妖精窺伺 The Demon Lies in Wait
卻說常言有云：「山高必有怪，嶺峻卻生精。」果然這山上有一個妖精，孫大聖去時，驚動那怪。他在雲端裡踏著陰風，看見長老坐在地下，就不勝歡喜道：「造化，造化。幾年家人都講東土的唐和尚取大乘，他本是金蟬子化身，十世修行的原體，有人吃他一塊肉，長壽長生。真個今日到了。」那妖精上前就要拿他，只見長老左右手下有兩員大將護持，不敢攏身。他說兩員大將是誰？說是八戒、沙僧。八戒、沙僧雖沒甚麼大本事，然八戒是天蓬元帥，沙僧是捲簾大將，他的威氣尚不曾泄，故不敢攏身。妖精說：「等我且戲他戲，看怎麼說。」却说常言有云：「山高必有怪，岭峻却生精。」果然这山上有一个妖精，孙大圣去时，惊动那怪。他在云端里踏著阴风，看见长老坐在地下，就不胜欢喜道：「造化，造化。几年家人都讲东土的唐和尚取大乘，他本是金蝉子化身，十世修行的原体，有人吃他一块肉，长寿长生。真个今日到了。」那妖精上前就要拿他，只见长老左右手下有两员大将护持，不敢拢身。他说两员大将是谁？说是八戒、沙僧。八戒、沙僧虽没甚么大本事，然八戒是天蓬元帅，沙僧是卷帘大将，他的威气尚不曾泄，故不敢拢身。妖精说：「等我且戏他戏，看怎么说。」
逐句解 Line by line
Now as the old saying has it: "Where the mountain is high, there must be monsters; where the ridge is sheer, there spirits are bred."
The narrator marks the scene-shift with a proverbial couplet, a favourite device for pivoting from the human party to the lurking demon. 怪 (guài) "monster" and 精 (jīng) "spirit, sprite" are near-synonyms for a preternatural being; the maxim reads the rugged landscape itself as a breeding-ground for menace.
Sure enough, on this very mountain there dwelt a fiend, and the Great Sage's departure had startled it into motion.
果然 (guǒ rán) "sure enough," confirming the proverb. 妖精 (yāo jīng): a "demon, goblin" — this is the White-Bone Demon (白骨精) or Corpse-Fiend (屍魔) of the chapter title, though the narrator withholds her name for now. Wukong's very leaving (去時) is what rouses her — the plot's mechanism laid bare.
Treading a dark wind up among the clouds, it caught sight of the elder seated on the ground and, unable to contain its delight, cried, "What luck! What luck!
踏著陰風 (tà zhe yīn fēng): "treading upon a sinister wind" — the aspect-marker 著 (zhe) marks the sustained riding; 陰風 (yīn fēng) "a cold, ghostly wind" is the demon's proper vehicle. 不勝歡喜 (bú shèng huān xǐ) "could not bear [so much] joy" (the 不 (bú) before fourth-tone 勝 (shèng) by sandhi). 造化 (zào huà) exclaimed is "[good] fortune!" — literally "the workings of creation."
"For years now everyone has told how the Tang monk of the Eastern Land goes to fetch the Great Vehicle — how he is the incarnation of Golden Cicada, an original body ten lifetimes in the cultivating: whoever eats but a morsel of his flesh shall have long life, life everlasting.
The demon rehearses the flesh-eater's lore central to the whole novel. 都講 (dōu jiǎng) "all say"; 大乘 (Dà shèng) "the Great Vehicle," Mahāyāna — 乘 (shèng) is the Buddhist "vehicle" (yāna), never 乘 (chéng) "to ride." 金蟬子 (Jīn chán zǐ), "Golden Cicada," is Tripitaka's prior identity, a disciple of the Buddha reborn; 子 (zǐ) is the honorific name-suffix. 十世修行 (shí shì xiū xíng) "ten lifetimes of cultivation." The doubled 長壽長生 (cháng shòu cháng shēng) "long life, life everlasting" takes 長 (cháng) "long," not 長 (zhǎng).
