The prince shook out his warlike bearing and leapt with the Great Sage up the high mountain, going straight to the cave mouth; but they found the cave door shut fast and not a goblin below the cliff.

The prince arrives in full fig and finds nobody home. 抖擻雄威 is to shake out one's martial bearing the way a bird shakes out its feathers. 那 appears twice, both times the pointing nà; 太子 takes zǐ.

Pilgrim went up and shouted aloud, "Foul fiend! Open the door at once and give me back my master!"

還我師父 takes huán, to give back — not the hái that means "still," which is the reading a machine will produce every time and which would turn a demand into a shrug. The two are miles apart in sense. The shout leaves the speech open and the demand runs straight on from it.

The little goblins keeping the door inside the cave saw them and reported in haste: "Your Majesty, Sun the Pilgrim has brought a small boy-child, and they are at the door calling for a fight."

那洞裡 takes nà, 看見 takes kàn, 領著 uses 著 as zhe for an action under way, and 一個 gives yí. 小童男 is what a doorkeeper actually sees: not a guardian god of the three altars, just a small boy — which is the joke the fiend picks up again two passages later.

The demon king said, "This monkey had his iron cudgel taken by me and cannot well contend empty-handed. I suppose he has gone and fetched rescuers."

那魔王 takes nà, 猴子 the light zi, 奪了 the light le, 難爭 takes nán, and 請得 takes dé. Note that the fiend reasons just as carefully as Wukong did back in the second passage — and with much better material to work from.

He called, "Bring my weapon."

Four characters. The book gives the fiend the shortest orders and the longest victories.

The demon king took his spear in hand and walked out of the door to look. The small boy-child was of a clear and striking cast of feature, and altogether sturdy.

觀看 puts the two characters of looking side by side, guān then kàn, and the whole segment turns on the act of sizing somebody up. 那小童男 takes nà, 生得 takes dé, 十分 takes fēn, and 相貌 takes xiàng, the looks-and-features reading — not the xiāng meaning "each other" that turns up in 相迎 in the very next passage.

Truly he was:

Three characters of prose to open the showcase: "truly he was —" and then the portrait.

Jade face and tender look, round as the full moon; / Vermilion lips, a squared mouth, showing silver teeth.

What follows is a 贊, a set-piece portrait in five couplets of seven characters — and the crucial thing is whose eyes it is given through. This is what the fiend sees when he opens his own front door.

Eyes flashing lightning, the pupils standing out; / Broad brow gathering rose-cloud, hair bound in a knot.

髽 zhuā is strictly a mourning knot in classical usage, but here it just means the twin topknots Nezha wears in every picture ever made of him. 掣電 is to draw lightning across the sky, the way a hand draws a blade.

Embroidered sashes dancing in the wind, flying coloured flame; / Brocade robe catching the sun, throwing off golden flowers.

The middle couplets move from the face to the kit, which is how a 贊 is built — it takes an inventory rather than painting a picture.

The ringed cord bright and burning, clasping the heart-mirror; / Precious mail glittering, setting off the battle boots.

絛 takes tāo, a woven cord. 心鏡 is the round mirror-plate worn at the breast of a suit of armour, half decoration and half armour proper.

Small of body, loud of voice, and full of splendour: / Guardian of the teaching in the three heavens, the fierce Nezha.

護教 takes jiào, the doctrine reading. The last line finally names him — and names him as an office, 三天護教, guardian of the teaching through the three heavens. That is the reply to the doorkeeper's "small boy-child."