善中取計 A Stratagem Wrapped in Kindness
我看見那唐僧只可善圖，不可惡取。若要倚勢拿他，聞也不得一聞。只可以善去感他，賺得他心與我心相合，卻就善中取計，可以圖之。」眾妖道：「大王如定計拿他，可用我等？」二魔道：「你們都各回本寨，但不許報與大王知道；若是驚動了他，必然走了風汛，敗了我計策。我自有個神通變化，可以拿他。」眾妖散去。我看见那唐僧只可善图，不可恶取。若要倚势拿他，闻也不得一闻。只可以善去感他，赚得他心与我心相合，却就善中取计，可以图之。」众妖道：「大王如定计拿他，可用我等？」二魔道：「你们都各回本寨，但不许报与大王知道；若是惊动了他，必然走了风汛，败了我计策。我自有个神通变化，可以拿他。」众妖散去。
逐句解 Line by line
“As I see it, that Tripitaka can only be got at by fair means, not seized by foul.
A pointed antithesis: 善圖 (shàn tú), “to plot by good, to work upon gently,” against 惡取 (è qǔ), “to seize by evil, to take by force.” The whole stratagem turns on this opposition.
“Were we to rely on force to take him, we'd not get so much as a single whiff of him.
倚勢 (yǐ shì), “to lean on force, to presume upon strength.” 聞也不得一聞 (wén yě bù dé yì wén) is an emphatic doubling, “cannot even catch one sniff”; 得 here is dé, “to obtain,” negated by 不.
“We can only move him by kindness, win his heart into accord with our own, and then, from within that kindness, lay our plot — so may he be taken.”
賺得 (zhuàn de), “to win over, to inveigle” — the resultative 得 (de) introducing the outcome, “his heart accords with mine.” 善中取計 (shàn zhōng qǔ jì), “to draw a scheme out of the midst of goodness” — the chapter's title-phrase in germ, 中 read zhōng, “within.”
The imps said: “Great King, when you've settled on a plan to take him, will you have need of us?”
定計 (dìng jì), “to fix upon a stratagem.” 可用我等 (kě yòng wǒ děng), “will you use us?” — 我等, “we, our sort,” the retainers offering their service.
The second fiend said: “Return, all of you, each to his own stockade, but you're not to let word of it reach the Great King — for if he's alarmed, the scheme will surely leak out and my whole plan be ruined.
走了風汛 (zǒu le fēng xùn), “to let slip the wind-signal,” i.e. for a secret to leak; 風汛 is “tidings on the wind, rumor.” 敗了我計策 (bài le wǒ jì cè), “would spoil my stratagem.” 都 is the totalizing dōu, “all.”
“I have powers of transformation all my own, by which I can take him.”
神通變化 (shén tōng biàn huà), “supernatural powers of metamorphosis” — the demon's own shape-shifting art, the instrument of the coming ruse. 自有 (zì yǒu), “have of one's own.”
The imps dispersed.
散去 (sàn qù), “scattered, went their separate ways” — 散 read sàn, the departure of the assembled demons that closes the council.
Here the second fiend unveils the design that gives the chapter its title: Tripitaka cannot be seized by force — “we'd not get so much as a whiff of him” — but only won by kindness, his heart drawn into false accord, and then betrayed “from within that kindness.” It is a plan of guile dressed as gentleness, the demon proposing to weaponize the very virtue that makes the pilgrim's flesh precious. The phrase 善中取計, “a scheme drawn out of goodness,” is the moral heart of the episode.
The council closes on the demon's insistence on secrecy — even his overlord must not know, lest the plot leak — and on his boast of a transformation-magic all his own, the instrument of the disguise to come. Dismissing his retainers, he keeps the stratagem's execution in his own hands. The passage thus sets the terms of the coming deception: a solitary shape-shifter, a plan of counterfeit kindness, and a master whose compassion is precisely the opening his enemy means to exploit.