"And today, truly, he has come!"
真個 (zhēn gè): "really, truly indeed," a vernacular emphatic. The demon's exultation (到了 (dào le), "[he] has arrived") closes her opening monologue on a note of ravenous anticipation — the pilgrim's flesh, so long rumoured, at last within reach.
The fiend pressed forward, meaning to seize him at once — but seeing two mighty generals guarding the elder to left and right, it dared not close in.
拿 (ná) "to seize, catch." 兩員大將 (liǎng yuán dà jiàng): "two [officers-]general" — 員 (yuán) is the classifier for military officers, and 將 (jiàng) is "general" (the noun), not the coverb 將 (jiāng). 護持 (hù chí) "to guard and uphold." 攏身 (lǒng shēn) "to draw near, close the distance." The demon's caution sets up the narrator's aside that follows.
And who, you ask, were these two generals?
A rhetorical question in the storyteller's voice (他說 (tā shuō) functioning as "you may ask"), pausing to identify the guardians. 大將 (dà jiàng) again "generals," 將 (jiàng).
They were Eight Rules and Sha the Monk.
八戒 (Bā jiè), "Eight Prohibitions," is Zhu Bajie the pig-spirit; 沙僧 (Shā sēng), "the Monk Sha," is Sha Wujing. The homely naming punctures the grandeur of "two mighty generals" — and, as the aside will explain, their martial aura is more residual than real.
Now Eight Rules and Sha the Monk had no great powers to speak of; but Eight Rules had been Marshal of the Heavenly Reeds, and Sha the Monk the Curtain-Raising General, and the martial aura of those offices had not yet wholly leaked away — and so the fiend dared not close in.
沒甚麼大本事 (méi shén me dà běn shì): "without any great abilities" — here 甚 (shén) is "what/any" (甚麼). Their former celestial ranks are recalled: 天蓬元帥 (Tiān péng yuán shuài), "Marshal of the Heavenly Reeds," and 捲簾大將 (Juǎn lián dà jiàng), "the Curtain-Rolling General" (once an attendant at the Jade Emperor's throne). 威氣尚不曾泄 (wēi qì shàng bù céng xiè): "[their] awe-aura had not yet dissipated." The passage neatly explains the demon's delay while gently mocking the two disciples — their protective power is the afterglow of lost office, not present strength.
Said the fiend, "Let me toy with them a while, and see what comes of it."
且 (qiě) "for the while, just." 戲他戲 (xì tā xì): "to play a game upon him, tease him" — the repeated 戲 (xì) ("play, sport with") frames the demon's stratagem as a game, which the chapter title makes explicit: 三戲 (sān xì), the "three mockings" of Tripitaka. 看怎麼說 (kàn zěn me shuō): "[let us] see what may be said" = see how it turns out. The line launches the triple deception that forms the heart of the chapter.
With this passage the chapter's antagonist takes the stage, and the narrator manages her introduction with characteristic economy. A proverb bridges the scene-change; the flesh-eating lore that motivates every demon in the novel is rehearsed in the fiend's own mouth; and her single obstacle — the residual awe of the two guardian disciples — is explained in a wry aside that simultaneously raises the stakes and deflates the guards' pretensions.
The demon of this chapter is unusual in the novel for fighting almost entirely by illusion rather than force. Her opening resolve, 等我且戲他戲 ("let me toy with them a while"), announces a campaign of deception, not combat — and the chapter title's 三戲 (sān xì) ("thrice mocks") confirms that trickery, aimed squarely at Tripitaka's fallible eyes, will be her weapon. This is what makes the episode a moral test rather than a battle: the danger is not that the pilgrims will be overpowered, but that the master will believe the wrong witness.
There is a grim symmetry in the guardians' dismissal. The narrator observes that Bajie and Sha Monk have "no great powers to speak of," their protection merely the lingering aura of ranks long forfeited. It is a quiet reminder that the party's real strength lies in the disciple now absent picking peaches — and that when the demon's illusions turn Tripitaka against that disciple, the pilgrims will be left, in every sense that matters, undefended.