Now the Great Sage Sun, leading Eight Rules, took leave of Sha the Monk, leapt across the Withered-Pine Torrent, and came straight up before the strange rock-face of the cliff.

卻說, "now, to resume," is the standard way a chapter picks the thread back up after its opening song. 那 appears twice, both times just pointing -- that Great Sage, that rocky cliff. 枯松澗, Withered-Pine Torrent, is the stream that runs through the whole Red Boy arc, and 徑 jìng is "straight there, no detour" -- Wukong is not sightseeing.

There indeed stood a cave-mansion, and its prospect was truly beyond the common. Behold:

The prose ends on 但見, "behold" -- the narrator's signal that a descriptive set-piece is about to start. Ming novels announce their verse the way a stage direction announces a song, and the tag stays with the prose rather than being set as part of the poem. 一座 takes yí, the tone shifting before the falling tone of 座.

The ancient road where the royal carriage once turned lies secluded and still; to wind and moon the black crane gives its sporting call.

迴鑾古道 means the old road where an emperor's carriage once turned back; 鑾 names the phoenix-bells on the imperial coach. That is very grand language to spend on a monster's driveway, and the mismatch is deliberate. 還 is hái, "and moreover," so 幽還靜 is "secluded, and quiet with it." The 玄鶴, black crane, is the bird an immortal rides.

White clouds break through, and the whole river brims with light; running water crosses the bridge, and immortal fancy quickens.

仙意興, "the mood of the immortals stirs." 興 is xìng, mood or high spirits, not the xīng that means to raise something up. A matched pair of scenery lines, nothing awkward in them.

Gibbons cry and birds call among rare flowering trees; through vine and creeper the stone ledges climb, where iris and orchid excel.

石蹬 is stone steps cut into a slope. 蹬 is read dèng here, the sense it shares with 磴, a stone stair -- not the common dēng "to tread or stamp," which is what a modern reader would reach for first. That same character turned up in the opening song as 蹬蹭, stumbling, at the other reading -- two jobs, two sounds, ten lines apart. 芝蘭, iris and orchid, is the standing image for fragrant excellence.

Grey-green sways through cliff and ravine, scattering mist and rose-tinged cloud; kingfisher hues stain pine and bamboo, beckoning the painted phoenix.

A colour-matched pair: 蒼搖, the grey-green sways, against 翠染, the kingfisher-blue dyes. 散 is sàn, the verb, "to scatter." 篁 huáng is a stand of bamboo, and the 彩鳳 is the five-coloured phoenix.

Far off the summits stand ranged like a screen set upright; mountains face and torrents wind — a true immortal's cave.

似 is sì, "resemble" -- the peaks stand ranged like a folding screen set upright. 朝 is cháo, "to face toward," so the mountains face inward while the streams wind around. The pay-off is 真仙洞, "a true immortal's grotto," which is the joke: the tenant is a child-demon who eats monks.

From the Kunlun the earth-veins send forth their coming dragon; only one with the destined lot and the affinity may hold it.

崑崙, Kunlun, is the mythic mountain from which the earth's energy-lines (地脈) and the "coming dragon" (來龍) of Chinese geomancy are said to run. 有分有緣 is a set phrase pairing 分 fèn, your destined share, with 緣 yuán, the affinity that brings things together -- so the site belongs to whoever is fated to hold it, which is a convenient doctrine if you are the one squatting in it.