現身說法 He Speaks from Experience
行者笑道：「師父，你那裡認得。老孫在水簾洞裡做妖魔時，若想人肉吃，便是這等：或變金銀，或變莊臺，或變醉人，或變女色。有那等痴心的愛上我，我就迷他到洞裡，盡意隨心，或蒸或煮受用；吃不了，還要曬乾了防天陰哩。師父，我若來遲，你定入他套子，遭他毒手。」行者笑道：「师父，你那里认得。老孙在水帘洞里做妖魔时，若想人肉吃，便是这等：或变金银，或变庄台，或变醉人，或变女色。有那等痴心的爱上我，我就迷他到洞里，尽意随心，或蒸或煮受用；吃不了，还要晒干了防天阴哩。师父，我若来迟，你定入他套子，遭他毒手。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said with a laugh, "Master, how would you know her for what she is?
He laughs, and the laugh is not mockery — it is the ease of somebody about to explain a thing he happens to know from the inside. 那裡 is rhetorical here, so nǎ lǐ: how would you know? (認得 takes the toneless de.)
"Back when I played the demon in the Water-Curtain Cave, if I had a craving for human flesh, this was just my way of it: I would turn myself into gold or silver, or into a fine mansion, or into a drunkard, or into a woman's beauty.
And now the best speech in the chapter. Wukong establishes his credentials by confessing to the identical crime. Back at 水簾洞 (Shuǐ lián dòng), the Water-Curtain Cave on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, when he fancied human flesh, this was his method: turn into gold and silver, or a fine manor house, or a friendly drunk, or a beautiful woman. Four lures, and every one of them is something the victim already wanted. It is an entirely modern account of how a confidence trick works.
"When some love-struck fool fell for me, I'd lure him back to the cave, and there, steaming him or boiling him as I pleased, I'd take my fill;
迷 (mí) is to bewitch, to lead somebody off the path — the root of the modern word for an addict or a fan. Then the register drops from craft to appetite: 或蒸或煮, steamed or boiled, whichever he felt like at the time. 盡意隨心 (jìn yì suí xīn) is "exactly as I pleased". 那等痴心的 points at a type, so nà, "that sort".
"and what I couldn't finish, I'd dry in the sun and keep against the rainy days.
This is the detail that sells the whole speech: he dried the leftovers. Not out of cruelty — out of thrift. You would not want to waste it, and there might be a wet spell coming. The domestic ordinariness of it is far more chilling than any amount of gloating would be. Two readings sit close together here. The 了 of 吃不了 is the full verb liǎo, "to finish", not the small toneless le; and the 乾 of 曬乾 is gān, "dry", not the qián that names the first of the eight three-line figures in the Book of Changes. (還要 takes 還 as hái, "besides".)
"Master, had I come back late, you would surely have fallen into her snare and met her cruel hand."
套子 (tào zi) is a snare, the noose you drop over an animal's head; 毒手 is a poisoned hand, meaning a murderous one. And the conclusion is unanswerable on its own terms: I know what she is planning because I used to plan it. Which is precisely the evidence that is about to be refused.
This speech is one of the chapter's quiet masterstrokes. Wukong authenticates his warning by confessing his own demonhood — the counterfeit wealth and beauty, the luring, the steaming and boiling, even the drying of what was left over. The candour is disarming, and it plants his sight in hard experience rather than in suspicion.
It also reframes the conflict once more. Wukong is not guessing; he is a reformed predator recognising a predator's craft. That the pious, compassionate Tripitaka cannot credit this — cannot make himself believe the world contains a beauty who means to steam him — is a failure of imagination as much as of perception, and the demon has staked everything on it.
The grotesque comedy of the drying rack is characteristic of a novel that laces its horrors with absurdity as a matter of habit. Underneath the joke the warning is entirely serious: within moments the cudgel will fall, and the master's disbelief will harden into a charge of murder.