The old dame said: “Only just now there was a sallow, bloated monk with a wasting sickness — he has had his alms and gone, and he too said he came from the Land of the East on his way west. How is it there is another party of you?”

She repeats her objection almost word for word, and the repetition is what finally forces the confession. 一起 -- one party, one lot of them -- lifts 一 to yì before the dipping tone of 起, by the ordinary rule.

Bajie could not keep in his laughter: “That was me. Because I was born with a long snout and big ears, I was afraid your household would take fright and give me nothing, so I changed myself into that shape.

Bajie owns up cheerfully. 嘴長 takes 長 at cháng, long -- the third of the chapter's four such readings, against sixteen where the same character means "elder". 生得 takes 得 as the link hanging a description off the verb, de. 模樣 takes 模 at its fixed mú, against the mó an automatic reading supplies.

“If you do not believe me — is that not your own crusted rice in my brother's robe?”

兄弟 keeps both syllables at full weight. The proof offered is the rice itself, still sitting in Sha Monk's robe where it was put two passages ago -- physical evidence, produced on the spot.