笑破鬼話 Laughing the Ghost-Talk to Bits
行者聽了，口中笑道：「你這個潑魔，怎麼敢來惹我？你也問問老孫是幾年的人兒？你這般鬼話兒，只好瞞唐僧，又好來瞞我？我認得你是這山中的怪物，想是要吃我師父哩。我師父又非是等閑之輩，是你吃的？你要吃他，也須是分多一半與老孫是。」行者听了，口中笑道：「你这个泼魔，怎么敢来惹我？你也问问老孙是几年的人儿？你这般鬼话儿，只好瞒唐僧，又好来瞒我？我认得你是这山中的怪物，想是要吃我师父哩。我师父又非是等闲之辈，是你吃的？你要吃他，也须是分多一半与老孙是。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim listened and said with a laugh: “You reckless fiend — how dare you come provoking me?
潑魔 (pō mó), “reckless demon, brazen fiend,” a term of scorn. 惹 (rě), “to provoke, to stir up.” Pilgrim addresses the demon directly, dropping all pretense of being fooled.
“Go ask around just how old a hand old Monkey is!”
幾年的人兒 (jǐ nián de rén er), “how many years' a fellow,” i.e. how seasoned; the retroflex suffix 兒 (er). Pilgrim boasts of his long experience with fiends of every stripe.
“Ghost-talk of this sort is fit only to fool Tripitaka — and yet you'd come fooling me?”
鬼話兒 (guǐ huà er), “ghost-talk, humbug,” with the suffix 兒 (er). 瞞 (mán), “to deceive, to hoodwink.” Pilgrim names the tale a lie fit only for the credulous master.
“I know you for the monster of this mountain — bent, I'll wager, on eating my master.”
認得 (rèn de), “to recognize, to know for” — the structural 得 (de). 山中 (shān zhōng), “of the mountain.” The final 哩 (li) lends a knowing, colloquial edge.
“And my master is no ordinary mortal — is he for the likes of you to eat? If you mean to eat him, you'll have to split him — better than half to old Monkey!”
等閑之輩 (děng xián zhī bèi), “a common sort, an ordinary person.” 分多一半 (fēn duō yí bàn), “to divide off more than half”; 分 is fēn, “to split.” Pilgrim's mock demand for a share is pure needling bravado.
Where Tripitaka saw a pitiable elder, Pilgrim sees the mountain's monster at once, and the moment he is out of the master's earshot he says so to the demon's face. His speech is all swagger — a boast of his long seasoning against fiends, a flat naming of the “ghost-talk” as a lie fit only to gull the credulous master, and a knowing charge that the whole performance aims at Tripitaka's flesh.
The passage's comedy lies in Pilgrim's mock-cannibal bravado: if the fiend means to eat the master, then he must “split him — better than half to old Monkey.” It is needling rather than earnest, a way of announcing that he holds every card, and it turns the demon's secret scheme into an open joke between predator and protector. The contest has become a game each plays with full knowledge of the other's hand.