哈哈大笑 Bajie Laughs Aloud
菩薩著我與師兄又同去識認，那妖果與師兄一般模樣。我難助力，故先來回覆師父。」三藏聞言，大驚失色。八戒哈哈大笑道：「好好好，應了這施主家婆婆之言了：他說有幾起取經的，這卻不又是一起？」菩萨着我与师兄又同去识认，那妖果与师兄一般模样。我难助力，故先来回覆师父。」三藏闻言，大惊失色。八戒哈哈大笑道：「好好好，应了这施主家婆婆之言了：他说有几起取经的，这却不又是一起？」
逐句解 Line by line
"The Bodhisattva sent me to go with my elder brother and identify him again, and that fiend was of one and the same likeness as my elder brother.
菩薩著我: this 著 is zhuó, to set somebody to a task, the reading locked across the project — compare 著悟淨去 — as against the zhe of 挑著 a few lines back, which merely keeps an action running.
I could lend no strength to it, and so came back first to report to our master."
難助力 — could lend no strength. Sha Monk closes his account with exactly the admission he opened it with, back at the cave.
When Tripitaka heard this he was greatly startled and lost the colour of his face.
Eight characters of pure reaction, standing on their own between two long speeches. 三藏 takes zàng, the name.
Eight Rules roared with laughter: "Good, good, good! It has come true, what the goodwife of our benefactor's house said. She told us there were several parties of scripture-seekers — and is this not another party?"
And there is the tactless laugh. 婆婆 is pó po, the goodwife; 應了 takes yìng, came true, where the automatic reading gives yīng. 起 is the counting word for a party or batch of people — so "another party of scripture-seekers", as though pilgrims were arriving in coach loads.
Eight Rules's laughter is the only comedy in a chapter otherwise given over to failed tribunals, and it is placed with precision, landing immediately after Tripitaka has gone white. The novel uses him this way again and again: the character who says the tactless thing that also happens to be the perceptive one.
The callback is to the farmhouse goodwife of the previous chapter, who mentioned in passing that several parties of scripture-pilgrims had come through. It was scene-setting at the time. Eight Rules digs it out as a joke and, in the process, supplies the first explanation anyone has offered of the false pilgrimage: there are simply more scripture-seekers on this road than there ought to be.
It is worth registering how much of this chapter's real information arrives sideways. The mirror's verdict, the monkey-sprite corpse, the goodwife's remark — the material for a solution is piling up in the hands of characters who treat it as gossip, while the formal tribunals produce nothing whatever.