天上之精 A Spirit from Heaven
行者大驚道：「我兒啊，不禁打，就打得不見了。果是打死，好道也有些膿血，如何沒一毫蹤影？想是走了。」急縱身跳在雲端裡看處，四邊更無動靜。「老孫這雙眼睛，不管那裡，一抹都見，卻怎麼走得這等溜撒？我曉得了，那怪說有些兒認得我，想必不是凡間的怪，多是天上來的精。」行者大惊道：「我儿啊，不禁打，就打得不见了。果是打死，好道也有些脓血，如何没一毫踪影？想是走了。」急纵身跳在云端里看处，四边更无动静。「老孙这双眼睛，不管那里，一抹都见，却怎么走得这等溜撒？我晓得了，那怪说有些儿认得我，想必不是凡间的怪，多是天上来的精。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim, greatly startled, said, "My child — you could not take a blow, and at one stroke you are gone from sight.
不禁打, bù jīn dǎ, unable to take a blow — 禁 read jīn, "to withstand," not the jìn that means "to forbid." 我兒, wǒ ér, "my child," is Wukong mock-addressing the enemy he has just flattened, in keeping with his claim to be everybody's ancestor.
Were you truly beaten dead, there should be at least some matter and blood — how is it there is not a trace, not a hair?
The forensic objection. 好道, hǎo dào, "surely, one would think"; 膿血, nóng xuè, pus and blood; 蹤影, zōng yǐng, trace or shadow. A body struck that hard leaves a mess, and there is no mess.
He must have fled."
想是, xiǎng shì: "it must be that."
Quickly springing up into the clouds to look about, he found on every side no stir at all.
縱身, zòng shēn, to spring up; 四邊更無動靜, sì biān gèng wú dòng jìng, on every side not the slightest stir.
"These two eyes of old Sun's take in everything at a glance, no matter where — how then has he slipped away so nimbly?
一抹都見, yì mǒ dōu jiàn, to take everything in at a single sweep — the fiery eyes again, and their failure here is the real evidence. 溜撒, liū sā, nimble, slippery-quick.
I have it — the fiend said he knew me a little; most likely he is no fiend of the mortal world, but a spirit come down from Heaven."
And there is the deduction, built on a remark made ten passages earlier. 有些兒, yǒu xiē'r, a little, somewhat; 凡間, fán jiān, the mortal world. The demon said he half-knew Wukong's face. Wukong has been away from Heaven five hundred years — so anyone who recognises him has been in Heaven too.
The uncanny vanishing, where a slain body should have left blood and trace, sets Wukong reasoning like a detective. The absence of any remains, the failure of his all-seeing eyes to find the fugitive, and the fiend's own earlier hint of half-knowing him together yield the crucial inference. What no amount of fighting could reveal, deduction supplies: this is no earthly monster but a spirit escaped from Heaven.
The moment is the chapter's decisive turn, redirecting the action from the demon's cave to the celestial bureaucracy that must have produced him. The device — a disappearance that betrays a divine nature, prompting a trip to Heaven to trace the culprit on the star-rolls — recurs throughout the novel, by which local demons are revealed as absconded members of the cosmic order, and subduing them becomes a matter of administrative recall as much as martial victory.