The Bodhisattva said: "How very much at your ease you are!

Her reply is one dry line. 好 in 你好自在 is hǎo — how very much at your ease you are.

I want none of your clothes, your iron cudgel, or your golden fillet — only pluck one of those life-saving hairs at the back of your head and give it me for a pledge."

She names her price, and it is nothing he can wriggle out of: one hair. 將 in 只將你那 is jiāng; 那 points, so nà; 當 in 作當 is dàng, as pledge; 罷 is the soft ba.

Pilgrim said: "These hairs, too, are what you yourself gave me.

First line of defense: you gave me these too.

But I fear that if I pluck one out, the set will be broken, and it'll no longer save my life."

Second line: they only work as a set. 拆破群了 is to break up the set — an excuse offered with a straight face about three hairs.

The Bodhisattva scolded: "You monkey!

The exasperation is affectionate. The 子 ending 猴子 is the light zi.

You won't part with so much as a single hair, yet you'd have me give up my Sudhana as well?"

And the retort lands: you will not part with one hair, but you expect me to part with Sudhana. 教 is jiào; 難 is nán, loath to give up.

Pilgrim laughed: "Bodhisattva, you are indeed over-suspicious.

He laughs, concedes, and goes for the closing argument.

As the saying goes: 'If not for the monk's face, then for the Buddha's.'

The clincher is a proverb still in daily use: 不看僧面看佛面 — if you will not do it for the monk's sake, do it for the Buddha's. It is what you say when you want someone to overlook you and think of who stands behind you. 正是 here introduces a quotation, not a poem, and the edition prints it in its quotation marks, so it takes no verse marking. Both instances of 看 are kàn, to regard or have regard for; 佛 is fó.

By all means, save my master from this one ordeal, then."

And the request itself, at last. 難 here is nàn, an ordeal — the word of the 八十一難, the eighty-one ordeals the pilgrimage must undergo, of which this is one. (Before the fourth-tone nàn, 一 reads yí.) 罷 is the soft ba.