行者不去 Wukong's Refusal
二人吃了果子，漸漸日高。那獃子恐怕誤了救唐僧，只管催促道：「哥哥，師父在那裡盼望我和你哩。望你和我早早兒去罷。」行者道：「賢弟，請你往水簾洞裡去耍耍。」八戒堅辭道：「多感老兄盛意，奈何師父久等，不勞進洞罷。」行者道：「既如此，不敢久留，請就此處奉別。」八戒道：「哥哥，你不去了？」行者道：「我往哪裡去？我這裡天不收，地不管，自由自在，不耍子兒，做甚麼和尚？我是不去，你自去罷。但上覆唐僧：既趕退了，再莫想我。」獃子聞言，不敢苦逼，只恐逼發他性子，一時打上兩棍。無奈，只得喏喏告辭，找路而去。二人吃了果子，渐渐日高。那呆子恐怕误了救唐僧，只管催促道：「哥哥，师父在那里盼望我和你哩。望你和我早早儿去罢。」行者道：「贤弟，请你往水帘洞里去耍耍。」八戒坚辞道：「多感老兄盛意，奈何师父久等，不劳进洞罢。」行者道：「既如此，不敢久留，请就此处奉别。」八戒道：「哥哥，你不去了？」行者道：「我往哪里去？我这里天不收，地不管，自由自在，不耍子儿，做甚么和尚？我是不去，你自去罢。但上覆唐僧：既赶退了，再莫想我。」呆子闻言，不敢苦逼，只恐逼发他性子，一时打上两棍。无奈，只得喏喏告辞，找路而去。
逐句解 Line by line
The two ate the fruit, and by and by the sun climbed high.
果子 takes 子 as the suffix zi. The sun climbing is the detail that is making Bajie anxious.
The blockhead, afraid of failing the rescue of Tripitaka, kept urging: "Brother, the master is over there watching for you and me. I beg you, let's be off good and early."
Both instances of 那 are pointing nà; in 早早兒 the colloquial 兒 is er; the vernacular sentence-final 哩 is li. Note the lie he is maintaining: the master is watching for us. The master is in a cage on four legs.
The Pilgrim said: "Worthy brother, do come along to the Water-Curtain Cave and amuse yourself a while."
水簾洞, the Water-Curtain Cave, is Wukong's ancestral home — the cave behind the waterfall he found as a young monkey and which made him king. He deflects the urgency with another invitation to stay.
Bajie firmly declined: "Much obliged for my elder brother's kindness — but the master has waited so long, there's no need to trouble to enter the cave."
堅辭 is to decline firmly; 盛意 is gracious intent; 不勞 is "no need to trouble yourself." Bajie holds the line against hospitality, which for him is a considerable feat.
The Pilgrim said: "If that's how it is, I won't presume to keep you — let us take our leave here, then."
奉別 is a courteous formula for taking leave. He is proposing to send Bajie off alone.
Bajie said: "Brother — you won't come, then?"
The blunt question that forces the refusal into the open.
The Pilgrim said: "Where should I go? Here Heaven doesn't claim me and Earth doesn't rule me; I'm free and my own master. If not to enjoy myself, why be a monk at all?
The character 哪, "where," is the dedicated question-word, distinct from the pointing 那 that has been all over this chapter — and it appears exactly once. 甚麼 takes 甚 as shén; in 耍子兒 the suffix 兒 is er. Then the creed: 天不收，地不管，自由自在 — Heaven takes no charge of me, Earth does not govern me, free and at ease. 自由自在 is still ordinary modern Chinese for "footloose."
I'll not go; go by yourself. Only report to Tripitaka: having driven me off, let him think no more of me."
上覆 is to report to a superior, to convey a message upward; 趕退 is to drive off, to expel. "Having driven me off, let him think no more of me" — which is a request that only makes sense from somebody who has been thinking about very little else.
At this the blockhead dared not press him hard, fearing that if pushed, his temper might flare and he'd fetch him a couple of blows.
苦逼 is to press somebody hard, to coerce; 逼發他性子, to provoke his temper, takes 子 as the suffix zi; 打上兩棍 is to deal a couple of blows with the staff. Bajie stops pushing for entirely selfish reasons, and so the mission fails.
With no help for it, he could only make his obedient farewells and set off to find the road.
In 只得, could only, the character 得 is dé; 喏喏 — murmuring "yes, yes" — takes 喏 as rě, the reading for obeisant assent, not the nuò of ordinary agreement. 告辭 is to take one's leave. He backs out bowing.
This is the chapter's pivotal refusal. Wukong's declaration — 天不收，地不管，自由自在, "Heaven takes no charge of me, Earth governs me not, free and at ease" — is the Mind-Monkey's creed of absolute liberty, and it is precisely the self-will that the pilgrimage, and the metal band clamped round his head, exist to discipline. Back on his mountain and refusing to leave it, he reasserts the untrammelled independence he was born with, and his message to Tripitaka — let him think no more of me — appears to shut the door on the quest itself.
Yet the refusal is staged so as to invite its own undoing. He protests a good deal too much; the insistence on freedom is also the injured pride of somebody who would like to be wanted, and the horse's stratagem has already anticipated exactly this. Bajie's comic deference — not daring to press, for fear of the cudgel — lightens the scene without relieving it. The Mind-Monkey has said no, and the master is still a caged tiger.