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?
你那裡認得 "how would you recognize [her]?" — 那裡 (nǎ lǐ) rhetorical, hence nǎ; 認得 "recognize," 得 (de). Wukong's laugh is not mockery but the confidence of one who has himself worn such disguises, as the speech that follows will reveal.
"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.
水簾洞 (Shuǐ lián dòng) "Water-Curtain Cave," Wukong's old kingdom on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. He confesses his own former methods — luring victims by counterfeiting wealth (金銀), grandeur (莊臺), a fellow reveller (醉人), or feminine allure (女色). The candour is disarming and authoritative: he knows a demon's arts because they were his own.
"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;
那等痴心的 "that sort of infatuated one," 那 (nà) (demonstrative before 等 "sort"). 迷他 (mí tā) "to bewitch, lure him." 盡意隨心 (jìn yì suí xīn) "to one's heart's content," 盡 (jìn). The relish of 或蒸或煮 "steaming or boiling" makes the demon's design on Tripitaka concrete — and Wukong's warning vivid.
"and what I couldn't finish, I'd dry in the sun and keep against the rainy days.
吃不了 "unable to finish eating," where 了 (liǎo) is the verb of completion (not the aspect-particle 了 (le)). 還要 (hái yào) "and moreover would," 還 (hái) "besides, still." 曬乾 (shài gān) "to sun-dry," 乾 (gān) "dry" (not 乾 (qián), the trigram). The homely, thrifty detail — drying leftover flesh for a rainy day — is grotesquely comic and utterly convincing.
"Master, had I come back late, you would surely have fallen into her snare and met her cruel hand."
套子 (tào zi) "a trap, snare," 子 (zi). 毒手 (dú shǒu) "a cruel, murderous hand." Wukong's conclusion draws the moral of his confession: he recognizes the demon's plan because it is precisely the plan he once carried out. His authority here is experiential, and it is exactly what Tripitaka refuses to credit.
This speech is one of the chapter's quiet masterstrokes: Wukong authenticates his warning by confessing his own demonhood. He knows the fiend's method — counterfeit wealth or beauty, luring, steaming, boiling, even drying the surplus flesh — because in his Water-Curtain Cave days it was his own. The candour is disarming, and it grounds his sight in hard experience rather than mere suspicion.
The passage thus reframes the conflict once more. Wukong is not guessing; he is a reformed predator who recognizes a predator's craft. That the pious, compassionate Tripitaka cannot credit this — cannot believe that the world holds a beauty who means to steam him for the pot — is a failure of imagination as much as of perception, and the demon has staked everything on it.
The grotesque-comic texture (the thrifty drying of leftover flesh "against the rainy days") is characteristic of the novel, which laces its horrors with absurdity. Beneath the comedy, though, the warning is deadly earnest: the next moment Wukong's cudgel will fall, and the master's disbelief will curdle into a charge of murder.