The elder, in his clouded dream, listened as the sound of the wind swept by for a moment; and then he heard, faintly, from beyond the Chan hall, a voice calling out, “Master!”

A voice out of the dark calling him by title. The whole scene is inside the dream, which is why he can be warned and warn back without ever suspecting he is talking to a corpse. 聽著 takes zhe, holding the listening open; 聞得 takes the linking de. In 一時 and 一聲 the 一 lifts to yì before a falling tone. 中 is the plain locative zhōng.

Lifting his head abruptly, he looked about within the dream: beyond the door stood a fellow, drenched and dripping from head to foot, tears falling from his eyes, crying out ceaselessly only, “Master!”

The figure at the door is the classic wet ghost of Chinese storytelling: soaked through, weeping, and able to say only one word. 水淋淋 does the work — dripping, and still dripping. 站著 takes zhe; 漢子 ends in the light zi; 中 appears twice over, in 夢中 and 眼中; 不住 bú zhù is "without stopping," the 不 lifting before a fourth tone.

Tripitaka rose a little and said, “Are you not some goblin or sprite, some spirit-fiend or heterodox demon, come in the dead of night to sport with me?

Tripitaka's first move is to run through the taxonomy of things that might be standing there. 魍魎 wǎng liǎng are sprites of hill and water; 妖魅 yāo mèi are goblins and elf-spirits. He is being careful, not cruel — but he is also, as it turns out, wrong about every category he offers.

I am not of that sort given over to greed and to wrath.

He answers the charge before it is made: he is not the kind of monk a demon could get purchase on. 貪嗔 tān chēn names craving and anger, two of the three root defilements of Buddhist psychology. 那 is the pointing nà.

I am at heart a monk upright and true, who by the decree of the Great Tang in the Land of the East goes up to the Western Heaven to worship the Buddha and seek the scriptures.

The full formal self-introduction, produced at speed in the middle of the night — sent by the Tang court, bound west for the scriptures. 光明正大 guāng míng zhèng dà, "bright and upright," is still in daily use for someone with nothing to hide. 佛 is always fó.

Under my hand are three disciples, heroes all who subdue dragons and tame tigers, stalwarts who sweep away monsters and rid the world of demons.

And now the threat, delivered in matched four-character phrases: 降龍伏虎 xiáng lóng fú hǔ, tamers of dragons and tigers, and 掃怪除魔, sweepers-away of monsters. 降 here is xiáng, to subdue, not jiàng, to descend. 都 is dōu, "every one of them."

Should they set eyes on you, they would grind your corpse and pound your bones to powder, and scatter you as fine dust.

The threat lands with unusual specificity for a compassionate man. 碎屍粉骨 suì shī fěn gǔ — shatter the corpse, powder the bones. 見了 takes the completive le.

This I say out of my great compassion, my heart of expedient mercy.

The joke is that he means it. Having promised to have the visitor ground to dust, he presents the warning as an act of mercy: 慈悲 cí bēi is compassion — the Sanskrit karuṇā — and 方便 fāng biàn is skilful means, Sanskrit upāya, the doctrine that a teacher may fit the method to the hearer. Fair warning is the fitted method here.

Betimes now hide yourself away and flee afar; do not come up to my Chan gate.”

"Clear off while you can." 趁早兒 chèn zǎo er is "at the first opportunity," with 兒 as the light er ending, not the full ér; 遠遁 yuǎn dùn is to bolt a long way off.

The man, leaning firm against the Chan hall, said, “Master, I am no demon or ogre, nor any goblin or heterodox spirit.”

The visitor does not move, and he does not argue with the categories — he simply denies all of them. 倚定 yǐ dìng is to lean firmly against something, which for a ghost is quietly odd. 那 is the pointing nà.

Tripitaka said, “If you are not of that kind, then for what do you come here in the deep of night?”

The right question at last, and the one the ghost has been waiting for. 何為 is "for what purpose," with 為 read wèi, the reason-sense, not wéi.

The man said, “Master, spare a glance and take one look at me.”

"Spare me a glance." 舍眼 shě yǎn is to let the eyes fall on something; 一看 has 一 as yí before a fourth tone. The request is modest and the payoff is the imperial portrait that follows.

The elder, looking indeed with fixed and careful gaze — ah! —

He looks properly, and the storyteller lets him gasp on the page: 呀. 仔細 zǐ xì is "carefully," with 仔 read zǐ here, not zǎi; 定睛 dìng jīng is to fix the eyes.

he saw only this of him:

只見他 — "all he saw of him was this" — is the formula that opens an embedded portrait.

On his head a sky-piercing crown; round his waist a belt of green jade; on his body a russet-yellow robe of soaring dragons and dancing phoenixes; on his feet a pair of cloud-toed, embroidered-mouthed “sorrow-free” shoes; in his hand a white-jade tablet set with the Dipper and arrayed stars.

The portrait is built by growth: two seven-character lines, then three of eleven, each adding another layer of regalia until the figure is fully robed. Crown, jade belt, dragon-and-phoenix robe in 赭黃 (the russet-yellow reserved for the sovereign), cloud-toed shoes, and the tablet. 沖天冠 is the tall imperial crown; 白玉珪 bái yù guī is the white-jade audience tablet a ruler holds at court — remember it, because the entire plot will turn on this object. 珪 is a variant of 圭; 列斗 liè dǒu means "set out like the Dipper," with 斗 read dǒu.

His face like the Long-Life Emperor of the Eastern Peak; his form like Lord Wenchang, opener of civilization.

The portrait closes by making him a god twice over: 東岳長生帝, the deified sovereign of Mount Tai (長生 is cháng shēng, "long life"), and 文昌, the god of letters and examinations. Note that the chapter spells the Eastern Peak 東岳 here and 東嶽 later on — the same name, two characters, encoded as the edition prints them. 似 is sì, "resembles."