When Eight Rules saw how pretty she was, carnal thoughts stirred in the idiot at once, and unable to hold his tongue he babbled all manner of nonsense, calling out: "Lady Bodhisattva, where are you off to?

凡心 (fán xīn) is the "mortal heart" — worldly appetite, precisely what a monk is supposed to have put down. Bajie took vows against exactly this, and it takes him about a second. Note also what he calls her: 女菩薩, Lady Bodhisattva, which is laying it on with a trowel. The two instances of 那 here do different jobs — 那八戒 points, so nà; 往那裡去 asks, so nǎ. And 得 in 生得俊俏 is the toneless linking de.

"And what's that you're carrying in your hands?"

His second question is about the food. It always is. 甚麼 takes 甚 as shén, 提著 takes 著 as zhe — and the question hands the demon her opening.

Plainly she was a monster, yet he could not tell.

The narrator steps in and says it flat out to the reader: she is obviously a monster, and he cannot tell. It is a small, devastating device. We are given the answer, and then made to watch everybody on the road fail to reach it. (認得 takes the toneless de.)

The woman answered readily: "Reverend, in this grey-sand jar is fragrant rice, and in the green bottle stir-fried wheat-gluten.

The menu is part of the con. 麵筋 (miàn jīn) is wheat gluten — seitan, on a modern menu — and it matters because there is no meat in it. Fragrant rice and fried gluten is exactly what somebody on their way to feed monks would be carrying. Readings: 應 in 答應 is yìng, "to respond", not yīng, "ought to"; 長 in 長老 is zhǎng; 那 points, so nà; 女子 takes zǐ.

"I have come here for no other reason than to feed monks, in fulfilment of a vow."

還誓願 is to "repay" a vow. You promise the gods something in exchange for a favour, and when the favour comes you settle up — that 還 is huán, "to repay", not hái, "still". 齋僧, feeding wandering monks, was one of the standard ways of clearing such a debt, and that is what makes the story so hard to refuse: she is not offering charity, she is discharging an obligation. Turning her down would be the unkind act.

Hearing this, Eight Rules was overjoyed; whipping round, he broke into a headlong pig-trot and reported to Tripitaka: "Master! 'The lucky are ever heaven-blessed'! You were hungry and sent Elder Brother off to beg, and that monkey's gone who-knows-where picking peaches and larking about.

豬顛風 (zhū diān fēng) is a lovely piece of comic writing — "a pig's mad dash", the graceless bolt of a hog that has seen something it wants. But watch what he says when he gets there. He quotes a proverb about the deserving being rewarded, and then, in the same breath, drops in a line about "that monkey" off somewhere larking about with peaches. That is the first crack driven between master and disciple, and it is driven by Bajie, not by the demon. Readings: 那猴子 points, nà; 不知那裡 asks, nǎ; the 兒 of 摘桃兒 and the 子 of 耍子 are the small toneless tags.

"Eat too many peaches and they gripe the stomach and drag it down, besides.

And now a health warning about peaches, delivered by a creature who has never refused food in his life. 嘈人 (cáo rén) is that acid, unsettled feeling in the stomach; 下墜 (xià zhuì) is the heavy dragging sensation lower down. He wants the rice. The rest is decoration.

"Look — isn't that an alms-giver come at last?"

He is now formally sponsoring her. 那 here points at a person — isn't that an almsgiver? — so nà, not the place-word.

The Tang Monk, disbelieving, said, "You blockhead, talking rot.

夯貨 (hāng huò), roughly "you great lump", is the elder's standing insult for Bajie; 夯 is a rammer, the heavy block used for tamping earth. But the important thing here is that Tripitaka's first instinct is doubt. He gets it right. Remember that he gets it right.

"All this stretch we've travelled, we've not met a single decent soul — where would an alms-giver spring from?"

This is the argument that would have saved everyone. We have walked this whole stretch and not met one decent soul, so where would an almsgiver spring from? It is Wukong's reasoning exactly, arrived at without Wukong. The chapter's grief is that the man who says it will throw it away within the hour. (遇著 takes 著 as zháo, the reading for reaching or hitting on something; 這向 is "this stretch of road".)

Said Eight Rules, "But Master — hasn't she come right up to us?"

Bajie's counter-argument is to point. She is standing right there, so the question of where she came from is somebody else's problem. It is a bad argument, it is very funny, and it wins.