屏退左右 Dismissing the Attendants
行者聞言，哂笑不絕。太子再問不答，只是哂笑。太子怒道：「這廝當言不言，如何這等哂笑？」行者又道：「還有許多話哩，奈何左右人眾，不是說處。」太子見他言語有因，將袍袖一展，教軍士且退。那駕上官將急傳令，將三千人馬都出門外住扎。此時殿上無人，太子坐在上面，長老立在前邊，左手傍立著行者。本寺諸僧皆退。行者才正色上前道：「殿下，化風去的是你生身之父母；見坐位的，是那祈雨之全真。」行者闻言，哂笑不绝。太子再问不答，只是哂笑。太子怒道：「这厮当言不言，如何这等哂笑？」行者又道：「还有许多话哩，奈何左右人众，不是说处。」太子见他言语有因，将袍袖一展，教军士且退。那驾上官将急传令，将三千人马都出门外住扎。此时殿上无人，太子坐在上面，长老立在前边，左手傍立着行者。本寺诸僧皆退。行者才正色上前道：「殿下，化风去的是你生身之父母；见坐位的，是那祈雨之全真。」
逐句解 Line by line
Hearing this, Pilgrim smiled a mocking smile without cease.
Wukong's response to all that certainty is to laugh, and keep laughing. 哂笑 shěn xiào is a derisive smile, not a friendly one; 不絕 is without stopping.
The prince asked again, but he gave no answer, only smiling on.
The silence is tactical. He has nothing more to say in front of an audience, and he wants the prince to notice.
The prince said angrily, “This fellow — when he should speak, he speaks not; why does he smile so?”
It works. 當言不言 — when he ought to speak he does not — with 當 as dāng, ought. Being smiled at is more provoking than being contradicted.
Pilgrim said again, “There is yet much to tell, but with so many attendants to left and right, this is no place to speak.”
And the real reason surfaces: too many ears. 不是說處 is "no place for speaking"; 奈何 is "but what can one do"; 還有 has 還 as hái.
The prince, seeing there was ground to his words, gave a wave of his robe-sleeve and bade the soldiers withdraw.
One flick of a sleeve, and three thousand men leave. 言語有因 is "there is ground to his words" — the boy has decided the monkey is worth hearing. 將袍袖一展 has 將 as jiāng; 教軍士 has 教 as jiào, the causative.
The officers of the escort quickly passed the order, and took the three thousand horse and men all out beyond the gate to encamp.
The escort camps outside the gate — which will matter shortly, when the prince has to slip back into the city without them. 官將 has 將 standing alone as jiàng, an officer, while 將三千 in the same line is 將 as jiāng, taking the three thousand: the same character twice in one sentence, two different words. 都 is dōu; 那 is the pointing nà.
Now, with none upon the hall, the prince sat above, the elder stood before, and at his left hand stood Pilgrim beside him.
The staging is deliberate and worth picturing: prince seated above, monk standing below, monkey at his left hand. An audience chamber with three people in it. 傍立著 has 傍 as páng, alongside, and 著 as zhe; 長老 takes 長 as zhǎng; 太子 keeps 子 as zǐ. (The sealed note glossed this 傍 as bàng in passing while ruling it páng in the same breath; páng is the reading.)
The monks of the monastery had all withdrawn.
Even the monastery's own monks are gone. The room is finally empty enough for the truth.
Only then did Pilgrim, with a grave face, step forward and say, “Your Highness, the one who went off upon the wind was the father who begot you;
And he says it, without any of the performance. 正色 is to compose the face into gravity — the physical opposite of the smirking he was doing a moment ago. Note the wording: 生身之父母 uses the two-character word for both parents where only the father can be meant, a looseness the edition prints and the translation resolves. 化風去的 — "the one who went off on the wind" — is the prince's own phrase, handed back to him with its meaning reversed.
and the one you see upon the throne is that rain-praying Quanzhen adept.”
Seven characters to finish the reversal: the man on the throne is the rain-praying adept. 那祈雨之全真 takes the pointing nà.
Wukong's mocking silence is a manoeuvre. By refusing to speak in front of the crowd he forces the prince to clear the hall, and three thousand men go out to camp beyond the gate. The boy is now isolated — which is precisely what the fiend once did to his father, and what the fiend has been doing to him for three years.
In the emptied hall, with the prince seated above and monk and monkey standing before him, Wukong finally drops the levity and states the chapter's hidden fact in two clauses: the one blown away on the wind was your father, and the one on the throne is the adept. The long stratagem — dream, tablet, casket, rabbit, arrest — existed to make those two sentences sayable to this one listener.