The blockhead took him at his word and was about to go in. Sha Monk grabbed him and held on: “Brother, he's fooling you — since when do you eat human flesh?”

The best small moment in the chapter: Bajie takes the dumpling offer at face value and starts to go in. Sha Monk's grip on his arm is the only thing between the party and a farce that ends with everyone eaten. Since when do you eat human flesh is both a rescue and an insult.

Only then did the blockhead come to his senses; he whipped out his rake and struck straight at the fiend's face; the creature dodged aside and threw up his steel sabre to meet the blow.

釘鈀 takes 鈀 as pá; 那怪物 takes nà; 相迎 takes xiāng, mutually — the reading for two parties meeting each other, which is what a parry is.

The two of them both showed their powers, sprang up on their cloud-heads, and leapt into the sky to do battle. Sha Monk flung down the baggage and the white horse, raised his precious staff, and rushed in to help the attack.

Sha Monk drops the baggage and the horse to join in. He is the one who has been guarding the property all chapter, and abandoning it is how the novel says this has become serious. 都 is dōu; 空中 takes zhōng.

Now, two fierce monks and one savage fiend, up in the clouds — what a battle it was! It was just like this:

好殺 — a fine killing — is the narrator's relish, and the phrase introduces the battle-rhapsody. Here 場 is cháng, counting one round of an event; compare the chǎng of the mountain ground back in the drug-name dirge, where the same character meant a place. 那 is nà.

The staff rose, the sabre met it; the rake came on, the sabre fended it.

Four characters, three weapons, no verbs to spare. The fight-rhapsody opens at its tightest: staff rises, sabre meets, rake comes, sabre fends.

One demon-captain flexing his might; two divine monks working their transformations.

魔將 takes 將 as jiàng, a captain — the noun, as in the hunters' dirge — not the jiāng that hands an object to a verb. 神僧 are divine monks. One against two, and the line gives both sides their rank.

The nine-tooth rake, a hero true; the demon-quelling staff, ferocious indeed.

九齒鈀 is the nine-tooth rake, 鈀 as pá. 降妖杖 takes 降 as xiáng, to subdue, not jiàng, to descend: Sha Monk's weapon is the 降妖寶杖, the demon-quelling staff. Both weapons are named and praised before either lands a blow.

Front and back, left and right, they came at once; yet Yellow Robe was plainly unafraid.

Two on one from every side, and Yellow Robe is plainly unafraid. 那 is nà.

See how his burnished steel sabre gleamed bright as silver — truly his magic powers were vast indeed.

也為廣大 takes 為 as wéi, the linking verb — his powers are indeed vast. 那 is nà. The rhapsody is conceding the enemy's strength in earnest, which is how it prepares the reader for the outcome.

They fought till the whole sky was wrapped in fog and lost in cloud, and the cliffs crumbled and the ridges cracked across half the mountain.

Fog to the sky's edge, cliffs cracking across the mountain. The landscape coming apart is this genre's standard proof that both sides are the real thing. 殺得 takes the unstressed de; 空中 takes zhōng.

The one, for his name and fame, would never let it rest; the others, for their master's sake, were resolute and unafraid.

Both 為 in this closing couplet take wèi, for the sake of — the reading for doing something on someone's behalf, not the wéi of the line before. 為聲名 against 為師父: one fights for his reputation, the others for their master. Four words apiece, and the whole moral case of the battle is in them.