移山縮地 Moving Mountains, Shrinking the Land
行者心中暗想：「這潑怪不知在那裡，只管叫阿叫的。等我老孫送他一個『卯酉星法』，教他兩不見面。」好大聖，叫沙和尚前來：「攏著馬，慢慢走著，讓老孫解解手。」你看他讓唐僧先行幾步，卻念個咒語，使個移山縮地之法，把金箍棒往後一指，他師徒過此峰頭，往前走了，卻把那怪物撇下。行者心中暗想：「这泼怪不知在那里，只管叫阿叫的。等我老孙送他一个『卯酉星法』，教他两不见面。」好大圣，叫沙和尚前来：「拢着马，慢慢走着，让老孙解解手。」你看他让唐僧先行几步，却念个咒语，使个移山缩地之法，把金箍棒往后一指，他师徒过此峰头，往前走了，却把那怪物撇下。
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim thought to himself: "This vile monster — no telling where he is, only crying and crying away.
Wukong stops arguing and starts scheming. 心中暗想 takes zhōng; 不知在那裡 has the questioning 那裡, nǎ lǐ, "no telling where." 只管叫阿叫的 is "keeps on crying and crying" — the 阿 between the doubled verbs is a colloquial filler that makes the crying sound endless.
Let old Sun send him a 'Mao-You Star Method' and make the two of them never meet face to face."
The spell is named for two of the twelve earthly branches, which the Chinese used to mark both hours and compass points: 卯 is east and dawn, 酉 is west and dusk — opposite ends of the wheel. So the 卯酉星法 pins two parties at opposite bearings so that their paths can never cross. Think of it as bending the road rather than moving the traveller. 一 shifts to yí before the falling tone of 個; 教 is the order-giving jiào; 不 lifts to bú before 見.
Fine Great Sage! He called Sha Monk forward: "Hold the horse close and walk on slowly — let old Sun ease himself a moment."
And the excuse he uses to drop back is that he needs to relieve himself. 攏著馬 and 走著 both use the 著 that shows an action going on, zhe. 解解手 is a polite doubling — the everyday phrase for stepping away for a moment.
Watch him: he let the Tang Priest go a few steps ahead, then recited a spell and worked a method of moving mountains and shrinking the land — pointed his gold-hooped cudgel behind him — and once master and disciples had passed this peak and gone on forward, he left that monster stranded behind them.
你看他 is the storyteller nudging the audience to watch — 看 is kàn. 移山縮地, "moving mountains and shrinking the ground," is a stock spell of the genre: distance itself becomes something you can fold. 先行幾步 takes xíng; 往後一指 shifts 一 to yì before the dipping tone of 指; 走了 takes the completed 了, le; 那怪物 the pointing nà.
Where persuasion has failed, Wukong reaches for sorcery. The 卯酉星法 — named for the eastern and western marks of the twelve-branch cycle — together with the 移山縮地之法, the method of moving mountains and shrinking the ground, is a trick played on space itself. He means to bend the road so that the party and the crying child are set at opposite bearings and can never meet. It is characteristically ingenious: rather than win the argument, he removes the thing being argued about.
The cover story, that he must fall behind a moment to relieve himself, is a small comic touch, but the manoeuvre shows how far Wukong will go to protect the Master from his own compassion without ever explaining why. This is the bind of the whole sequence. He sees clearly, acts decisively, and cannot make his reasons legible in the moment. The spell works, for now, and the demon is left stranded on the wrong side of the peak. But the reader can already feel the limit of such tricks against an enemy who can shed his ropes and fly, and the next passage shows him doing exactly that.