The Great Sage then charged Sha Monk to guard the Tang Monk: "I have become Chen Guanbao, and Eight Rules has become One-Steelyard-of-Gold."

吩咐 is giving orders to somebody under you — Sha Monk gets the guard duty, as he almost always does. And the disposition is stated flatly, as though it were a rota: I am Chen Guanbao, Eight Rules is One-Steelyard-of-Gold.

The two of them being now in readiness, he asked: "How are we to be presented?

停當了 takes 當 as dàng, in order, settled — not the dāng of "ought." 供獻: to offer up. And then Wukong asks the caterer's question.

Are we to go bound, or go trussed?

綑 and 綁 are both binding with rope, the first bundling, the second trussing. 還 is hái.

Steamed through first, or chopped into bits?"

蒸熟了去, steamed through — or 剁碎了去, chopped into bits. Wukong is asking his hosts, with perfect courtesy, how they would like their children prepared. It is deadpan of a very high order, and there is one person in the room not enjoying it.

Eight Rules said: "Brother, don't play with me — I have no stomach for that."

莫要弄我: stop playing with me. 手段 is usually the skill to do a thing; here it is the nerve to have it done to you.

The old man said: "We should not presume, we should not presume.

不敢，不敢 — we would not presume. The old man is flustered into pure etiquette by a question he has never been asked.

Only we use two red-lacquered cinnabar trays: we ask the two of you to sit within them, set them on a table, and have two young men carry the table up to the shrine with you on it."

And the answer, when it comes, is oddly gentle: two red-lacquered 丹盤 — 丹 being cinnabar red — with a child sitting on each, set on a table, and four young men to carry it up to the shrine. Nobody is bound; nobody is cut. The village has arranged its child-sacrifice to look as much as possible like a banquet being served, which is either mercy or self-deception and probably both. 著兩個後生擡 takes 著 as zhuó, to set somebody to a task — a different job from the zhe of an action in progress. 後生 is a young fellow.

Pilgrim said: "Good, good, good — fetch out the trays and let us try them."

好好好: right, right, right — fetch them out, let's try. Wukong wants a rehearsal.

The old man at once brought out two cinnabar trays, and Pilgrim and Eight Rules sat up on them.

And gets one. 那 points — nà.

Four young men lifted the two tables and took a turn out into the courtyard, then carried them back and set them down in the hall.

天井 is the small open court a Chinese house is built round — a "sky well." Four young men carry the tables out into it, take a turn, and bring them back. In 走走兒 the 兒 is the little -r ending, er, on a doubled verb: a little walk, a turn about.

Pilgrim said gleefully: "Eight Rules, with a bit of walking and playing about like this, we are monks who have come up on the banquet-tray!"

And here is the pun the whole rehearsal was for. 上臺盤 — to come up onto the ceremonial tray — is a colloquial way of saying somebody has risen in the world, made it into decent company; the negative form of the same phrase is what you say of someone you cannot take anywhere. Wukong, who is at that moment literally sitting on a tray, announces that they have become monks who have come up on the tray. It is the joke the whole rehearsal was built for, and he is delighted with it.

Eight Rules said: "If we were carried out and carried back again, carried to and fro till daybreak, I should not mind.

兩頭 is both ends, to and fro. Bajie would happily be carried back and forth till daybreak, and says so — he has no objection whatever to the transport. 還 is hái, "back again."

But being carried into the shrine, where we are straightway to be eaten — that is no sport at all!"

這個卻不是耍子: *that* is no game. He throws Wukong's own word back at him. 哩 is li.

Pilgrim said: "Just keep your eye on me: if it comes to his eating me, then off you go."

剗著 — 剗 read chǎn — is the vernacular "if, supposing that," with 著 hooking the clause on; and 看著我 takes 著 as zhe, an action in progress. Keep your eye on me, and if it comes to him eating me, run. It is offered as reassurance. 罷 is ba.

Eight Rules said: "Who knows how he eats them?

知他怎麼吃哩: who knows how he goes about it? Bajie has moved on to logistics. 哩 is li.

If he eats the boy first, then I can make a good run for it;

If the boy goes first, he has time to bolt.

but if he eats the girl first, what then becomes of me?"

And if the girl goes first — 我卻如何, what then becomes of me? The horror of the situation reaches Bajie strictly through his own position in the queue, which is exactly right for him.

The old man said: "In the years of the sacrifice, some bold fellows among us have crept in behind the shrine, or under the offering-table, and seen that he eats the boy first and the girl after."

The old man's answer is the coldest detail in the chapter, and it is offered helpfully. 常年, in the ordinary run of years, 膽大的, the bold ones among us, have hidden 在廟後 behind the shrine or 在供桌底下 under the offering table, and watched. This village has eyewitness accounts. Somebody crouched under a table and watched a child be eaten and came home and told people the order.

Eight Rules said: "My luck, my luck!"

造化，造化 — my luck, my luck. Bajie is delighted, because as the girl he goes second. It is the last laugh in the chapter and it is built out of the information in the line above it.