議蒸八戒 Whether Bajie Will Steam
傍有一小妖道：「大王，豬八戒不好蒸。」八戒道：「阿彌陀佛！是那位哥哥積陰德的？果是不好蒸。」又有一個妖道：「將他皮剝了，就好蒸。」八戒慌了道：「好蒸，好蒸，皮骨雖然粗糙，湯滾就爛，𣙢戶𣙢戶。」傍有一小妖道：「大王，猪八戒不好蒸。」八戒道：「阿弥陀佛！是那位哥哥积阴德的？果是不好蒸。」又有一个妖道：「将他皮剥了，就好蒸。」八戒慌了道：「好蒸，好蒸，皮骨虽然粗糙，汤滚就烂，𣙢户𣙢户。」
逐句解 Line by line
An imp at the side spoke up: “Great King, Zhu Bajie won’t steam well.”
不好蒸 — "not good to steam, hard to steam." The imp raises a cook’s practical objection, launching a small comic debate over Bajie’s edibility.
Bajie said: “Amitābha Buddha!”
Bajie seizes on the reprieve with a pious ejaculation — 阿彌陀佛 (Āmitābha), the buddha whose name is invoked for deliverance.
“Which kindly elder was it built up such hidden merit?”
那位 (nǎ wèi) — "which one," interrogative. 積陰德, "to accumulate hidden virtue"; Bajie blesses whichever imp has spared him.
“Quite right — I’ll not steam well.”
Bajie hastens to second the objection, eager to talk himself off the menu.
But another fiend said: “Strip off his hide, and he’ll steam well enough.”
將他皮剝了 — "flay his skin off," 將 the disposal marker (jiāng). The second imp’s grisly remedy dashes the reprieve.
Bajie took fright: “It’ll steam, it’ll steam! Skin and bone may be coarse, but once the soup boils it’ll fall right apart — squish-squish!”
Bajie’s panic spills into patter. 湯滾就爛, "once the broth boils it goes to mush." The reduplicated 𣙢戶𣙢戶 is a colloquial onomatopoeia — a squishy, sloshing sound — not a fixed phrase; the graph 𣙢 (U+23662) is a rare one, read juàn by Unihan, and here it stands in the base text of the 1592 edition.
A brief comic interlude, all at the trussed pig’s expense. An imp objects, on a cook’s grounds, that Bajie "won’t steam well"; Bajie pounces on the reprieve with an 阿彌陀佛 and a blessing on his benefactor, only for a second imp to propose flaying him first. The reversal tips him from relief into gabbling fright.
The passage carries a small textual landmark: the reduplicated 𣙢戶𣙢戶, an onomatopoeia for Bajie’s flesh sloshing apart in the pot, is written with 𣙢 (U+23662), a graph beyond the common range. Following the edition’s own text, it is read juàn after the received lexicographic reading; the sense is purely imitative, the noise of the panic, and the coarseness of the joke is entirely in character.