猴王設謀 The Monkey King Lays His Plan
話說那六健將出洞門，徑往西南上，依路而走。行者心中暗想道：「他要請老大王吃我師父，老大王斷是牛魔王。自老孫當年與他相會，真個意合情投，交遊甚厚。至如今我歸正道，他還是邪魔。雖則久別，還記得他模樣。且等老孫變作牛魔王，哄他一哄，看是何如。」话说那六健将出洞门，径往西南上，依路而走。行者心中暗想道：「他要请老大王吃我师父，老大王断是牛魔王。自老孙当年与他相会，真个意合情投，交游甚厚。至如今我归正道，他还是邪魔。虽则久别，还记得他模样。且等老孙变作牛魔王，哄他一哄，看是何如。」
逐句解 Line by line
So the six stalwart captains passed out through the cave-mouth and went straight off toward the southwest, following the road as it ran.
Six of Red Boy's officers were sent off at the close of the last chapter to fetch his father, and the chapter opens on them tramping down the road. In 六健將 the character 將 is jiàng, a captain or general — the falling-tone reading (去聲) that makes it a title rather than the little linking word jiāng. 那 points at them, so nà, "those six." 徑 is jìng: straight there, no detours.
Pilgrim, musing to himself, thought: "He means to send for the Old Great King to eat my master, and that Old Great King is surely the Bull Demon King.
Wukong is trailing them as a fly, and here he works out who is being sent for. The 老大王 — the "Old Great King" — is the 牛魔王, the Bull Demon King, and that name carries a history: he and Wukong were sworn brothers in the days of the 大鬧天宮, the Havoc in Heaven. In 心中, 中 is zhōng.
Ever since old Sun met with him in that bygone year, our minds have chimed and our feelings met — we kept close and cordial company.
意合情投 — minds agreeing, feelings meeting — is the stock phrase for two people who simply click, and it is doing quiet damage here, because the friendship Wukong recalls so fondly is the one he is about to trade on. In 相會, 相 is xiāng, to meet with one another; 甚 in 甚厚 is shèn, "very, exceedingly"; 當 in 當年 is dāng, "in that year."
But now that I have turned back to the True Way, he is a heretic-demon still.
One line, two old friends, and the whole distance between them. 歸正道 is "gone back to the true Way" — Wukong's turn to Buddhism — set against a Bull King who has turned nowhere at all. 還 in 還是 is hái, "still, yet."
Though we have long been parted, I remember his features yet.
還 is hái, "still." In 記得, to keep something in mind, 得 is dé — the sense of having got a thing and held on to it.
Let old Sun turn himself into the Bull Demon King, gull them with a little trick, and see how it goes."
The plan, in a single line. 哄 is hǒng, to hoodwink, and 一哄 is "give them one good hoodwinking." (Before the third-tone 哄, 一 shifts to yì.) 看 in 看是何如 is kàn.
The chapter opens on a lie being assembled. At the end of the last chapter Red Boy sent six captains out of the Fire-Cloud Cave to fetch his father; Wukong, riding along as a fly, hears the errand and starts building a plan around it. The father is the Bull Demon King — and with that name the book reaches all the way back to its own beginning, because in the days of the Havoc in Heaven the Monkey King and the Bull King were sworn brothers among seven, minds agreeing and feelings meeting, exactly as Wukong remembers here. So this is not merely a disguise: Wukong is about to put on the face of a brother in order to cheat that brother's son, and he thinks of the old friendship warmly while he does it.
The plan also answers the chapter before. There Red Boy counterfeited the Bodhisattva Guanyin to lure Eight Rules to his ruin; here Wukong will counterfeit the boy's own father to turn the trick around. Fake for fake — and the whole arc will end with a real binding by the real Guanyin.