The monks knocked their heads: "Grandfather, it works indeed!"

靈顯, potent, working — the word used of a god or a charm that actually delivers.

Pilgrim further instructed them: "Call out the word 'Still,' and they'll be withdrawn for you."

Every charm needs an off-switch, and this one is a single word: 寂, stillness, the Buddhist term for quiet and cessation. 還 is huán, to give back or withdraw.

Truly, at the call of 'Still,' the hairs were as before, back in the crevice of the nail.

And the guardians fold back into a hair in the fingernail. 縫, fèng, is the crevice; 還 in 依然還是 is hái, "still, just as before" — a different word from the huán one line above. 那 is nà.

Only then did the monks rejoice at their deliverance and scatter all together.

逃生, to escape with one's life. 散 is sàn; 一 is yì before 齊.

Pilgrim said: "Don't flee too far; listen for my news from the city, and the moment a notice recalling monks goes up, come into the city and return my hairs to me."

The parting instruction plants the next chapter. A 招僧榜 is a proclamation recalling monks — the exact reverse of the posters that have hunted them — and when it goes up, the persecution has been undone and they can come and give his hairs back. 還 is huán, to return something; 中 is zhōng; 分 is fēn; 不 is bù before 可.

The five hundred monks — some east, some west, some walking, some standing — scattered every way, and of them no more.

不題, the storyteller's "and of that, no more" — the phrase now normally written 不提. It closes a thread so the narration can go elsewhere. 散 is sàn; 不 is bù before 題.