度人成仙 Offering to Lead Them to Immortality
行者道：「我不怪你。常言道：『仙體不踏凡地。』你怎知之？我今日到你山上，要度一個成仙了道的好人。那個肯跟我去？」精細鬼道：「師父，我跟你去。」伶俐蟲道：「師父，我跟你去。」行者道：「我不怪你。常言道：『仙体不踏凡地。』你怎知之？我今日到你山上，要度一个成仙了道的好人。那个肯跟我去？」精细鬼道：「师父，我跟你去。」伶俐虫道：「师父，我跟你去。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said: “I don't blame you. As the saying goes, ‘An immortal's body treads no common ground’ — so how were you to know?
仙體不踏凡地 (xiān tǐ bù tà fán dì), “an immortal's form does not tread the common earth” — a proverb Pilgrim cites to excuse their blindness and burnish his disguise.
“Today I've come to your mountain to deliver some worthy soul to immortality and the completion of the Way. Which of you will come with me?”
度 (dù), “to deliver, save, lead across [to enlightenment].” 成仙了道 (chéng xiān liǎo dào), “to become immortal and complete the Way,” 了 read liǎo, “to finish, fulfill.” 那個 (nǎ gè), “which one,” interrogative nǎ.
Fine-and-Keen said: “Master, I'll come with you.”
師父 (shī fu), “master” — the imp now addresses the disguised Pilgrim as a teacher, the bait taken.
Clever-Bug said: “Master, I'll come with you.”
Both imps volunteer, each eager to be the one “delivered” — their names' boasted cleverness already failing them.
Pilgrim completes the seduction with a dangled prize. Having excused the imps' rudeness with a fitting proverb — an immortal treads no common ground — he offers exactly what a demon's servant might covet: to be “delivered to immortality and the completion of the Way.” The offer is shrewdly pitched, appealing at once to greed and to the imps' new reverence for the “old immortal.”
Both imps volunteer instantly, “Master, I'll come with you,” their eagerness a small comedy at the expense of their names — Fine-and-Keen and Clever-Bug, neither keen nor clever enough to smell the trap. The scene completes their transformation from armed captors into fawning disciples, and positions Pilgrim to draw out, in the next passage, the very information the demons meant to use against him.