備陳始末 Wukong Recounts It All
大魔才然一陣戰敗，往西南壓龍山去訖。概洞小妖，被老孫分身法打死一半；還有些敗殘回的，又被老孫殺絕。方才得入此處，解放你們。」唐僧謝之不盡道：「徒弟啊，多虧你受了勞苦。」行者笑道：「誠然勞苦。你們還只是吊著受疼，我老孫再不曾住腳，比急遞鋪的鋪兵還甚，反復裡外，奔波無已。因是偷了他的寶貝，方能平退妖魔。」大魔才然一阵战败，往西南压龙山去讫。概洞小妖，被老孙分身法打死一半；还有些败残回的，又被老孙杀绝。方才得入此处，解放你们。」唐僧谢之不尽道：「徒弟啊，多亏你受了劳苦。」行者笑道：「诚然劳苦。你们还只是吊著受疼，我老孙再不曾住脚，比急递铺的铺兵还甚，反复里外，奔波无已。因是偷了他的宝贝，方能平退妖魔。」
逐句解 Line by line
“The elder fiend has just now lost a battle and gone off to Coiled-Dragon Mountain in the south-west.
去訖 (qù qì) — "gone off, departed." Wukong reports the elder’s flight.
Of all the cave’s imps, half were beaten to death by Old Sun’s body-dividing art;
分身法 — "the body-dividing method," the hair-clone trick; 打死一半, "beat half to death."
and of the few battered stragglers who came back, Old Sun did the last of them in as well.
還有些 — "there were still some," 還 read hái; 殺絕, "did in to the last."
Only then could I get in here and set you free.”
方才得入此處 — "only just managed to enter this place," 得 read dé ("manage to"), 處 read chù ("place"); 解放, "release," 解 read jiě.
The Tang Monk thanked him past all telling: “Disciple — it is all owing to the hardship and toil you have borne.”
謝之不盡 — "thanked [him] without end," 盡 read jìn; before it 不 takes its rising sandhi bú (as 盡 here is fourth tone).
Pilgrim said with a laugh: “Hardship and toil indeed.
誠然勞苦 — "truly, it was toil." Wukong takes up the master’s thanks with wry relish.
You three only hung there and suffered the pain, but Old Sun never once rested his feet — worse off even than the runners of the express courier-posts, back and forth, in and out, toiling on without end.
急遞鋪的鋪兵 — "the post-soldiers of the express relay-stations," 鋪 read pù ("relay-post"); 還甚 (hái shèn), "worse even [than]," 還 hái, 甚 shèn; 吊著, "hung there," durative 著 (zhe).
It was because I stole his treasures that I could at last beat off the fiend.”
平退妖魔 — "beat back the fiend"; Wukong closes his account by naming the treasures as the key to the victory.
Wukong’s recounting is both plot-summary and character-comedy. He lays out the episode’s bookkeeping — half the imps killed by the hair-clones, the stragglers finished off, the elder fled — with a veteran’s matter-of-factness, and then, when the grateful Tang Monk thanks him, cannot resist a good grumble.
The grumble is the passage’s delight: while the others merely "hung there and suffered," he alone "never once rested his feet," worse off than a courier-post runner, "back and forth, in and out." It is Wukong to the life — the indispensable laborer who wants his toil acknowledged — and it lands all the more because it is, this time, entirely deserved. He ends by crediting the stolen treasures with the win, turning the boast back toward the plot.