解放沙僧 Sha Seng Set Free
那公主聞言，急往裡面，喝退那幾個把門的小妖，親動手，把沙僧解了。沙僧道：「公主，你莫解我，恐你那怪來家，問你要人，帶累你受氣。」公主道：「長老啊，你是我的恩人，你替我折辯了家書，救了我一命，我也留心放你。不期洞門之外，你有個大師兄孫悟空來了，叫我放你哩。」那公主闻言，急往里面，喝退那几个把门的小妖，亲动手，把沙僧解了。沙僧道：「公主，你莫解我，恐你那怪来家，问你要人，带累你受气。」公主道：「长老啊，你是我的恩人，你替我折辩了家书，救了我一命，我也留心放你。不期洞门之外，你有个大师兄孙悟空来了，叫我放你哩。」
逐句解 Line by line
The princess, hearing this, hurried within, drove off with a shout the several imps that guarded the door, and with her own hands loosed Sha Seng's bonds.
喝退, hè tuì, to drive back with a shout — 喝 read hè, the bark, not hē, the drink. 把門, bǎ mén, to guard the door. She does the untying herself, which the text is careful to say.
Sha Seng said, "Princess, do not loose me; I fear that when your fiend comes home and demands the man of you, you will be implicated and made to suffer for it."
The captive worries about his gaoler. 帶累, dài lèi, to drag someone into trouble with you; 受氣, shòu qì, to be put upon, to swallow ill-usage. It is a small thing and it tells you everything about Sha Seng.
The princess said, "Reverend one, you are my benefactor; you argued my letter through for me and saved my life, and I have been minded to set you free.
長老, zhǎng lǎo, an elder, a reverend — 長 read zhǎng, senior, not cháng, long. 折辯, zhé biàn, to plead a case, to argue a thing through: she means the family letter, which the pilgrims carried and vouched for. 留心, liú xīn, to have been minded to.
Little did I look for it that outside the cave door your elder brother Sun Wukong should come, bidding me set you free."
不期, bù qī, "little did I expect" — the same phrase Bajie used of Wukong's sharpness twelve passages back. 大師兄, dà shī xiōng, eldest disciple-brother.
The princess's release of Sha Seng repays an old debt — his part, with Tripitaka, in getting her letter home — and so hooks the rescue into the chapter's chain of mutual obligations. Sha Seng's scruple, that she may suffer for freeing him, is a small stroke of characteristic decency, and the more telling for coming from the prisoner rather than the captor.
The passage quietly redistributes the reader's sympathies. Set against Wukong's hard bargaining just above, the princess and Sha Seng trade courtesies and cautions, gratitude answered by concern; the mother who feared for her children a moment ago now acts as benefactress, and the web of favour and counter-favour that governs the episode is drawn tighter still.