At the mention of the Bodhisattva, Pilgrim's heart turned some three parts, and he said: "Brother, since you put it so, I'll not beat you just yet.

Guanyin's name works on Wukong like a key in a lock, and the novel measures the effect like an accountant. 三分兒轉意, sān fēn'r zhuǎn yì, is a change of heart by some three-tenths — 分 being read fēn as a fraction, with the 兒 suffix rounding it off. A thirty-per-cent thaw, no more.

But speak honestly now, and don't try to deceive me.

老實, lǎo shí: honest, plain-dealing, no games.

Where is the Tang Monk in some plight, that you come here to hoodwink me?"

Two 那 in one sentence, read two different ways — a good illustration of why this chapter needs its ruby. The first, in 那唐僧, is the pointing nà, "that"; the second, in 那裡, is the questioning nǎ, "where." 有難, yǒu nàn, "to be in peril," takes 難 as the noun nàn, an ordeal.

Bajie said: "Brother, there's no great trouble at all — the truth is, I missed you."

And here is 難 again, one line later, in its other life: 難處, nán chù, "difficulty," with 難 the adjective nán, "hard." 沒甚, méi shén, "nothing much."

Pilgrim cursed: "You beating-worthy good-for-nothing — how dare you still bluster and wrangle with me?

劣貨, liè huò, "worthless creature" — the same "goods" formation as 夯貨 a page earlier. 者囂, zhě xiāo, is a colloquialism for badgering, for bandying words back at someone who outranks you.

This old Sun's body has returned to the Water-Curtain Cave, yet his heart still follows the scripture-seeking monk.

This is the line to keep. Two halves balanced against each other — 身回… 心逐…, body returned, heart still following — and between them the whole tension of the exile. 水簾洞, Shuǐlián Dòng, is the Water-Curtain Cave on Flower-Fruit Mountain, the home he went back to.

That master of ours meets peril at every step and disaster at every turn — tell me early, and spare yourself a beating."

Another matched pair: 步步有難，處處該災, "step by step there is peril, place by place calamity is due." 趁早兒, chèn zǎo'r, "the sooner the better." The last word is a textual curiosity: 告訢, gào xīn, to tell, to inform. The character on the page is 訢, read xīn, and that is what has been encoded — though the sense wanted is that of 告訴, whose second character differs from this one by a single element on the right.