原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
下回分解 To Be Continued
畢竟不知幾年上才得成真，且聽下回分解。毕竟不知几年上才得成真，且听下回分解。
逐句解 Line by line
畢竟不知幾年上才得成真，且聽下回分解。
毕竟不知几年上才得成真，且听下回分解。
After all, there is no knowing in how many years he shall attain to the true; and for that you must listen to the next chapter, where it will be explained.
才得成真 takes 得 as the attainment dé. And 成真 — attaining to the true — picks up the thread the whole chapter has been pulling: Pilgrim boasted of having been refined to it, the poem judged that the scorpion cultivated in vain, and Tripitaka's whole ordeal turned on whether he was a true monk. 分解 takes fēn and jiě.
The closing formula asks the question the whole book is asking: 幾年上才得成真, in how many years shall he attain to the true? The phrase worth watching is 成真. It has been running through this chapter from the start. Pilgrim boasted that his head had been proof against heaven ever since he 修煉成真, refined himself to the true; the poem over the scorpion's body judged that she had 枉修人道行, cultivated the human Way in vain; and Tripitaka's whole ordeal turned on whether he was a 真僧, a true monk, and on the 真陽 he refused to give away.
Set against all that, the formula's answer is honest: nobody knows how long it takes. The chapter has just shown a creature who cultivated and got nothing, and a man who held out for one night and is put back on his horse to go on. The distance still to be travelled is not measured.