旗豎重修 The Banner Raised
那大聖把旗拆洗，總鬥做一面雜彩花旗，上寫著「重修花果山，復整水簾洞，齊天大聖」十四字。豎起杆子，將旗掛於洞外。逐日招魔聚獸，積草屯糧，不題「和尚」二字。他的人情又大，手段又高，便去四海龍王借些甘霖仙水，把山洗青了。前栽榆柳，後種松柟，桃李棗梅，無所不備。逍遙自在，樂業安居不題。那大圣把旗拆洗，总斗做一面杂彩花旗，上写着「重修花果山，复整水帘洞，齐天大圣」十四字。竖起杆子，将旗挂于洞外。逐日招魔聚兽，积草屯粮，不题「和尚」二字。他的人情又大，手段又高，便去四海龙王借些甘霖仙水，把山洗青了。前栽榆柳，后种松柟，桃李枣梅，无所不备。逍遥自在，乐业安居不题。
逐句解 Line by line
The Great Sage had the banners unstitched and washed, and pieced them all together into a single many-colored flower-flag, on which were written fourteen graphs: “Rebuilder of Flower-Fruit Mountain, Restorer of the Water-Curtain Cave, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven.”
He unpicks the dead men's banners and sews them into one flag. What he writes on it is his old identity in fourteen characters: 重修花果山, rebuilder of Flower-Fruit Mountain; 復整水簾洞, restorer of the Water-Curtain Cave; 齊天大聖, Great Sage Equal to Heaven — the title he gave himself before Heaven ever agreed to it. 重修 takes 重 as chóng, again, not zhòng, heavy. 上寫著 ends in the unstressed zhe; 那 is nà.
He raised a pole and hung the flag outside the cave. Day by day he summoned demons and gathered beasts, stockpiled fodder and stored grain, and made no more mention of the two graphs “the monk.”
招魔聚獸 — summoning demons, gathering beasts — is the old monster-host being reassembled. And then the sentence that closes the door: he stops mentioning the two characters for monk. 將旗 takes jiāng; 不題 keeps 不 at bù.
His connections were wide and his powers high; so he went to the Dragon Kings of the Four Seas to borrow some sweet-rain immortal water, and washed the mountain green again.
The cheerful line about his connections is worth pausing on: he can call in a favour from the 四海龍王, the Dragon Kings of the Four Seas, and get weather on request. 甘霖 is sweet rain, meaning the rain that arrives when it is needed — the standard phrase for a timely downpour after drought. 洗青了 ends in the unstressed le: he washes the mountain green, past tense, done.
In front he planted elms and willows, behind he set pines and nanmu; peaches, plums, jujubes, and mei — nothing was left wanting. Free and at ease, contented in his settled life — of which no more need be said.
松柟 takes 柟 as nán, a variant of 楠, the nanmu — the prized hardwood of palace timber. 樂業安居 takes 樂 as lè, content, and is still the everyday phrase for a settled and prosperous life. 不題 drops the thread — a narrator's signal that this storyline is being put down. Two 不 in this segment, read differently: bú before the falling tone of the character after it, then bù before a rising one.
The chapter's first movement closes on restoration. The banner Wukong raises is stitched from the dead hunters' standards and proclaims the three titles of his old self: rebuilder of Flower-Fruit Mountain, restorer of the Water-Curtain Cave, Great Sage Equal to Heaven. Then he borrows rain from the Dragon Kings and washes the mountain green, undoing on the surface the exact devastation the poems have just spent forty lines lamenting.
And with no more mention of the two characters for monk, the pilgrimage is over as far as Wukong is concerned. The narrator's parting phrase — free, at ease, contented, of which no more need be said — seals him back into the paradise-kingdom of the novel's opening. It is a false ending and a pointed one, because the story cuts away at once to Tripitaka riding unprotected into a pine forest, so that the reader holds Wukong's contentment and his master's danger in the same glance.