磨刀磨槍 Sharpening Knives in the Kitchen
那廝聞言，走出草堂，拍手打掌笑道：「兄弟們，造化，造化，冤家在我家裡也。」眾賊道：「那個冤家？」那廝道：「卻是打死我們頭兒的和尚，來我家借宿，現睡在草團瓢裡。」眾賊道：「卻好，卻好。拿住這些禿驢，一個個剁成肉醬：一則得那行囊、白馬，二來與我們頭兒報仇。」那廝道：「且莫忙，你們且去磨刀。等我煮飯熟了，大家吃飽些，一齊下手。」真個那些賊磨刀的磨刀，磨槍的磨槍。那厮闻言，走出草堂，拍手打掌笑道：「兄弟们，造化，造化，冤家在我家里也。」众贼道：「那个冤家？」那厮道：「却是打死我们头儿的和尚，来我家借宿，现睡在草团瓢里。」众贼道：「却好，却好。拿住这些秃驴，一个个剁成肉酱：一则得那行囊、白马，二来与我们头儿报仇。」那厮道：「且莫忙，你们且去磨刀。等我煮饭熟了，大家吃饱些，一齐下手。」真个那些贼磨刀的磨刀，磨枪的磨枪。
逐句解 Line by line
The wretch heard it, went out into the thatched hall, clapped his hands and laughed. “Brothers! What luck, what luck — our enemy is in my own house.”
造化，造化 is word for word what Wukong said on the high bank when he first made out the band of robbers: 造化，造化，買賣上門了. The same two characters, the same delight, the other side of the ambush.
The robbers said, “What enemy?”
那個 is the questioning nǎ — which enemy? — not the pointing nà.
The wretch said, “It is that monk who beat our chiefs to death. He has come to my house to beg a night’s lodging and is asleep this minute in the straw shelter.”
頭兒 is suffixed, so 兒 is er. 現睡 — asleep at this very moment — is the word that turns news into a plan.
The robbers said, “Good, good! Take these bald wretches and chop them one by one into mince. First, we get that baggage and the white horse; second, we avenge our chiefs.”
一則…二來 is the enumerating frame: first item, second item. The 一 here belongs to a fixed expression rather than to counting, so it keeps its plain yī and does not shift tone the way it would in front of an ordinary falling syllable — the one place in the chapter where that happens. 剁成肉醬 is to chop into meat paste.
The wretch said, “Not so fast. Go and sharpen your blades.”
且莫忙 — not so fast. 磨 is mó, to grind. The slowing down is deliberate, and it is what makes the passage frightening.
“Wait till I have the rice cooked, and let everybody eat his fill; then we all set on together.”
The 一 of 一齊 stays at yì before the rising tone of 齊. The murder is scheduled around a meal, which is the second time in two passages that this household's hospitality has organised the violence.
And true enough, those robbers fell to it — the knife-sharpeners sharpening knives, the spear-sharpeners sharpening spears.
磨刀的磨刀，磨槍的磨槍 is a distributive frame — the knife men to the knives, the spear men to the spears — and the English keeps its shape. The sentence has the rhythm of work being got on with.
造化，造化 is the passage's signature, and it is a quotation. Wukong said exactly those words on the high bank when he first sighted the band, and now the surviving robber says them on finding his enemy asleep in his own garden. The novel puts the identical delight in both mouths without comment, and the effect is to make the two parties briefly interchangeable.
The plan they settle on is entirely reasonable by their own lights: recover the goods, avenge the chiefs. 一則…二來 is a bookkeeper's construction, first item and second item, and it makes an intended massacre sound like a list of errands. Wukong reasons the same way and always has. The difference is not method but power.
Then the pace slows, and the slowing is what makes the passage frightening. 且莫忙 — not so fast. Sharpen the blades, cook the rice, everybody eat, then set on together. Men working over whetstones in a farmhouse kitchen while the rice boils, and four guests asleep on straw in the garden behind the house.