掐算裝葫 The Reckoning, and the Gourd
那魔執了寶貝，跳在空中，把底兒朝天，口兒朝地，叫聲：「者行孫。」行者卻不敢答應，心中暗想道：「若是應了，就裝進去哩。」那魔道：「你怎麼不應我？」行者道：「我有些耳閉，不曾聽見。你高叫。」那怪物又叫聲：「者行孫。」行者在底下掐著指頭算了一算，道：「我真名字叫做孫行者，起的鬼名字叫做者行孫。真名字可以裝得，鬼名字好道裝不得。」卻就忍不住應了他一聲。颼的被他吸進葫蘆去，貼上帖兒。原來那寶貝，那管甚麼名字真假，但綽個應的氣兒，就裝了去也。那魔执了宝贝，跳在空中，把底儿朝天，口儿朝地，叫声：「者行孙。」行者却不敢答应，心中暗想道：「若是应了，就装进去哩。」那魔道：「你怎么不应我？」行者道：「我有些耳闭，不曾听见。你高叫。」那怪物又叫声：「者行孙。」行者在底下掐着指头算了一算，道：「我真名字叫做孙行者，起的鬼名字叫做者行孙。真名字可以装得，鬼名字好道装不得。」却就忍不住应了他一声。飕的被他吸进葫芦去，贴上帖儿。原来那宝贝，那管甚么名字真假，但绰个应的气儿，就装了去也。
逐句解 Line by line
The fiend grasped the treasure, sprang into the air, turned the bottom skyward and the mouth to the ground, and called out: “Che the Pilgrim!” Pilgrim dared not answer, thinking in his heart: “If I answer, I'll be bottled inside.” The fiend said: “Why don't you answer me?”
那魔執了寶貝 nà mó zhí le bǎo bèi, the fiend grasped the treasure, pointing 那. 把底兒朝天，口兒朝地 bǎ dǐ er cháo tiān, kǒu er cháo dì — bottom to the sky, mouth to the ground, the working position for the gourd, and the two diminutive er make the vessel sound like a household object rather than a weapon. 若是應了，就裝進去 ruò shì yìng le, jiù zhuāng jìn qù, if I answer, I'll be bottled in — 應 read yìng.
Pilgrim said: “I'm a little deaf and didn't hear it. Call louder.” The monster called again: “Che the Pilgrim!” Pilgrim, down below, counted it out on his fingers and said: “My true name is Sun the Pilgrim; the sham name I made up is Che the Pilgrim. The true name could be bottled, but surely the sham name can't.”
The deafness is a stall, and the finger-counting is the Great Sage doing philosophy at the worst possible moment. 掐著指頭算了一算 qiā zhe zhǐ tou suàn le yí suàn, pinching his fingers and working it out, with the ongoing zhe and the 一 raised to yí before the falling tone of 算 — a doubled verb again, meaning a quick reckoning rather than a long one. 真名字可以裝得 zhēn míng zì kě yǐ zhuāng de, the true name could be bottled, and 鬼名字好道裝不得 guǐ míng zì hǎo dào zhuāng bù de, surely the sham name can't — both on the can-do de. His logic is flawless and his premise is wrong.
And with that he could not hold back and answered him once. With a whoosh he was sucked into the gourd, and a seal-slip was pasted on. It turned out that treasure cared nothing whether the name was true or false — it needed only to catch a whiff of the answering breath, and it bottled one straight in.
忍不住應了他一聲 rěn bù zhù yìng le tā yì shēng, could not hold it in and answered him once — 應 read yìng, and the 不 lowered to bú before the falling tone of 住. Then the narrator delivers the rule Wukong got wrong: 那管甚麼名字真假 nǎ guǎn shén me míng zì zhēn jiǎ, as if it cared whether the name was true or false — the rhetorical nǎ. 但綽個應的氣兒 dàn chāo gè yìng de qì er, it need only snatch the breath of an answer, with 綽 read chāo, to snatch. The gourd is not listening to names. It is listening for a voice.
The bottling is the chapter's crowning irony: the trickster undone by his own cleverness. Wukong's reasoning is impeccable and entirely beside the point. He has worked out that his true name could be bottled while his invented alias could not, and so he stalls, feigns deafness, and counts on his fingers — a marvellous image of the Great Sage out-thinking himself with a syllogism whose premise is false. His fatal flaw here is not stupidity but the opposite: an over-subtlety that mistakes a rule about names for the rule of the thing.
The narrator's closing gloss delivers the point with dry finality — the gourd cares nothing for true names or false, and needs only the breath of an answer. The vessel operates on response, not on identity, so the whole elaborate reckoning was wasted; the instant Wukong cannot keep his voice in, he is swallowed. It is the perfect comeuppance for a chapter built on 騰那, the art of shifting names and shapes: the one treasure that answers to sound rather than sense catches the master of disguise by the single thing no disguise can alter — that he answers when called.