitaka and cannot stop crying; he stops the cloud, stands still, and it is 良久, a long while, before he can go on. Grief rarely arrives when it is due. It waits, and then it ambushes you at the sight of something that has nothing to do with anything.
The chapter's final image of Wukong is not of power but of grief. Flying home alone and wretched, he is stopped by the roar of the Eastern Ocean's tide; the sight of the sea recalls the master, and the tears come. He stays his cloud, halts, and can only go on after a long while. It is a portrait of loss with all the bravado stripped out of it.
The detail is psychologically exact. It is not the dismissal itself that breaks his composure but a chance sight on the way home — the way grief so often ambushes people not at the moment of loss but afterwards, at some unrelated reminder. That the fearless Great Sage should be halted in mid-air by tears, unable to fly on, is the chapter's quiet insistence on how deep the severed bond went.
The return to Flower-Fruit Mountain closes a circle. Wukong gave up his kingdom and his freedom to follow Tripitaka, and he comes back to it now in defeat, weeping. But the reader already suspects — and the closing formula will hint — that this parting is not the end. The bond that the grief here reveals is too strong to stay broken, and the master's need will call the disciple back soon enough.