八戒攛唆 Bajie's Slander
怎禁豬八戒氣不忿，在傍漏八分兒唆嘴道：「師父，說起這個女子，他是此間農婦，因為送飯下田，路遇我等，卻怎麼栽他是個妖怪？哥哥的棍重，走將來試手打他一下，不期就打殺了。怕你念甚麼緊箍兒咒，故意的使個障眼法兒，變做這等樣東西，演幌你眼，使不念咒哩。」怎禁猪八戒气不忿，在傍漏八分儿唆嘴道：「师父，说起这个女子，他是此间农妇，因为送饭下田，路遇我等，却怎么栽他是个妖怪？哥哥的棍重，走将来试手打他一下，不期就打杀了。怕你念甚么紧箍儿咒，故意的使个障眼法儿，变做这等样东西，演幌你眼，使不念咒哩。」
逐句解 Line by line
But there was no restraining Zhu Bajie's spite: standing by, he let slip some eighty per cent of a slander, egging the master on: "Master, to hear of this woman — she was a farmwife of these parts, and because she was bringing food down to the fields she met us on the road. How can you pin it on her that she's a monster?
氣不忿 (qì bú fèn) "indignant, unable to swallow it." 漏八分兒 (lòu bā fēn er) "let leak eight parts [of a slander]," the suffix 兒 (er). 女子 "woman," 子 (zǐ); 因為 (yīn wèi) "because," 為 (wèi). 栽他 (zāi tā) "to frame, pin [a charge] on [her]." Bajie, still smarting and still lustful, undoes the elder's fragile thirty-per-cent belief by supplying a mundane explanation for everything.
"Brother's cudgel is heavy: he came striding up to try his hand and gave her one blow — and, wouldn't you know, killed her outright.
棍重 (gùn zhòng) "the cudgel [is] heavy," 重 (zhòng). 走將來 (zǒu jiāng lái) "came striding up," 將 (jiāng). 不期 (bù qī) "unexpectedly, before one knew it." Bajie recasts the killing as a careless test-swing that happened to prove fatal — draining it of Wukong's justifying knowledge and leaving only a dead woman.
"Afraid you'd recite that Tight-Fillet Spell of yours, he purposely worked an eye-veiling trick, turning her into things like these to dazzle your eyes, so you wouldn't say the spell."
緊箍兒咒 (jǐn gū er zhòu) "the Tight-Fillet Spell," the suffix 兒 (er). 障眼法兒 (zhàng yǎn fǎ er) "an eye-screening trick," again 兒 (er). 甚麼 "what [kind of]," 甚 (shén). 演幌 (yǎn huǎng) "to dazzle, deceive [the eyes]." Bajie's crowning insinuation is the cruellest: the maggots and toads, he says, are not the demon's true form exposed but Wukong's own illusion, conjured to escape the spell. It reverses the evidence exactly, and it is this reversal that seals the elder's resolve.
If Wukong's blow is the chapter's crisis, Bajie's slander is its true catastrophe. The elder had come, on the evidence of maggots and toads, to a fragile thirty-per-cent belief; Bajie, still lustful and still spiteful, demolishes it with a mundane counter-story — a farmwife bringing lunch to the fields, a careless test-swing that killed her — that requires the master to believe nothing extraordinary at all.
The masterstroke of the slander is its final inversion. Bajie proposes that the maggots and toads are not the demon's exposed form but Wukong's own eye-veiling trick, conjured precisely to forestall the spell. This turns the one piece of hard evidence on its head: what vindicated Wukong is recast as further proof of his deceit. It is a perfect calumny, and it works because it flatters the master's wish to believe no harm was done.
The passage completes the alignment of forces against Wukong. The demon supplies the illusion, the master supplies the blindness, and Bajie supplies the interpretation that binds them — turning true sight into apparent murder and setting the elder's hand to the spell. When it comes, in the next movement, the punishment will fall not on the deceiver but on the one who saw through the deceit.