泥塑金裝 Gilded Figures of Clay
卻說孫大聖左手把沙和尚捻一把，右手把豬八戒捻一把，他二人卻就省悟。坐在高處，倥著臉，不言不語。憑那些道士點燈著火，前後照看，他三個就如泥塑金裝一般模樣。却说孙大圣左手把沙和尚捻一把，右手把猪八戒捻一把，他二人却就省悟。坐在高处，倥着脸，不言不语。凭那些道士点灯着火，前后照看，他三个就如泥塑金装一般模样。
逐句解 Line by line
Now the Great Sage, giving Friar Sand a pinch with his left hand and Zhu Bajie a pinch with his right, brought the two of them at once to their senses.
The chapter picks up in the middle of a break-in. Wukong, Bajie and Friar Sand have eaten the offerings laid out in the Daoists' hall, and someone is coming. 卻說 (què shuō) is the storyteller clearing his throat -- "now, to take up the thread again" -- the standard way these chapters resume a scene left hanging. 捻 (niǎn) is a pinch on the sly, a warning delivered by fingers because a word would give them away, and 省悟 (xǐng wù) is what it produces: the two of them catching on.
Seated up on high, they kept their faces blank, uttering not a word.
高處: 處 is chù here, a place or spot -- they are sitting up where the statues sit. 倥著臉: 倥 (kōng) is to hold the face empty, and 著 = zhe, the reading that says a state is being held rather than a thing being done. 不言不語 -- not a word, not a sound. Three men doing an impression of painted wood.
Let those Daoists light their lamps and kindle their fires and peer about them front and back — the three sat there for all the world like gilded figures moulded of clay.
那些: 那 = nà, "those." In 著火 the same character 著 takes a third reading, zháo, for something brought off -- here a flame caught and lit. 照看: 看 = kàn. And the phrase that names the passage: 泥塑金裝, "moulded in clay, dressed in gold" -- the standard description of a temple image, and exactly what each of the three is pretending to be.
The scene opens mid-heist. In the previous chapter the three disciples broke into the Hall of the Three Pure Ones, wrecked the images of the Three Pure Ones, took their seats, and ate the offerings. Now the Daoists are back with lamps, and the pilgrims have to hold still.
The comedy is all in the impersonation -- living men passing as lacquered statuary, hoping nobody looks too closely. 泥塑金裝 names precisely the object each of them has displaced: a clay figure under gold leaf. The joke is that the Daoists will search the hall by lamplight and find the gods sitting exactly where the gods should be.
It is worth noticing how much of this chapter is set up here. The pilgrims are pretending to be gods; in a few pages they will be asked to act like gods, and Wukong will find that the easiest thing in the world.