That fine monk stripped off his cassock, girt up hand and foot, brandished his demon-quelling staff, and with a splash parted a path through the water, plunged into the waves, and strode on in with great long steps.

He strips, ties his sleeves and hems back, and goes in. 褊衫 is the monk's outer robe; 紮抹了手腳 is the everyday phrase for getting ready to work or fight - rolling your sleeves up, more or less exactly.

As he went, he heard the sound of voices.

And the whole plot arrives by eavesdropping. The fiend is about to explain himself in full, unprompted, to an empty room.

Sha Monk slipped to one side and stole a glance: over yonder stood a pavilion, and across the lintel of its gate were sealed eight great characters — "River-God's Palace of the Black-Water River, Hengyang Vale."

Eight characters sealed across the lintel: 衡陽峪黑水河神府, the River-God's Palace of the Black-Water River, Hengyang Vale. Note the wording - it is a god's palace, and the thing sitting in it is not a god. The rightful owner turns up five passages from here to say so.

And he heard the monster, seated above, say, "All this while I have toiled, and only today have I got my prize."

The monk is 物, a thing, a piece of goods - which tells you exactly how the fiend regards him. 得 is the full verb dé, to have got.

"This monk is a good man of ten lifetimes' cultivation; let me but eat one piece of his flesh, and I shall become an immortal who never ages."

The standing reason every demon in this book wants this particular monk: ten lifetimes of cultivation, and one bite of him buys immortality. It is the engine of about sixty chapters. 長 is cháng here, long, not zhǎng.

"For his sake I have waited long enough — and this day, at last, my wish is not denied."

朝 is zhāo in 今朝, a morning and so a day - the chapter's only such reading, against four of cháo.

Then he ordered: "You imps, bring out the iron cage at once, steam these two monks whole, and send a card to invite my second uncle to keep his birthday feast."

And here is the fatal order. 囫圇 is whole and uncut - they are to be steamed entire, like dumplings. 暖壽 is to feast on the eve of a birthday, "warming" it in advance. But the ruinous instruction is 具柬, "send a card": the fiend is about to destroy himself with correct etiquette.

At these words Sha Monk could not hold down the fire that leapt in his heart; he drew his staff and battered wildly at the gate.

按不住心頭火起 - the fire rising in the heart that he cannot press back down. This is the standing image for a temper going, and Sha Monk, the placid one, is the disciple it gets used on. 掣 is to snatch a weapon clear.

And he cursed aloud, "You foul thing — send out my master the Tang Monk and my brother Eight Rules this instant!"

潑 is the all-purpose abusive prefix of Ming vernacular - roughly "damned" - and 潑物 is "you foul thing." He demands the master and the brother back, and does not mention himself.

So terrified were the fiends within the gate that they ran to report, "Disaster!"

諕 is xià, to frighten - not the háo that its shape leads you to expect. 禍事了, "disaster!", is the standing cry of small demons everywhere in this book.

The old monster asked, "What disaster?"

老怪, the old monster - used once in the chapter, one passage before he finally gets a species.

A little imp said, "Outside there's a monk with an ill-omened, murky face, beating on the front gate and cursing, demanding someone back!"

The imp identifies Sha Monk purely by his complexion: 晦氣色臉, an unlucky, murky-looking face. The fiend will later describe him in the very same four characters, so the insult is evidently the standard one.