八戒攛掇 Bajie Stirs the Pot
行者道：「師父又教我去？回去便也回去了，只是一件不相應。」唐僧道：「你有甚麼不相應處？」八戒道：「師父，他要和你分行李哩。跟著你做了這幾年和尚，不成空著手回去？你把那包袱內的甚麼舊褊衫，破帽子、分兩件與他罷。」行者道：「师父又教我去？回去便也回去了，只是一件不相应。」唐僧道：「你有甚么不相应处？」八戒道：「师父，他要和你分行李哩。跟着你做了这几年和尚，不成空着手回去？你把那包袱内的甚么旧褊衫，破帽子、分两件与他罢。」
逐句解 Line by line
Said Pilgrim, "Master, you send me off again?
又: again. The weariness is all in that one character. (教 is jiào, "to make somebody do something".)
"To go back would be to go back — only there's one thing that isn't right."
相應 (xiāng yìng) is "to match, to correspond, to be fitting", so 不相應 is "there's something here that doesn't sit right". He leaves it vague, which is a mistake — there is somebody in this party who will be delighted to fill in the blank.
The Tang Monk said, "What is it you find not right?"
The elder asks the obvious question, and in asking it hands Bajie his cue. (甚 is shén; 相應 takes xiāng and yìng.)
Said Eight Rules, "Master, he wants to split the luggage with you.
And Bajie answers for him again. What Wukong meant, apparently, is that he wants his share of the luggage. It is pure invention, and beautifully chosen invention: petty, mercenary, entirely plausible, and impossible to deny without sounding defensive. (行李 takes 行 as xíng, not háng.)
"Having followed you and played the monk these few years, is he to go back empty-handed?
He even supplies the reasoning. A man who has worked for you these several years can hardly go home with nothing in his hands. Put that way it sounds fair, which is exactly what makes it poisonous. (Both instances of 著 are zhe.)
"Out of that bundle, hand him a couple of things — some old tunic, a battered hat — and let him go."
And then the settlement figure: an old tunic and a broken hat. Bajie has invented a grievance on Wukong's behalf and, in the same breath, priced it as low as it will go. That is the real malice of the speech. 褊衫 is a monk's plain shirt-robe. (那 points, nà; 甚 is shén; 帽子 takes the toneless zi.)
Bajie's work as the demon's unwitting ally reaches its meanest here. Wukong raises only a vague scruple — one thing isn't right — and Bajie, still smarting, fills the blank with a motive Wukong never expressed: that he wants the luggage split, to be paid off for his years of service. It is invention, and it works precisely because it is petty and plausible.
The malice is in the detail. Bajie proposes fobbing him off with an old tunic and a battered hat, a parting insult calculated to demean. Where the demon supplies the illusions and the master supplies the blindness, Bajie supplies the small corrosive readings that keep the wound open, turning a tragic misunderstanding into something merely sordid.
The scene also sets up the great protest that follows. Stung by the imputation of greed, Wukong answers not with a claim on the baggage but with a recitation of the kingdom he gave up — so that Bajie's cheap slur becomes the occasion for the proudest and most moving assertion of loyalty in the chapter.