The prince said, "The Great Sage is a fine fellow after all.

Nezha, who lost six weapons to this fiend earlier in the chapter and blamed Wukong for it at the time, opens the reckoning with praise. 這太子 takes zǐ and 還是 takes hái, "after all, as ever."

That round of boxing went like brocade with flowers worked on it; and the body-dividing art was true splendour before a crowd."

Two set phrases in a row, which is how a young man compliments a famous one. 錦上添花 — adding flowers to brocade — is still everyday Chinese for improving on something already fine, and 人前顯貴 is showing your quality in front of a crowd. 走得 takes dé and 一路 gives yí. The two clauses run under one semicolon in a single sentence.

Pilgrim laughed and said, "You gentlemen were watching from a distance here — how do the creature's powers compare with old Monkey's?"

遠觀 takes guān and 那怪 takes nà. He asks for the comparison rather than waiting to be given it, which is entirely in character.

Heavenly King Li said, "His fists are loose and his feet slow — not the equal of the Great Sage for tightness and speed.

不如 keeps bù. The Heavenly King has fought the fiend himself, and gives a fighter's answer rather than a courtier's.

When he saw us coming down he got flustered at once; and when he saw you bring out the body-dividing art he grew anxious. That is why he made such play with the snare."

著忙 takes zháo, the reading for falling into a state — the same one in 著惱 and 睡著 — not the zhuó of sending somebody off to do a job. 急了 ends on le. Two clauses run under one semicolon, and the short closing sentence attaches backwards. This is the chapter's only assessment of the fiend as a fighter, and it is not flattering.

Pilgrim said, "The demon king is easy enough to deal with. It is the snare that is hard to subdue."

Ten characters of speech, and they contain everything the chapter has established: the demon king is easy, the ring is not. 難降 takes xiáng, to subdue, and 套子 ends in the light zi. Wukong has been saying this since the thirteenth passage, and it has taken four defeats to bring everybody else round to it.

The Fire Virtue and the Water Earl said, "If you are to win at all, there is nothing for it but to get that treasure of his — after that he can be taken."

Two star lords who came down here with a fire office and a river between them conclude that the answer is theft. 若還 takes hái, 得了 takes dé then the light le, and 他那寶貝 takes nà.

Pilgrim said, "How is that treasure of his to be got? There is nothing for it but to go and steal it."

He asks the question and answers it himself in six characters. 他那寶貝 takes nà and 可得 takes dé. Two units run together here.

Deng and Zhang, the two lords, laughed and said, "If thieving is to be the order of the day, there is no one able but the Great Sage. Think back to the year he made havoc in the palace of Heaven — he stole the imperial wine, he stole the peaches of immortality, he stole dragon liver and phoenix marrow and the Lord Lao's elixir. What a hand he was!"

The thunder lords are teasing him with his own criminal record, and the charge sheet is accurate: imperial wine, the peaches of immortality, dragon liver and phoenix marrow, and the Lord Lao's elixir, in the order they were taken across chapters 5 and 7. 想當年 takes dāng and 那是何等 takes nà; 行偷禮 keeps 行 at xíng.

"Today is just the day to take it out and use it here."

此處 takes chù, the place reading. The line turns his worst offence into the company's best remaining plan.

Pilgrim said, "Well said, well said. In that case, sit here a while, gentlemen, and let old Monkey go and find out how things stand."

打聽去來 is one more of the offhand doublings this chapter has run on — 查勘查勘, 走走來, 救援救援, 寬坐坐. Two units run together here.