Hearing this, the old fiend flew into a rage like thunder: “Done for, done for! This is Sun the Pilgrim, who tricked them by feigning an immortal. That monkey-head has vast magic powers and knows people everywhere; there's no telling which petty spirit let him out to swindle away our treasures.”

罷了，罷了 bà le, bà le — done for, done for. This is the one place 罷 takes its full tone: as an exclamation of collapse it is bà, quite unlike the coaxing ba a few passages back. Then the two 那 again, doing opposite work in consecutive breaths: 那猴頭 nà hóu tóu, that monkey-head, points, while 那個毛神 nǎ ge máo shén, which petty spirit, gropes for an unknown culprit.

The second fiend said: “Elder brother, calm your anger. Insufferable that the monkey-head should be so utterly without manners — if he had powers and merely made off, so be it; but why must he also steal our treasures? If I've no skill to take him, may I never work my mischief on the western road again.”

兄長 xiōng zhǎng, elder brother — 長 read zhǎng, senior. 著然無禮 zhuó rán wú lǐ, utterly without manners: 著然 is a fixed adverb and takes 著 as zhuó, the literary reading. The oath is worth pausing on — 永不…為怪 yǒng bù … wéi guài, never again be a demon — where 為 is the verb wéi, to act as. He is staking his professional identity, which is about the strongest thing a fiend can wager.

The old fiend said: “How will you take him?” The second said: “We have five treasures; two are gone, three remain, and take him we surely will.” The old fiend said: “Which three are left?” The second said: “The seven-star sword and the plantain fan are still at my side; that one length of gold-glinting cord is kept by our old mother at Dragon-Crushing Cave on Dragon-Crushing Mountain. Let us now send two imps to invite Mother to come and eat the Tang Monk's flesh, and have her bring the gold-glinting cord to catch Sun the Pilgrim.”

The inventory that shapes the rest of the chapter: five treasures, two gone, three left — the seven-star sword, the plantain fan, and the 幌金繩 huǎng jīn shéng, the gold-glinting cord, held by the mother. 差兩個 chāi liǎng ge, dispatch two, takes 差 as chāi, to send on an errand. And the 那 sort themselves once more: 還有那三件 hái yǒu nǎ sān jiàn, which three are left, is the question, while 那一條 nà yì tiáo, that one length, and 那裡收著 nà lǐ shōu zhe, kept over there, both point.

The old fiend said: “Whom shall we send?” The second said: “Not such useless creatures as these.”

差那個去 chāi nǎ ge qù, whom to send — the questioning nǎ. In 不差 bù chāi, not send, the negative keeps its full bù, because 差 read chāi is a level tone and gives it nothing to bounce off.