兩尊落後 Two Arhats Held Back
那羅漢不敢遲延，即取金丹砂出門。行者又謝了如來。一路查看，止有十六尊羅漢，行者嚷道：「這是那個去處，卻賣放人。」眾羅漢道：「那個賣放？」行者道：「原差十八尊，今怎麼只得十六尊？」說不了，裡邊走出降龍、伏虎二尊，上前道：「悟空，怎麼就這等放刁？我兩個在後聽如來吩咐話的。」行者道：「忒賣法，忒賣法。才自若嚷遲了些兒，你敢就不出來了。」眾羅漢笑呵呵駕起祥雲。那罗汉不敢迟延，即取金丹砂出门。行者又谢了如来。一路查看，止有十六尊罗汉，行者嚷道：「这是那个去处，却卖放人。」众罗汉道：「那个卖放？」行者道：「原差十八尊，今怎么只得十六尊？」说不了，里边走出降龙、伏虎二尊，上前道：「悟空，怎么就这等放刁？我两个在后听如来吩咐话的。」行者道：「忒卖法，忒卖法。才自若嚷迟了些儿，你敢就不出来了。」众罗汉笑呵呵驾起祥云。
逐句解 Line by line
The arhats did not dare delay: they took the golden cinnabar sand at once and went out at the gate.
那羅漢 points, so 那 is nà. 不敢遲延, "did not dare delay" — the Buddha's establishment moves the instant the order is given, exactly as the vajra-holders at the gate did.
Pilgrim thanked the Tathāgata once more.
謝了: 了 is le. Seven characters of courtesy, and then he starts counting heads.
Looking them over along the road, he found there were only sixteen Venerable Arhats. Pilgrim bawled out: "What kind of an establishment is this, where men are let off for a consideration?"
He is two short, and he says so like a man who has been shortchanged. 查看: 查 is chá, 看 is kàn. 那個去處 asks a question, so 那 is nǎ; 處 is chù. 賣放 is courthouse slang — to let a prisoner go for a bribe. He is accusing Vulture Peak of corruption.
The arhats said: "Who has been let off?"
那個 is interrogative, so 那 is nǎ. The arhats answer a charge of corruption with a flat question, which is a good deal funnier than indignation would have been.
Pilgrim said: "Eighteen were detailed in the first place. How is it there are only sixteen now?"
原差: 差 is chāi, detailed or commissioned, not the chà that means to differ; 只得: 得 is dé.
Before the words were out, the two Venerables Dragon-Subduer and Tiger-Tamer walked out from within and came forward: "Wukong, why do you make such an awkwardness of it?
說不了: 了 is liǎo, "before he had finished speaking." 降龍: 降 is xiáng — the Dragon-Subduing and Tiger-Taming arhats, seventeenth and eighteenth of the Chinese set. 放刁 is the same word the Thunder Squire threw at Devarāja Li up on the peak.
"The two of us stayed behind to hear the Tathāgata's instructions."
Twelve characters, and the whole plot turns on them. The 吩咐話 they stayed behind to hear is the hint the Buddha would not give Pilgrim to his face, and it will be handed over privately once the sand has failed.
Pilgrim said: "You trade too much on your position, you trade too much on your position. If I had been a little slower with my shouting just now, I dare say you would not have come out at all."
忒賣法 — to trade on your office, to sell the law; saying it twice is the vernacular way of underlining it. Both 了 are le; 些兒 takes the ending er.
The arhats laughed heartily and mounted their auspicious clouds.
笑呵呵 — they let the accusation go with a laugh, and the party sets off. The two who stayed behind say nothing whatever about what they were told.
The counting joke is doing real work. Wukong tallies the arhats on the road, finds sixteen where eighteen were detailed, and accuses the Buddha's own establishment of 賣放 — releasing prisoners for a bribe, a charge straight out of the county courthouse. The two missing arhats then walk out and explain, in twelve characters, that they stayed behind to receive the Tathāgata's instructions. Pilgrim's response is to accuse them of trading on their office, and everybody laughs and gets on the clouds.
Nobody tells him what the instructions were. The reader has now watched the Buddha refuse to name the demon and watched two arhats hold back for a private word, and the connection is unmistakable — to everyone except the character it concerns. The scene is played entirely for comedy, and it is at the same time the mechanism of the chapter's resolution being wound up in plain sight. When the sand fails, as it will, Dragon-Subduer and Tiger-Tamer will have something to say.