吐出內丹 The Inner Elixir Disgorged
行者聞言，心中暗笑道：「這潑怪，倒也老實，不動刑法，就自家供了。等他拿出寶貝來，我試彈他一彈，看他是個甚麼妖怪。」那怪攜著行者，一直行到洞裡深遠密閉之處。卻從口中吐出一件寶貝，有雞子大小，是一顆舍利子玲瓏內丹。行者心中暗喜道：「好東西耶。這件物不知打了多少坐工，煉了幾年磨難，配了幾轉雌雄，煉成這顆內丹舍利。今日大有緣法，遇著老孫。」行者闻言，心中暗笑道：「这泼怪，倒也老实，不动刑法，就自家供了。等他拿出宝贝来，我试弹他一弹，看他是个甚么妖怪。」那怪携着行者，一直行到洞里深远密闭之处。却从口中吐出一件宝贝，有鸡子大小，是一颗舍利子玲珑内丹。行者心中暗喜道：「好东西耶。这件物不知打了多少坐工，炼了几年磨难，配了几转雌雄，炼成这颗内丹舍利。今日大有缘法，遇着老孙。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim, hearing this, laughed to himself, "This vile fiend is honest enough — with no rack applied, he confesses of his own accord.
Wukong's aside is a joke at the demon's expense in the language of the courtroom. 潑怪, pō guài, vile fiend; 倒也老實, dào yě lǎo shi, "honest after all"; 供, gòng, to confess, to give testimony. No rack was needed — the prisoner volunteered a statement.
Let him bring out the treasure, and I will give it a trial flick, and see what manner of fiend he is."
彈他一彈, tán tā yì tán, to give it a flick. He has decided to do the one forbidden thing before he has even seen the object.
The fiend led Pilgrim by the hand straight to a deep, remote, close-sealed recess of the cave.
攜著, xié zhe, leading by the hand — the same warm gesture Wukong and Bajie made when they set off together, here performed by a man leading his murderer into the innermost room of his house. 深遠密閉, shēn yuǎn mì bì, deep, far, tightly sealed.
Then from his mouth he brought forth a treasure, of the bigness of a hen's egg — a lustrous inner cinnabar, a relic-pearl.
The treasure is two things at once, and the novel does not choose between them. 舍利子, shè lì zǐ, is a śarīra, the hard crystalline relic left in the ashes of a holy man — a Buddhist object. 內丹, nèi dān, the inner cinnabar, is the Daoist elixir refined inside the body over years of practice, and 玲瓏, líng lóng, describes it as finely wrought and translucent. Here the two are one pearl of 雞子, jī zi, hen's-egg size, kept in the mouth — and it is the whole of his power.
Pilgrim rejoiced within, "What a fine thing!
暗喜, àn xǐ: to rejoice inwardly, and quietly.
This thing — who knows how many sittings of meditation went to its making, how many years of refining ordeal, how many cyclings of male and female matched together — to forge this pellet of inner elixir, this relic.
Wukong appraises it like a dealer who knows the trade. 坐工, zuò gōng, the labour of seated meditation; 磨難, mó nàn, ordeal, tribulation; 幾轉雌雄, jǐ zhuǎn cí xióng, so many cyclings of female and male matched together. 轉, zhuǎn, is the technical unit of a refining cycle — the same word as in the "nine-cycled golden elixir," 九轉金丹. He is reading off the demon's entire career of self-cultivation from a single bead.
Today, by great good fortune, it has met with old Sun."
緣法, yuán fǎ, a karmic affinity, a destined chance. Said of a theft, which is the joke.
Wukong's inner glee, given in a pair of gloating asides, both mocks the demon's naivety — confessing without the rack — and appraises the prize with a connoisseur's eye. His catalogue of what went into its making, the sittings of meditation, the years of ordeal, the alchemical cyclings of yin and yang, is steeped in the internal-alchemy vocabulary (內丹) that runs through the whole novel, and marks the pearl as the concentrated fruit of the demon's long cultivation.
That the treasure is at the same time a Buddhist relic-pearl (舍利) and a Daoist inner elixir (內丹) is entirely characteristic of a book that borrows both traditions' vocabularies of attainment without troubling to reconcile them. The demon's power lives in this single distilled object, and in disgorging it before his supposed wife he puts the source of his strength within his enemy's reach.