再打屍魔 The Fiend Struck Again
行者認得他是妖精，更不理論，舉棒照頭便打。那怪見棍子起時，依然抖擻，又出化了元神，脫真兒去了，把個假屍首又打死在山路傍之下。行者认得他是妖精，更不理论，举棒照头便打。那怪见棍子起时，依然抖擞，又出化了元神，脱真儿去了，把个假尸首又打死在山路傍之下。
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim knew her for a fiend, and without a word of argument raised his cudgel and struck straight at her head.
認得 "recognized," 得 (de). 更不理論 (gèng bù lǐ lùn) "without further debate," 更 (gèng). 照頭便打 (zhào tóu biàn dǎ) "struck right at the head." Wukong strikes at once — no warning, no plea this time — his certainty absolute, and his promise never to strike already, of necessity, broken.
The monster, seeing the cudgel rise, braced itself as before, sent its spirit forth once again, and slipped its true form away — leaving another false corpse struck dead beside the mountain road.
那怪 (nà guài) "that monster," 那 (nà); 棍子 (gùn zi) "cudgel," 子 (zi). 出化了元神 (chū huà le yuán shén) "sent forth its primal spirit"; 脫真兒 (tuō zhēn er) "slipped its true self away," the suffix 兒 (er). The Corpse-Liberation trick repeats exactly — a second decoy corpse — so the second "killing", like the first, is no killing, and the elder's horror will be renewed on the same false grounds.
The second strike compresses the pattern of the first into two swift clauses. This time there is no warning and no plea: Wukong, certain of his sight, strikes 更不理論, "without further debate" — and in doing so necessarily breaks the promise (never to strike again) he had made only pages before. The chapter tightens its trap: to act on the truth, he must appear to break his word.
The demon's escape repeats exactly — the same Corpse-Liberation trick, the same decoy corpse left in the road. The mechanical repetition is the point: because each blow slays only a shell, the cycle can recur indefinitely, wearing down the master's trust with each identical "murder." The reader, who knows the corpse is false, watches the elder being set up to condemn Wukong a second time on precisely the same illusion.
With the second false corpse the chapter moves toward its climax. Twice now Wukong has seen truly and struck, twice the demon has escaped, and twice the master stands ready to mistake deliverance for slaughter. The third disguise and the final, irrevocable dismissal are all that remain.