The monks then bowed once more.

Another round of bowing, now that everybody is seated.

Tripitaka said: "Prior, please rise; no need for further bowing — it only abases this poor monk. You and I are alike disciples of the Buddha's gate."

And Tripitaka states the principle the abbot spent the afternoon denying. 作踐 is to demean or degrade; 行禮 takes 行 as xíng; 和你 is "you and I," 和 read hé; 都 is dōu; 佛 is fó.

The abbot said: "Your Lordship is an envoy of the superior kingdom; this humble monk failed to welcome you properly."

The apology arrives with the flattery already attached. 上國 is the superior kingdom, meaning China; 欽差 is an imperially commissioned envoy, 差 read chāi. 和尚 takes hé.

"Now that you've come to our poor hill — alas that these worldly eyes failed to know your honoured presence, and met your Lordship as if by mere chance."

He blames his eyes rather than his manners. 荒山, "wild hill," is the self-deprecating word for one's own temple; 俗眼 are worldly, undiscerning eyes; 邂逅相逢 is to meet by chance, 相 read xiāng.

"May I ask your Lordship: on the road, do you keep to a vegetarian diet,"

動問 is "may I presume to ask"; 吃素 is to keep to vegetarian fare.

"or do you eat meat?"

吃葷 is to eat meat and the pungent vegetables — garlic, onion and their relatives — that monastic rule excludes along with flesh.

"so that we may go and prepare the meal."

辦飯 is to see to the food.

Tripitaka said: "Vegetarian."

One word, and the tension of the last twenty minutes evaporates into catering. 藏 is zàng.

The abbot said to his disciples: "This lord here surely eats meat."

He assumes the terrifying one must be a meat-eater. 好的 is a colloquial "surely, no doubt."

The Pilgrim said: "We eat vegetarian too — vegetarian from the womb."

胎裡素 is "vegetarian from inside the womb" — the Chinese phrase for someone who has never eaten meat at all, and Wukong deploys it with a straight face. 都 is dōu, 行 is xíng.

The monk said: "My lord! —"

那 is nà; 和尚 takes hé.

"a fierce fellow like this eats vegetarian too?"

兇漢 is a ferocious fellow. The monk simply cannot make the two facts fit together.

One bolder monk came forward and asked further: "Since your Lordships eat vegetarian, how much rice must we cook for a meal to be enough?"

膽量大 is bold, stout-hearted — and it takes a stout heart to ask a follow-up question in this room. 多少 is "how much," 少 read shǎo; 和尚 takes hé.

Bajie said: "You stingy little monk, why ask?"

小家子 is petty, tight-fisted, 子 the light suffix zi. 甚 is shén; 和尚 takes hé.

"Each household cooks up a whole dàn of rice."

And Eight Rules names a figure that empties the kitchens. The measure stays in Chinese: a 石 is the top rung of the grain ladder — ten 斗, a hundred 升, something like a hundred litres of rice, and that per household. The same character is shí, "stone," at the censer and the lion elsewhere in this chapter; only the grain-measure sense takes dàn.

The monks were all thrown into a panic, and went off to scour the pots and stoves and lay out food in every cell.

刷洗鍋灶 is to scrub out the pots and stove. 那 is nà, 和尚 takes hé, 都 is dōu; 各房中 takes 中 as zhōng.

They raised the bright lamps, set out tables and chairs, and waited on Tripitaka.

高掌明燈 is to hold the lamps up high; 調開 is to set out or arrange, 調 read diào; 管待 is to wait on somebody properly.