Ram-Power came down from the hall, and in imitation of the Pilgrim stripped off his clothes, leapt into the oil-cauldron, and bathed with the same show.

照依行者 — following the Pilgrim's example, to the letter, as both his brothers did. 支吾 is to fudge and bluff one's way through a thing; the storyteller is telling you in advance that the performance is a fake. 那 = nà.

The Pilgrim released the king, went near the cauldron's edge, and bade the fire-tenders add wood.

叫燒火的添柴 — told the fire-tenders to put on more wood. Wukong lets the king go and walks over to the cauldron, and the first thing he does is order the fire built up. He is checking something.

But he reached in a hand to feel — ah!

伸手探了一把 — reached in a hand to test it. The most ordinary gesture in the passage, and the one that decides the chapter.

That seething oil was all ice-cold.

那滾油都冰冷 — the seething oil was stone cold. 都 = dōu; 那 = nà. Four characters, and everything about the third ordeal changes.

He thought in his heart: "When I bathed it seethed hot; when he bathes it's cold.

我洗時滾熱，他洗時卻冷 — it boiled for me, it's cold for him. He works it out the way an engineer would, by comparing the two runs of the same test. 中 = zhōng.

Now I understand — I know not which Dragon King it is, guarding him here."

我曉得了 — now I understand. 得 = dé. And here 那 asks: nǎ, which Dragon King is it? He has not merely detected the cheat, he has identified the department responsible. 哩 = li.

He hurriedly leapt up into the air, chanted the spell-word 'Om,' and summoned that North Sea Dragon King: "You horned earthworm, you scaly loach!

唵 is Om, the opening syllable of countless Buddhist spells, and one word of it is enough to summon a sea-king. Then the greeting, which is pure Great Sage: 帶角的蚯蚓，有鱗的泥鰍 — you horned earthworm, you scaly loach. A dragon is, after all, a very large scaly thing with whiskers, and reducing one to pond-life is exactly how Wukong opens negotiations with the powers above him. 中 = zhōng; 那 = nà.

Why do you aid the Daoist — a cold dragon guarding the cauldron-bottom, letting him show his power and beat me?"

冷龍護住鍋底 — a cold dragon guarding the bottom of the pot. 教他顯聖贏我: 教 = jiào, letting him show his power and beat me. Note 顯聖 — the chapter title's own phrase, thrown here as an accusation at the wrong man.

So frightened was that Dragon King that he murmured assent again and again: "Ao Shun dared not lend aid.

喏喏連聲 — yes, yes, yes, the sound of a subordinate agreeing very fast. 敖順 is Ao Shun, Dragon King of the North Sea, one of the four brothers who rule the four seas and old acquaintances of Wukong's since he took his cudgel off their eldest. 相助: 相 = xiāng. 諕 = xià; 得 = de; 那 = nà.

The Great Sage did not know: this cursed beast practised bitter austerities a spell, shed its native shell, but truly received only the Five-Thunder rite — the rest it cast off as side-gates, hard to bring back to the immortal Way.

The fullest statement in the chapter of what these three men actually are. 孽畜 is a cursed beast, the standing term for an animal that has gone wrong. It really did practise: 苦修行了一場, a hard spell of austerities — 場 is cháng here, counting a bout or stretch of something, not the chǎng of the killing-ground — and it really did 脫得本殼, shed its native shell, which is how an animal wins a human shape (得 = de). But only the 五雷法, the Five-Thunder rite, was 真受, properly transmitted. The rest is 傍門 — 傍 is páng here, not the bàng of leaning against something — the side-gates, the doors that are not the main entrance to the Way. Hence 難歸仙道 (難 = nán): he cannot get back to the immortal road.

This is what he learned on Little Mao Mountain — the 'Great Flaying.'

小茅山 is Little Mao Mountain, named for the three Mao brothers, and one of the great centres of Daoist practice in the south — a real address, and a respectable one. 大開剝, the Great Flaying, is the name of his technique, and it is a butcher's word: to open a carcass and strip the hide.

Those other two the Great Sage had already exposed by breaking their arts, and they showed their true forms.

大聖破了他法，現了本相 — the Great Sage broke their arts and their true shapes came out. 本相 (相 = xiàng) is the underlying form, what a thing is when the borrowed shape fails. 那 = nà.

This one, too, is a cold dragon of his own forging — fit only to fool common folk in sport; how should it deceive the Great Sage?

只好哄瞞世俗之人耍子 — fit only for fooling ordinary people in sport, 子 = zi. And the question that follows, 怎瞞得大聖 (得 = de), how should it deceive the Great Sage, is the dragon flattering his way out of a beating.

This small dragon now withdraws his cold dragon — I warrant he'll be bone-crushed and skin-scorched."

管教他骨碎皮焦 — I warrant he'll be bone-crushed and skin-scorched. 管教 is "I guarantee," with 教 = jiào, and Ao Shun is now volunteering rather than complying.

The Pilgrim said: "Withdraw it at once, and spare a beating."

趁早收了，免打 — take it back now and save yourself a beating. Six characters, no thanks offered.

That Dragon King became a whirlwind, went to the cauldron's edge, seized the cold dragon, and bore it down to the sea — no more of that.

化一陣旋風 — turned into a whirlwind. 不題, no more of that, is the storyteller's sign-off for a thread he is closing, the same formula used of the yellow dog and the head. 將 = jiāng; 那 = nà.