The four Celestial Masters, having received the command, came straight out of the Hall of Divine Mists and said to Pilgrim, "Great Sage! The Jade Emperor is generous. He says there is no god in the palace of Heaven who has gone down out of longing, and he has you pick out a few heavenly generals and go seize the fiend."

著你挑選 is zhuó again, "have you pick." 天將 is jiàng. 哩 closes on the light li. The Masters pass the order on without softening it, and without appearing to notice that it hands Wukong back the very problem he brought upstairs.

Pilgrim lowered his head and thought quietly: "Of the generals in Heaven, those who fall short of old Monkey are many, and those who outmatch him are few.

天上將 takes jiàng. The sentence is built as a see-saw — 者多 against 者少, many below him and few above — and the vanity in it is arithmetic rather than boasting. He is doing sums on the roster he has just heard read out.

I remember when I made havoc in the palace of Heaven: the Jade Emperor sent a hundred thousand heavenly soldiers and spread the nets of sky and earth, and not one general among them dared try hands with me.

更不曾 takes gèng. 一將 is worth pausing on: left to itself a machine reads 將 as jiāng, a level tone, which would make the 一 in front of it yì. But the character means a general here and is read jiàng, a falling tone — so the 一 has to be lifted by hand to yí. The second character's reading decides the first character's tone, which is why a case like this can never be left to the machine. 天羅地網, nets above and nets below, is the standing phrase for a trap nothing escapes. Nothing did escape it, which is exactly his point.

Later on they brought in the Little Sage Erlang, and he was a match for me.

調 takes diào, to summon and post a man to a job, not the tiáo of tuning an instrument. 方是我的對手 is a genuine concession and the only one in the speech — Erlang did take him, back in Ch.6.

Now this fiend's powers are stronger still than old Monkey's — how then is a victory to be got?"

那怪物 takes nà. 強 is qiáng, the comparative "stronger." 怎麼得 takes dé, the reading for managing or being able. The thought stops exactly where the chapter's trouble starts: he can name nobody on the list who would do.

Xu Jingyang said, "That was one time, this is another; they are not the same at all.

此一時，彼一時 — "that was one time, this is another" — comes from Mencius and is still current Chinese for "circumstances alter cases." Both 一 are yì. The point is that situations govern outcomes, not the ranking of persons, which is the direct answer to Wukong's arithmetic.

As the common saying has it, 'one thing subdues another.'

Here is the proverb the whole chapter runs on: 一物降一物, one thing subdues another. Every schoolchild knows it, and it is the Chinese for rock-paper-scissors as a theory of the world — nothing is strongest, things are only fitted or unfitted to what they meet. 降 is xiáng, to subdue, not the jiàng of coming down; take the wrong reading and the proverb turns to nonsense. Everything the ring swallows over the next several passages proves the saying from the wrong side.

How can you go against the edict?

違了 ends on le. The question is put lightly and it is perfectly real: the order has been given and Wukong is standing about arguing with it.

Use your own judgement, pick the generals you want, and do not lose the matter by hanging back."

天將 takes jiàng and 勿得 takes dé. 誤事 is to ruin a piece of business by dragging your feet — the standard reproach in any office, then and now.

Pilgrim said, "Since that is how it stands, I am deeply obliged for the grace above, and it is indeed not well to go against an edict; and besides, old Monkey ought not to have made this trip for nothing.

Two clauses run together under one semicolon here. 一則 gives yì. And 空走這遭 — to have walked the whole road for nothing — is the honest reason sitting underneath the two polite ones.

Trouble yourself, Jingyang, to report back to the Jade Emperor: let him just send Pagoda-bearing Heavenly King Li and Prince Nezha, since they still have several weapons for subduing fiends. Let them go down to the world and see one bout with the creature, and we shall see how it goes.

降妖 is xiáng, subduing, matching the proverb four segments back. 去罷 takes the light ba; 還有 takes hái; 那怪 takes nà; 一仗 gives yí; 以看 takes kàn. Note whom he picks: the pair who beat him once. It is the nearest he will come to admitting he cannot manage this alone.

If they can take him, it is old Monkey's good fortune; and if they cannot, we shall make other arrangements then."

區處 takes chǔ, the verb — to dispose of a matter, to settle it — not the chù that means a place. 擒得 takes dé and 那時 takes nà. The two conditions run under a single semicolon in one sentence.