Caring nothing for right or wrong, he carried them down, out through the hall and straight to the gate. "Master," he said, "there is not a soul about this place. It is a house of the departed. Old Hog went right inside, up to the top storey, and in a canopy of yellow silk there is a heap of bones."

不管好歹, caring nothing for good or ill, is the narrator's verdict, delivered before Bajie has spoken a word in his own defence. And note what he then says: 亡靈之宅, a house of the departed. He is not deceived about where he has been.

Beside the covered gallery were three waistcoats of quilted brocade. I have brought them along, and that is a piece of luck for the lot of us.

傍 is páng, beside. 一程兒 takes the little er ending; 造化 is luck, one's allotted good fortune. The find gets reported as providence, which is the shape every one of Bajie's temptations takes: not "I want this" but "this was meant for us".

The weather is bitter just now, and they will come in exactly right.

正當用處 has 當 as the dāng of "at just this time" and 處 as chù. The argument from cold is the identical argument that got them out of the ring, and it works the same way twice in ten minutes.

Master, take off your outer gown and put one on underneath — enjoy it a while, and save yourself from feeling the cold."

褊衫 is the wide-sleeved outer robe of a monk, so Bajie is proposing that the stolen goods go on underneath, out of sight. 免得 is a fixed word, with 得 as the light de. 受用受用, the verb said twice, makes it sound like a small indulgence rather than a decision.

Tripitaka said: "No, no. The code says: to take openly and to take by stealth are both theft."

皆為盜 takes 為 as the verb wéi, to be. 律云 introduces a quotation from the legal code, and the maxim is a real principle of Chinese law: taking in the open and taking on the sly are the same offence. Worth noticing which book the master reaches for. Asked about property, he quotes statute, not scripture.

If anyone should notice and come after us, and we were brought before a magistrate, it would beyond doubt be a charge of larceny.

知覺 is jué, to become aware, not jiào, to sleep. 當官 has 當 as dāng: before the magistrate. The master is imagining a courtroom rather than a curse, which is precisely the wrong danger to be weighing in a house full of bones.

Take it back inside now and drape it where it was.

還 is hái here, carrying the sense "why have you not yet"; 原處 has 處 as chù, the place a thing came from. Eleven characters, an instruction given once, and nobody moves.

We can sit here out of the wind for a while, and set off when Wukong comes back.

The master returns to Wukong's own plan — sit still and wait — which he abandoned three passages ago on Bajie's advice. Nobody remarks on this either.

Those who have left the household life should not be so fond of small gains."

愛小 is a fondness for small advantage, the petty greed that takes what is going. 出家人 is the standing term for one who has left the household life. It is a rebuke aimed squarely at Bajie's besetting fault, and it changes nothing whatever.

Bajie said: "Look about — there is nobody here. Not a chicken or a dog knows of it. Only we know, and who is to inform on me? What evidence is there?"

雖雞犬亦不知之 is deliberately legalistic — not a chicken or a dog knows of it. Bajie is answering the master's courtroom, not his ethics, and answering it on its own terms. 告我 is to lay an information against somebody.

It is just as if we had picked them up. Where is the sense in arguing open taking against stealthy taking?"

拾得 takes 得 as dé. 那裡論 is rhetorical — where is there any arguing — so 那 reads nǎ. 甚麼 is shén me. The master cited a distinction; Bajie meets it with a distinction of his own, finding a third category the code did not mention, and wins the exchange on points.

Tripitaka said: "You do wrong. Though no man know of it, what does Heaven not cover?"

天何蓋焉 — what is there that Heaven fails to cover over? The master moves from the law court to the eye of Heaven, which is much stronger ground and the one Bajie cannot answer.

The Dark Emperor left an instruction: in a darkened room a man may wrong his conscience, but the eye of the god is like lightning."

玄帝 is the Dark Emperor of the North, Zhenwu, a major Daoist deity. 暗室虧心, 神目如電 — in a dark room a man may cheat his own conscience, but the god's eye is lightning — was a household maxim in the Ming, the kind of thing painted on a wall where children would see it. The master ends on it and is not answered.

Take them back at once and return them, and do not covet what is not properly yours."

還 here is huán, to give a thing back to its owner, not the hái of "still". 非禮之物 is something not yours by right. The order is given a second time, in plain words, and ignored a second time.