手段比較 Whose Skill Is Greater
行者道：「那怪物的手段比我何如？」八戒道：「不濟。」「槍法比我何如？」八戒道：「也不濟。老豬見他撐持不住，卻來助你一鈀，不期他不識耍，就敗下陣來，沒天理，就放火了。」行者道：「正是你不該來。我再與他鬥幾合，我取巧兒撈他一棒，卻不是好？」行者道：「那怪物的手段比我何如？」八戒道：「不济。」「枪法比我何如？」八戒道：「也不济。老猪见他撑持不住，却来助你一钯，不期他不识耍，就败下阵来，没天理，就放火了。」行者道：「正是你不该来。我再与他斗几合，我取巧儿捞他一棒，却不是好？」
逐句解 Line by line
The Pilgrim said: ‘How does that creature's fighting-skill measure against mine?’
Wukong has just been comprehensively told off, and his response is to fish for reassurance. 比我何如, how does he measure against me? It is not really a tactical question.
Eight Rules said: ‘No match.’
Two characters. 不濟 means no good, not up to it -- so, no match. Bajie is not being kind here; he is being accurate, and he happens to know it is what his brother wants to hear.
‘And how does his spear-play measure against mine?’
And having got the answer he wanted once, Wukong asks again about a different weapon. The repetition is the joke.
Eight Rules said: ‘Also no match.
也不濟, also no match. Which establishes the thing that actually matters: in straight combat the demon loses. The fire is his only advantage, and it is enough.
When old Pig saw he couldn't hold out, I came to help you with a rake-stroke; who'd have thought he couldn't take a joke, but fell back from the field, and — shameless creature — went and set the fire.’
Bajie's version of events, which is worth comparing with what the reader actually saw. He says he stepped in because the demon could not hold out. The reader knows he stepped in because he was worried about the credit. 不識耍, he could not take a joke, is a marvellous way to describe someone reacting to a rake swung at his skull. 沒天理, no law in heaven, is what you say when someone else cheats.
The Pilgrim said: ‘It is precisely that you should not have come.
Wukong's reply is blunt and probably right: you should not have come. 正是 here is just ordinary speech, "it is precisely that" -- not the set-piece cue it looks like.
Let me fight him a few more bouts, and take him with a clever snatch of my cudgel — would that not be well?’
And his plan: a few more bouts, then 取巧兒, a clever bit of opportunism, and land one blow. 撈 lāo is to scoop or snag something out of reach. It is not a bad plan for a fight. It is no plan at all for a fire, and the next passage is about to point that out.
The exchange establishes the tactical facts. The demon is beaten on the cudgel and beaten on the spear; only the fire tips it. That is genuinely useful information, and both brothers now have it.
Neither of them does anything with it. Bajie gives a self-serving account of a rescue that was really a bid for credit, and Wukong proposes to solve the problem by fighting the same fight slightly harder. Between them they have understood everything except the one thing that matters, which is that the fire is not a fighting problem. Sha Monk, who has said nothing for two passages, is about to point this out by laughing at them.