剃頂受戒 Tonsured and Vowed
菩薩聞言，卻與二行者、白鸚哥低下金光，到了妖精面前，問道：「你可受吾戒行麼？」妖王點頭滴淚道：「若饒性命，願受戒行。」菩薩道：「你可入我門麼？」妖王道：「果饒性命，願入法門。」菩薩道：「既如此，我與你摩頂受戒。」就袖中取出一把金剃頭刀兒，近前去，把那怪分頂剃了幾刀，剃作一個太山壓頂，與他留下三個頂搭，挽起三個窩角揪兒。菩萨闻言，却与二行者、白鹦哥低下金光，到了妖精面前，问道：「你可受吾戒行么？」妖王点头滴泪道：「若饶性命，愿受戒行。」菩萨道：「你可入我门么？」妖王道：「果饶性命，愿入法门。」菩萨道：「既如此，我与你摩顶受戒。」就袖中取出一把金剃头刀儿，近前去，把那怪分顶剃了几刀，剃作一个太山压顶，与他留下三个顶搭，挽起三个窝角揪儿。
逐句解 Line by line
The Bodhisattva, hearing this, lowered her golden light with the two pilgrims and the white parrot, came before the fiend, and asked: "Will you receive my discipline?"
The 二行者, the two pilgrims, are Wukong and Moksha — both carry the title, which is why the phrase covers them both. 行 is xíng in both 二行者 and 戒行.
The demon king nodded, shedding tears, and said: "If my life is spared, I am willing to receive the discipline."
In tears, and conditional: if my life is spared. 行 in 戒行 is xíng.
The Bodhisattva said: "Will you enter my gate?"
The second of the two formal questions.
The demon king said: "If indeed my life is spared, I am willing to enter the gate of the Law."
And the second assent, on the same condition.
The Bodhisattva said: "Since it is so, I will lay my hand on your crown and give you the vows."
摩頂受戒 is to lay a hand on the crown of the head and confer the precepts — the gesture of ordination, and the moment an enemy becomes a novice.
From her sleeve she drew a golden tonsure-razor, came up close, parted the crown of the monster's head and gave it a few strokes, shaving it into a "Mount Tai Pressing the Crown," leaving him three tufts and binding them up into three little corner-knots.
The haircut is described with startling precision. 太山壓頂 — Mount Tai pressing down on the crown — is the name of the style, and the three tufts left and tied into corner-knots are the standard way a small boy's hair was dressed. It is a demon being turned into a child. 中 in 袖中 is zhōng; both instances of 兒 in 刀兒 and 揪兒 are the light er ending; 那 points, so nà; 分 in 分頂 is fēn, to part.
With the demon broken and pleading, the scene turns formal and ritual. Guanyin puts the two questions — will you receive my discipline, will you enter my gate — and, on his tearful assent, performs the tonsure, drawing a golden razor from her sleeve and shaving his head into the Mount Tai Pressing the Crown style, leaving three tufts bound into corner-knots. The ceremony marks his passage from adversary to novice: the same fire-spitting Sage-Boy who steamed monks is now shorn and vowed. And the precise, almost tender detail of the haircut — three tufts, three little knots, the way a small boy's hair was dressed — domesticates the terror into something like a child received into a household, which is exactly what the naming in the next passage confirms.
The tonsure is described with more physical detail than the impaling was, and the difference is telling. Where the blades got a single stroke of description, the haircut gets the particular style, the count of tufts and the way they were knotted — the way a small boy's hair was dressed. The book slows down not for the violence but for the moment the terror becomes a child, and that is where its interest has been all along.