水底晶宮 The Crystal Palace at the Bottom
行者掣上棒來，笑道：「兄弟，可有寶貝麼？」八戒道：「見甚麼寶貝，只是一井水。」行者道：「寶貝沉在水底下哩，你下去摸一摸來。」呆子真個深知水性，卻就打個猛子，淬將下去。呀！那井底深得緊。他卻著實又一淬，忽睜眼見有一座牌樓，上有「水晶宮」三個字。八戒大驚道：「罷了，罷了，錯走了路了，蹡下海來也。海內有個水晶宮，井裡如何有之？」原來八戒不知此是井龍王的水晶宮。行者掣上棒来，笑道：「兄弟，可有宝贝么？」八戒道：「见甚么宝贝，只是一井水。」行者道：「宝贝沉在水底下哩，你下去摸一摸来。」呆子真个深知水性，却就打个猛子，淬将下去。呀！那井底深得紧。他却着实又一淬，忽睁眼见有一座牌楼，上有「水晶宫」三个字。八戒大惊道：「罢了，罢了，错走了路了，蹡下海来也。海内有个水晶宫，井里如何有之？」原来八戒不知此是井龙王的水晶宫。
逐句解 Line by line
The Pilgrim drew the staff back up and said with a laugh: 'Brother, is there any treasure?'
Staff back up, and a question asked with a perfectly straight face. 掣上棒來: drew the staff back up. 行 = xíng.
Bajie said: 'What treasure do you see? It's nothing but a well of water.'
只是一井水: it's a well, and there's water in it. 甚麼 = shén me.
The Pilgrim said: 'The treasure has sunk to the bottom — go down and feel about for it.'
沉在水底下: sunk right to the bottom. 摸一摸: have a feel about. Wukong keeps extending the story exactly as far as he needs it to go. 行 = xíng.
The blockhead, who indeed knew water well, made a dive and plunged straight down.
深知水性: he knows water's ways — and he does, having commanded the Heavenly River before his fall, which is why a naked pig in a well is more competent than he looks. 打個猛子: to make a plunging dive. 淬將下去: down he goes (將 = jiāng). 呆子 = dāi zi, 'blockhead' (子 the light ending).
Ah!
呀！ again, and this time the surprise is a real one.
The bottom of the well was terribly deep.
深得緊: deep to an alarming degree (得 = de). 那 = nà.
He gave a good hard plunge more, and, opening his eyes of a sudden, saw an archway bearing three characters: 'Crystal Palace.'
著實又一淬: one more good hard plunge — 著實 (著 read zhuó) means 'in earnest, really.' 牌樓 is a free-standing ornamental archway, the kind that marks the entrance to somewhere important. 水晶宮, the Crystal Palace, is a dragon-king's court, and finding one at the bottom of a garden well is roughly as expected as finding a cathedral in your cellar.
Bajie cried out in alarm: 'Done for! Done for! I've gone the wrong way and pitched down into the sea!'
罷了，罷了: 'done for, done for.' Read bà le here, an exclamation of dismay, and quite distinct from the soft sentence-ending 罷 (ba) that has been turning up all chapter — the same character, two entirely different jobs. 蹡下海來: pitched down into the sea (蹡 read qiāng, a verb of stumbling or lurching). 錯走了路: taken the wrong road.
'There's a Crystal Palace in the sea — how could there be one in a well?'
His reasoning is impeccable and his premise is wrong. Crystal palaces belong to the sea; therefore he must be in the sea.
It was that Bajie did not know this was the Crystal Palace of the Well Dragon-King.
井龍王: the Well Dragon-King. Chinese dragon-kings came at every scale — oceans, rivers, lakes, and yes, individual wells — so a well has its own resident sovereign, a modest one, and Bajie has just barged into his front garden. 不知 = bù.
Wukong keeps the sunken-treasure story running, and Bajie — a former marshal of the Heavenly River, entirely at home in water — obligingly dives. The novel is drawing on his past here: his competence is real even though his errand is a fabrication. The dive takes the comedy from the surface of the well down into its stranger depths.
What is waiting reframes the whole space. An archway reading 'Crystal Palace' means a dragon-king's court, and Bajie's dismay — done for, I've fallen into the sea — is funny, but his bafflement is also the reader's: crystal palaces belong to oceans, not to holes in a garden. The well turns out not to be a hole at all but a doorway.
The narrator's closing aside supplies the key the character lacks, naming the Well Dragon-King and introducing the figure who will govern the next several scenes. Chinese dragon-kings scale to their waters, and this one is a very small sovereign indeed — but he is the custodian of the drowned king's preserved body, which turns a grave-robbing into a negotiation.