About the time of the first watch, Pilgrim got through to the chamber at the back, and heard the old fiend giving out his orders: "You little ones at every gate, sleep light — Sun Wukong may change into something or other again and steal into the house to thieve."

The demon gives orders that are entirely correct and entirely useless. 一更時分: 更 is gēng, a night-watch — the night was divided into five of them, and this is the first — not the gèng that means "still, again"; 分 is fēn. Because that reading raises the character from a fourth tone to a first, the 一 in front of it shifts from yí to yì. 那老魔 points, so 那 is nà; 教 is jiào, "order"; 甚麼: 甚 is shén. 醒睡 is "to sleep wakefully", to sleep with one ear open. 行者: 行 is xíng — the automatic reading tool takes 分行 for a word here and returns háng, but nothing in this chapter licenses a noun-reading háng anywhere.

There were others too, on the night shift and sitting up, rattling and knocking, with clapper and bell sounding together.

該班坐夜 is "on duty for the watch, sitting the night out." 滌滌托托 imitates the watchman's rattle, and 梆 is the wooden clapper struck to mark each watch — the sound of the hours being kept.

All the better for the Great Sage's business.

越好行事 is "all the more convenient for getting on with the job." One flat sentence of narratorial complicity: the guards' racket is covering the burglar's footsteps.

He slipped in at the chamber door and saw there a stone bed, with several powder-daubed and rouge-smeared mountain sprites and tree goblins ranged left and right, spreading out the bedding and waiting on the old fiend — one pulling off his boots, another loosening his clothes.

石床: 石 is shí. 展鋪蓋: 鋪 is pū here, the verb, hence "bedding" — contrast the noun 窩鋪, pù, a berth, in the passage just before. 解衣: both 解 are jiě.

He saw the demon king loosen his clothes, and on his left upper arm, bone-white, there was slipped that ring — for all the world like a bracelet of joined beads.

And here is the ring, described plainly for the first time. Both 那 point at things (那魔王, 那個圈子) and are nà. 寬了: 了 is le; 套著: 著 is zhe, a state held; 圈子 takes the bare ending zi. 白森森 is "bone-white, chill white"; 連珠鐲頭 is a bracelet of linked beads.

And look — he never took it off at all, but rolled it further up instead, two turns of it, drew it tight against his arm, and only then lay down.

Three characters carry the whole problem of the chapter: 更不取下, he never takes it off. 你看: 看 is kàn — the storyteller turning to his audience. 更不取下: 更 is gèng here, "not at all", the opposite reading from the night-watch 一更 five lines above. 抹了: 了 is le.

Pilgrim saw it, changed his body once more, and became a yellow-skinned flea; he sprang onto the stone bed, burrowed in under the covers, crawled up onto the monster's arm, and bit him in good earnest.

見了: 了 is le. 將身又變: 將 is jiāng. 石床: 石 is shí; 那怪 points, so nà. 著實: 著 is zhuó — "in good earnest", the same set phrase the demon threw at Pilgrim five passages back, now describing a flea bite. Those are its only two appearances in the chapter.

Stung, the monster rolled over and cursed: "These slaves want beating! The quilt never shaken, the bed never dusted — some thing or other has bitten me here."

The demon blames the housekeeping. The 的 in both places is the toneless de; the automatic tool reads the one in 少打的奴才 as dī, and since all sixty-three occurrences in this chapter take the same reading, the reading is locked. 少打: 少 is shǎo — "too few beatings", i.e. they need more. 那怪 points, so nà; 甚麼: 甚 is shén; 咬了: 了 is le.

Then he pushed the ring up his arm two turns more and lay down again as before.

捋上兩捋: 捋 is luō both times, the word for pushing a band along a limb; the automatic tool gives lǚ, which is what you do to a beard. 圈子 takes the bare ending zi.

Pilgrim crawled up onto the ring itself and bit him once again.

The second bite is delivered from the ring itself, and that is deliberate. 那圈子: 那 is nà, 子 is zi. Standing on the thing is how Pilgrim learns it will not shift.

The monster could get no sleep, and turned over yet again: "It is itching me to death!"

那怪 points, so 那 is nà. 睡不得: 得 is de, marking what cannot be managed. 刺鬧 is the vernacular for a crawling itch, and 殺 here is just the intensifier — "to death", as in "itching me to death."