女怪誇口 The Fiend Boasts Her Power
那怪見八戒來，他又使個手段，呼了一聲，鼻中出火，口內生煙，把身子抖了一抖，三股叉飛舞沖迎。那女怪也不知有幾隻手，沒頭沒臉的滾將來。這行者與八戒兩邊攻住。那怪道：「孫悟空，你好不識進退。我便認得你，你是不認得我。你那雷音寺裡佛如來，也還怕我哩。量你這兩個毛人，到得那裡？都上來，一個個仔細看打。」那怪见八戒来，他又使个手段，呼了一声，鼻中出火，口内生烟，把身子抖了一抖，三股叉飞舞冲迎。那女怪也不知有几只手，没头没脸的滚将来。这行者与八戒两边攻住。那怪道：「孙悟空，你好不识进退。我便认得你，你是不认得我。你那雷音寺里佛如来，也还怕我哩。量你这两个毛人，到得那里？都上来，一个个仔细看打。」
逐句解 Line by line
Seeing Bajie come on, the fiend worked another device: she gave a cry, fire broke from her nose and smoke rose in her mouth, she gave her body a shake, and the three-pronged trident came whirling up to meet him.
鼻中 takes the locative zhōng. 身子 takes the light zi. 抖了一抖 is the give-it-a-quick-shake pattern — verb, 一, verb again — and the 一 takes yì before the third tone of 抖.
There was no telling how many arms the woman fiend had; she came rolling in upon them, careless of head or face.
沒頭沒臉 describes blows thrown without aim, not a creature with no features; both 沒 read méi. 滾將來 slips 將 between verb and direction to mark the action as under way, reading jiāng.
Pilgrim and Bajie pressed her hard from either side.
攻住 is to hold an opponent pinned under attack. Nothing here needs a ruling.
The fiend said, “Sun Wukong, how little you know of when to press and when to fall back! I know you well enough, but you do not know me.
認得 takes 得 as the attainment dé at both appearances. 不識進退 turns on a military commonplace — knowing when to press and when to pull back — and she is accusing him of having no judgement, not no courage.
“That Buddha Tathagata of yours, in the Monastery of Thunderclap — he is afraid of me himself.
This is the most important line in the chapter, and it sounds like empty bluster. 你那 takes 那 as the pointing nà. 還 is hái. 哩 is fixed across the corpus as the toneless ending li. Keep the claim in mind; the chapter will make it good.
“Reckoning up the pair of you hairy creatures — how far do you suppose you will get?
量 is liàng in its sense of sizing someone up or presuming — "reckoning up the pair of you"; the liáng of weighing and discussing is a different reading. 到得那裡 is a rhetorical question, so 那 is nǎ, "where", not the pointing nà of the line above. Same character, two lines apart, two readings.
“Come on, the whole lot of you, and one by one look sharp for the blows.”
仔細 takes 仔 as zǐ; the zǎi reading belongs to words for young animals and would be wrong. 看打 takes 看 as kàn, against the kān of 看守 a moment ago.
The boast at the centre of this passage is the single piece of information the chapter most needs the reader to have, and it is delivered as trash talk: the Buddha himself, in his own monastery, is afraid of her. Coming from a demon losing a fight, it sounds like the usual noise. It is not. The claim will be made good later, and everything that follows — the failure of the iron rod, the failure of the rake, the trip to heaven to fetch a star officer — depends on its being literally true.
The fight itself is described almost entirely through confusion about numbers. There is no telling how many arms she has; she comes on 沒頭沒臉, without regard for head or face; two brothers press her from two sides and cannot close. The novel is normally very specific about the choreography of its fights, and the vagueness here is doing a job. This is an opponent who cannot be counted, and the reader is meant to share the pilgrims' failure to get her measure.
Her contempt fits into one word. 毛人, hairy creatures, reduces both brothers to their pelts and denies them any standing as opponents; and her closing invitation — come up one at a time and look sharp for the blows — is the language of a fencing master with pupils. She has not yet used the weapon that will settle the matter.