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?
栽 (zāi) is literally "to plant", and it means exactly what English means by planting evidence: fixing a charge on somebody who did not earn it. Bajie is accusing Wukong of framing a farmwife. Note the narrator's arithmetic, too. The elder had come round three parts in ten; Bajie now leaks 八分兒, eight parts, of slander into him. It is not a fair fight. 氣不忿 is indignation you cannot swallow. (因為 takes 為 as wèi; 女子 takes zǐ; the 兒 is the small toneless tag.)
"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.
The retelling is a masterpiece of small adjustments. Brother's cudgel is heavy. He came up to try his hand. And — who could have foreseen it — the woman died. Every clause is technically defensible, and the whole is a lie, because it removes the one fact that makes the blow something other than manslaughter: that Wukong knew. 不期 (bù qī) is "before anyone expected it", the shrug planted in the middle of the sentence. (重 is zhòng; 將 marks direction.)
"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."
And now the killing stroke, which is to turn the evidence inside out. The maggots, says Bajie, are not the demon unmasked — they are Wukong's conjuring, thrown up to dazzle you so that you will not recite the spell. In one sentence the only hard proof in Wukong's favour becomes further proof against him. 障眼法 (zhàng yǎn fǎ) is a screen-the-eyes trick, the ordinary term for a stage illusion; 演幌 (yǎn huǎng) is to dazzle and mislead. It is a perfect calumny, and it works for the reason perfect calumnies always work: it hands the listener the thing he already wanted to believe, which is that nobody was killed. (The 兒 tags are the small toneless kind; 甚 is shén.)
If Wukong's blow is the chapter's crisis, Bajie's slander is the catastrophe. On the evidence of maggots and toads the elder had come to a fragile three-parts-in-ten belief. Bajie, still lustful and still spiteful, demolishes it with a mundane counter-story — a farmwife carrying lunch to the fields, a careless test-swing that killed her — which asks the master to believe nothing extraordinary at all. That is its strength. The truth requires a demon; the lie requires only a heavy stick.
The masterstroke is the final inversion. Bajie proposes that the maggots and toads are not the demon exposed but Wukong's own eye-veiling trick, worked precisely to head off the spell. The one piece of hard evidence is turned upside down: what vindicated Wukong becomes proof of his deceit. It works because it flatters the master's wish to believe that no harm was done.
The passage completes the alignment against Wukong. The demon supplies the illusion, the master supplies the blindness, and Bajie supplies the interpretation that binds the two together — turning true sight into apparent murder and putting the elder's hand to the spell. When the punishment comes, it falls not on the deceiver but on the one who saw through the deception.