The Great Sage, bearing the demon, grumbled in his heart at the Tang Priest's ignorance of hardship: "Traveling this steep and perilous mountain-country, even empty-handed one can hardly walk, and yet he has old Sun carry a person.

Wukong grumbles, and the grievance is legitimate. 馱著妖魔 uses the ongoing 著, zhe; 心中 takes zhōng; 行此險峻 takes xíng; 難 is nán, hard; 教 is the order-giving jiào.

Never mind that this fellow is a demon — even were he a real person, with no father or mother, and no telling to whom I'd deliver him, I'd rather just dash him dead and be done."

And the decision, arrived at with startling coldness. 將他馱與何人 uses the object-marking 將, jiāng; 倒不如 has 倒 as dào, "rather, on the contrary," and keeps 不 as plain bù before the rising tone of 如; the sentence-closing 罷 is the light ba. Note the reasoning: even if he were a real child, there is nobody to deliver him to — Wukong is still working from the hole he found in the story.

That monster already knew it beforehand, and at once worked a magic: from all four sides he drew in four breaths and blew them onto Pilgrim's back, so that it felt to weigh a thousand catties.

The demon strikes first, and the weapon is weight. He draws breath from the four quarters and blows it onto Wukong's back until it weighs a thousand 斤 — around six hundred kilograms. 那怪物 takes the pointing nà; 知覺了 has 覺 as jué plus the completed 了, le; 行者 is always xíng; 重 is zhòng.

Pilgrim laughed: "My boy — you're working a weight-magic to crush your old sire!"

我兒啊 — "my boy" — is Wukong claiming the senior position, and it will turn out to be nearer the truth than he knows. In 我兒 the 兒 keeps its full ér; 重身法 takes 重 as zhòng. 老爺 is "his lordship," used of himself.

That monster, hearing this, and fearing the Great Sage would harm him, at once loosed the corpse — sent out his primal spirit, sprang up and away, and stood poised in the ninefold empyrean.

And here is the detail everything turns on. 解尸 is a technique of the accomplished adept: to loose the body and leave it behind while the 元神, the primal spirit, goes free. What Wukong is about to destroy is a discarded shell. 那怪 takes the pointing nà; 跳將起去 uses the directional 將, jiāng.

And Pilgrim's back grew heavier still.

The weight increases after the demon has already left, which is the reader's confirmation that the load and the demon are now two different things. 重 is zhòng; 了 the completed le.

The Monkey King, flaring into rage, snatched him up and, on a slick flat stone by the roadside, smashed him down with a slap — dashing the corpse-frame into something like a meat-patty.

The violence is sudden and total. 滑辣 is a sound-word for the smack of the impact, and 肉餅, "a meat-cake," is exactly as unpleasant as it sounds. 那路傍邊 takes the pointing nà and 傍 as páng; 一摜 shifts 一 to yí before the falling tone of 摜; 將屍骸 uses the object-marking 將, jiāng; 摜得 the light hinge 得, de; 一般 shifts 一 to yì before the level tone of 般.

Still fearing he might again make trouble, he tore off all four limbs for good measure, flung them to both sides of the road, and reduced the whole to fragments.

And then he does it again, thoroughly, which is the mark of someone who has been made to look foolish. 還恐他 takes 還 as hái; 索性將四肢 uses 將, jiāng, and 索性 means "for good measure, once and for all"; 俱粉碎了 takes the completed 了, le.