尋見洞府 尋見洞府 | Finding the Cave-Dwelling
三兄弟各辦虔心，牽著白馬，馬上馱著行李，找大路一直前進。無分晝夜，行了百十里遠近，忽見一松林，林中有一條曲澗，澗下有碧澄澄的活水飛流，那澗梢頭有一座石板橋，通著那廂洞府。行者道：「兄弟，你看那壁廂有石崖磷磷，想必是妖精住處了。我等從眾商議：那個管看守行李、馬匹？那個肯跟我過去降妖？」三兄弟各办虔心，牵着白马，马上驮着行李，找大路一直前进。无分昼夜，行了百十里远近，忽见一松林，林中有一条曲涧，涧下有碧澄澄的活水飞流，那涧梢头有一座石板桥，通着那厢洞府。行者道：「兄弟，你看那壁厢有石崖磷磷，想必是妖精住处了。我等从众商议：那个管看守行李、马匹？那个肯跟我过去降妖？」
逐句解 Line by line
The three brothers each summoned up a devout heart, led the white horse with the luggage loaded on its back, found the high road and pressed straight ahead.
The party moves off, and the tone steadies. 各辦虔心, "each summoned up a devout heart," is the formula the novel uses when the four of them stop bickering and become a company again. Both 著 — in 牽著 and 馱著 — are the one that shows an action going on, zhe. In 行李, "luggage," 行 is xíng.
Making no difference between day and night, they travelled some hundred li and more, when of a sudden they saw a pine wood. In the wood was a winding gully, and below the gully clear green living water came flying down; at the head of that gully stood a bridge of stone slabs, and it led across to a cave-dwelling on the far side.
The chapter ends where the next one will begin, and the description is doing the handover. 無分晝夜, "making no division between day and night" — 分 is fēn, "to divide." Then the geography arrives in the same linked-chain style as the mountain description far back in the chapter: wood, gully, water, bridge, cave, each picking up the last. 碧澄澄 is a doubled word for water so clear it is almost solid colour. 通著 takes the ongoing 著, zhe. Both 那 — before 澗梢頭 and before 廂 — are the pointing nà.
Pilgrim said: "Brother, look over on that side — there are rocky cliffs all glittering. That must surely be the demon's dwelling.
磷磷 is a doubled word for stone catching the light, a glitter with something cold in it. 那壁廂 is "over on that side," with the pointing nà; 住處 takes 處 as chù, a place.
Let us all take counsel: which of you will mind the luggage and the horses?
Two readings turn over in one short line. 那個 here is the questioning 那, nǎ — "which one of you," not "that one." And 看守, "to guard," takes the other 看: kān, to watch over something, rather than the kàn meaning "to look" that has run through the whole chapter. Same character, two jobs, and the difference is between looking at a thing and being answerable for it.
And which will come with me to subdue the demon?"
The second 那個 is again the questioning nǎ. 降妖 takes 降 as xiáng, "to subdue" — the same reading the chapter gave it at the very beginning, in 降魔, and not the jiàng that means "to come down."
The talking stops and the walking resumes. 各辦虔心, "each summoned up a devout heart," is the formula the novel keeps for the moments when the four of them stop squabbling and become a company again, and it marks the real end of the crisis that began when Wukong proposed they all go their separate ways. A hundred li and more pass in a clause, and then the landscape narrows: a pine wood, a winding gully, clear water coming down, a bridge of stone slabs, and on the far side of it a cave.
That chain of nouns is doing careful work. It is built the same way as the great mountain description far back at the start of the chapter, each item catching up the last, but where that one piled on ornament this one simply closes the distance, step by step, until the party is standing at the threshold. The reader who has been paying attention will also notice what the text has not yet said outright: this must be the Withered Pine Gully the mountain spirits named, which is also the home the false child claimed for himself — the lie was stitched out of true geography all along. Wukong's two questions, who will guard the baggage and who will come to the door, are the last practical business of the chapter, and the answers set the board for everything that follows.