猶念舊情 Still He Worries
唐僧道：「我再不念了。」行者道：「這個難說。若到那毒魔苦難處不得脫身，八戒、沙僧救不得你，那時節想起我來，忍不住又念誦起來。就是十萬里路，我的頭也是疼的，假如再來見你，不如不作此意。」唐僧道：「我再不念了。」行者道：「这个难说。若到那毒魔苦难处不得脱身，八戒、沙僧救不得你，那时节想起我来，忍不住又念诵起来。就是十万里路，我的头也是疼的，假如再来见你，不如不作此意。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Tang Monk said, "I'll not recite it again."
He promises, and he means it while he is saying it. That is precisely the difficulty.
Said Pilgrim, "That's hard to say.
難說 — hard to say, meaning "I doubt it". Note the reading: this 難 is nán, "difficult", not the nàn, "calamity", that turns up in the very next line. And Wukong's doubt is not spite. It is an accurate reading of a man he has watched reverse himself again and again in the space of half a day — Bajie's own figure, a few passages back.
"If you come to some place of vicious demons and dire ordeals and cannot free yourself, and Eight Rules and Sha Monk cannot save you, then, thinking of me at that time, you'll not be able to help reciting it again."
Here is the prophecy, and it is exact. One day you will be somewhere you cannot get out of, Bajie and Sha Monk will not be able to help, you will think of me, and you will not be able to stop yourself reciting. He is describing, in advance, what the novel goes on to do. Note the reading: 難 in 苦難 is nàn, an ordeal, not the nán, "difficult", of the line above. (Both instances of 那 point, nà; 得 is toneless in 救不得你.)
"Even a hundred thousand lǐ away, my head will still ache; and rather than come back to see you then, better I never conceived the notion."
十萬里 is a hundred thousand lǐ, which is to say any distance whatever. The band does not care where he is. And so the last thought is the bleakest in the chapter: if coming back would only mean this again, better never to have entertained the idea. He is not refusing to return. He is saying that returning has been poisoned.
Even at the point of parting, Wukong's attention is on the master's safety rather than his own grievance. He doubts the easy promise never to recite the spell again, because he knows — as the whole chapter has shown — how quickly the elder's resolve dissolves under fear. The doubt is clear-eyed rather than vindictive.
His foresight is strikingly accurate to the novel's later course. He predicts the exact situation that will recur — the master in some demon's grip, the other disciples helpless, the spell recited in desperation — and notes the fillet's cruel reach: a hundred thousand lǐ away, the pain would still find him. The bondage is not merely present but portable, and it follows him into any exile.
The passage completes his grief with a resignation deeper than anger: better never to have thought of coming back. The spell has made even reconciliation a punishment. What remains is the formal act of parting — the written dismissal and the farewell bow — which the chapter's last movement carries out.