Now the Tang elder, having driven Pilgrim off himself, had Bajie lead the horse and Sha Monk carry the load; and the four of them, counting the horse, had gone west not quite fifty li when Tripitaka reined in and said: “Disciples, we left the village at the fifth watch, and then that Ban-Horse Plague put me in a temper. Half the day I have been hungrier and hungrier and thirstier and thirstier. Which of you will go and beg a little vegetarian fare for me to eat?”

The chapter drops from cosmic vision to an old man wanting his lunch, and the readings are busy. 勒馬 is 勒 meaning to rein in, lè -- the second of this character's two readings in the chapter, against the lēi of squeezing somebody's brains out that Tripitaka threatened Wukong with a few passages ago. Both readings now sit in Chapter 57, which is what the standing ruling on the character anticipates. 著了氣惱 is 著 as something you run into and come off worse for, zháo. 挑擔 takes 挑 at tiāo and 擔 at dàn, the shoulder-pole load as a thing rather than an action. 那個去化些齋 is the question 那, nǎ -- which of you -- set against the pointing nà of 那弼馬溫 in the same breath. And 弼馬溫, Ban-Horse Plague, is the joke job title Heaven fobbed Wukong off with in the early chapters, the one insult guaranteed to enrage him. Tripitaka uses it while complaining about being hungry.

Bajie said: “Master, please get down from the horse, and let me see whether there is any village nearby, and go to beg there.”

化齋 is the standing phrase for begging vegetarian alms -- the word covers the transformation of a donor's merit as much as the getting of food -- and 化 is fixed at huà throughout this corpus.

Tripitaka heard him out and slid down from the horse.

滾下馬來 is not dismounting. The verb is "to roll", and it registers how far gone the old man already is.

The Idiot sprang up on his cloud-head and looked carefully from mid-air, but as far as he could see it was all mountain ridges, and there was no hoping for a house anywhere.

Bajie does the sensible thing and looks. 仔細 takes 仔 at zǐ, against the zǎi that belongs to the young-animal sense. 盡 is held at jìn corpus-wide, here meaning "entirely". 獃子, the Idiot, is Bajie's standing nickname and takes the worn-down ending zi.

Bajie brought his cloud down and said to Tripitaka: “There is nowhere to beg. In the whole prospect there is not a farmstead.”

Nothing, in every direction. 莊舍 takes 舍 at shè, the noun "dwelling", against the shě of giving something up that an automatic reading supplies; the character carries a standing ruling. 一望之間 takes 間 at jiān, the extent of what the eye covers.

Tripitaka said: “If there is nowhere to beg, then get me a little water to quench my thirst, and that will do.”

The request steps down from food to water. The chapter will step it down once more before anyone answers it.

Bajie said: “Then let me go down to the ravine on the south mountain and fetch some water.”

南山澗 fixes the direction, and the direction matters twice more before this block closes. Bajie goes south; Sha Monk follows him south; and that is what leaves the master alone.

Sha Monk at once took out the alms-bowl and handed it to Bajie.

缽盂 is the monk's begging bowl, bō yú. Watch it: this vessel is about to be exchanged for a porcelain cup in the hands of somebody who should not be holding one.

Bajie held the alms-bowl up and rose away on cloud and mist.

托著 is 著 marking an action held in progress, zhe -- the bowl raised and kept raised -- against the zháo of 著了氣惱 at the head of this same passage.

The elder sat by the roadside and waited a long while, and saw no one come back; and pitiable it was, his mouth dry and his tongue bitter, the thirst past bearing.

The stage is now empty except for one thirsty old man. 口乾 takes 乾 at gān, dry, against the qián that belongs to the trigram name and that an automatic reading supplies. 難熬 takes 難 as "hard to", nán. 可憐 is the narrator speaking in his own person rather than any character's, which is what sets up the poem that follows.