原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
且聽下回分解 Listen to the Next Chapter
畢竟不知吉凶如何，且聽下回分解。毕竟不知吉凶如何，且听下回分解。
逐句解 Line by line
畢竟不知吉凶如何，且聽下回分解。
毕竟不知吉凶如何，且听下回分解。
And since there is no knowing yet whether the outcome be fortunate or ill, listen to the next chapter for the telling of it.
分解 takes 分 as fēn and 解 as jiě, to divide up and lay out — the storyteller's word for unpacking what comes next. 不知 keeps bù. This closing formula gets a passage to itself throughout the edition.
The closing formula belongs to the storyteller rather than the narrator, and this edition sets it as a passage of its own. Fourteen characters, unchanged across the whole novel.
The chapter ends with the staff recovered and the ring untouched, which is exactly the position the title described: the mind-ape spent a thousand devices in vain, and water and fire availed nothing. What settles the 金兜山 business is not in this chapter at all.