The elder, being by nature easily swayed, was worked upon by the blockhead, and called out: 'Wukong, if you truly have the means to cure this emperor back to life, then indeed "to save a single life is better than to raise a seven-story pagoda."'

一頭水 — 'all of a piece, like water' — is an idiom for someone with no resistance in them, who takes the shape of whatever is poured in. It is an unusually blunt thing for the narrator to say about Tripitaka, and it is fair. 救人一命，勝造七級浮圖: 'to save one life is better than to raise a seven-story pagoda' — a Buddhist proverb still in daily use, and a shrewd one to quote here, since building pagodas was the standard way for the rich to buy merit. 浮圖 is a transcription of stūpa. 那, twice, = nà; 長 = zhǎng.

'It would be even better for us than worshipping the Buddha on Spirit Mountain.'

強似靈山拜佛: better even than worshipping the Buddha at Spirit Mountain — which is, awkwardly, the destination of the entire pilgrimage. 強 = qiáng, 'stronger, better than'; 似 = sì; 佛 = fó.

The Pilgrim said: 'Master, how can you believe this blockhead's wild talk?'

信這獃子亂談: to believe this blockhead's wild talk (獃子: 子 the light ending). 行 = xíng.

'When a person dies — whether at the third seven, the fifth seven, the closing seventh, or the hundredth day — once the punishments of the mortal world are served out, they pass on to be reborn.'

Wukong answers with the timetable of the dead. A soul is judged in weekly stages after it leaves the body, and mourning families kept the count: 三七 is the third seven-day period, day twenty-one, and 五七 the fifth, day thirty-five. Serve out what the mortal world is owed and you pass on to be reborn — after which there is nobody left to call back. 盡 is one of those characters with two pronunciations, and which one you use depends on what the word is doing. Said jìn, on a falling tone, it means something has run its course — reached its end, been finished off, been used up: 盡頭 is the far end of a road, 用盡 is used up entirely. Said jǐn, on a rising tone, it means 'as much as you can' — pushing a thing as far as it will go, as in 盡快, 'as fast as possible.' This line is about a stretch of time running out, not about doing something to the utmost, so the falling tone is the right one. (盡七 is itself the standing name for the last of the seven weekly rites, the forty-ninth day.) 受滿…陽間罪過: having served out the punishments owed to the world of the living.

'This one has been dead three years now — how is he to be saved?'

救得: to be saved (得 = de). Three years is not twenty-one days, and the argument is a good one.

Tripitaka, hearing this, said: 'Well, let it be, then.'

也罷了: 'well, let it go, then.' Read bà le, the resigned exclamation, not the soft ending sound. He is persuaded — and Bajie is not finished. 三藏 = zàng.

Bajie, chafing bitterly and unappeased, said: 'Master, don't let him hoodwink you — he's a touch brain-addled.'

苦恨不息: chafing bitterly and not letting it rest (不 = bù). 夾腦風 — 'wind in the brain' — is a folk name for a touch of madness, wind being the traditional cause of sudden derangement. So Bajie is calling his brother soft in the head, in front of the one person who can act on it.

'Just recite that little spell of yours, and I'll warrant he gives you back a living man.'

那話兒: 'that little thing of yours,' the spell nobody has to name (那 = nà; 兒 the light ending). 還你一個活人: he'll hand you back a living man — where 還 is read huán, 'to give back,' not hái, 'still.'

And sure enough the Tang Monk recited the tightening-fillet spell, squeezing till the monkey's eyes bulged and his head throbbed.

緊箍兒咒: the tightening-fillet spell (兒 the light ending). 勒得…眼脹頭疼: squeezed until his eyes bulged and his head throbbed (得 = de; 那 = nà). Bajie gets exactly what he plotted on the road, and the chapter ends with the Great Sage in agony over a job he has already proved is impossible.