妖邪臨廟 The Fiend Comes to the Temple Gate
正說間，只聽得呼呼風響。八戒道：「不好了，風響是那話兒來了。」行者只叫：「莫言語，等我答應。」頃刻間，廟門外來了一個妖邪。你看他怎生模樣：正说间，只听得呼呼风响。八戒道：「不好了，风响是那话儿来了。」行者只叫：「莫言语，等我答应。」顷刻间，庙门外来了一个妖邪。你看他怎生模样：
逐句解 Line by line
They were still speaking when they heard the wind come roaring.
聽得: 得 is dé, the sense of a thing achieved — they did not merely listen, they heard. It is not the light de that hooks a verb to its result.
Eight Rules said: 「This is bad — that wind means the thing itself is coming.」
那話兒 is nà plus a light er on the end, and it means roughly "that whatsit." Eight Rules will not name the demon. English reaches for the same dodge with "you-know-what," and for the same reason: naming a thing is halfway to calling it.
Pilgrim said only: 「Not a word — let me answer him.」
答應: 應 is yìng, "to answer" — not yīng, "ought to."
In an instant there came outside the temple gate a fiend.
一個 lifts 一 to yí before the falling tone of 個.
Look at the fashion of him:
The line that announces the poem gets a segment of its own, and the showpiece follows. 怎生 is everyday speech for "in what manner" — look at the make of him.
Gold armour and gold helm, glittering new; / at his waist a jewelled sash wound about with crimson cloud.
The portrait opens on uniform rather than on monstrosity. Gold armour, gold helmet, a jewelled sash: this creature presents himself as an officer of some department, which is precisely his fraud.
Eyes like bright stars come out at evening, clear and cold; / teeth like saw-blades set in a double rank, each one apart.
重排: 重 is chóng, "doubled, in ranks" — not zhòng, "heavy." 似 is sì, a reading fixed across this edition. And here, for one line only, the costume slips: two rows of saw-teeth.
Beneath his feet the mist and rosy vapour drifting, drifting; / about his body haze and fog, warm and close with fume.
The doubled endings — 蕩蕩, 薰薰 — carry the beat of the couplet, the matched pair of lines these portraits are built from, rather than adding to its sense. Read them for the sound.
Where he walks, gust upon gust of a chill dark wind; / where he stands, fold upon fold of a baleful warmth.
行 is xíng, "to walk"; 處 is chù, "place." The couplet balances 冷 against 溫 — a cold that travels with him against a heat that stands where he stands.
For all the world the Curtain-Raising General attending the imperial carriage, / or the great door-god that keeps the gate of a temple.
Both comparisons reach for borrowed authority rather than for the thing itself. 將 is jiàng, "general," the noun. 捲簾扶駕將, the general who lifts the curtain and attends the imperial carriage, was Sha Monk's own post in Heaven, which gives the line a private sting for one of the pilgrims standing in the room. And a door-god is a painting on a gate. Nobody in this portrait holds power of his own.
Wind announces the demon, as wind announces almost every demon in this book, and Eight Rules names him only as 那話兒, that whatsit. Vernacular fiction handles the unnameable with a pronoun and moves on. It also happens to fit this particular demon exactly, since his whole power rests on a title nobody has ever examined.
The showpiece that follows is a portrait in five couplets, and its organising joke is that nothing in it is monstrous. Gold armour, a jewelled sash, stars for eyes, drifting vapour, a chill that moves and a warmth that stands still: this is the standard kit of a minor celestial officer. The one flash of the real animal comes in the second couplet, where the teeth are saw-blades set in two rows.
The closing comparison is worth a second look. 捲簾扶駕將 is Sha Monk's own former rank — he held the Jade Emperor's carriage curtain, and was thrown out of Heaven for breaking a cup. The novel likes measuring its demons against the celestial jobs its own pilgrims used to hold, and the effect here is deflating rather than grand. Whatever this river-spirit looks like, he looks like somebody's old position.