慈善住口 The Spell Fails Again
三藏見了，就念緊箍兒咒。二人一齊叫苦道：「我們這等苦鬥，你還咒我怎的？莫念，莫念。」那長老本心慈善，遂住了口不念，卻也不認得真假。三藏见了，就念紧箍儿咒。二人一齐叫苦道：「我们这等苦斗，你还咒我怎的？莫念，莫念。」那长老本心慈善，遂住了口不念，却也不认得真假。
逐句解 Line by line
Tripitaka saw them and recited the Tight-Fillet Spell.
Ten characters, and the whole test is over in the next sentence. 箍兒 in 緊箍兒咒 takes the light er ending.
The two of them cried out in pain together: "We are locked in such bitter combat — why do you go cursing us as well? Stop the recitation, stop the recitation."
They protest as a pair, and this time with a complaint attached. 還 is hái, on top of everything else. The four-character tail 莫念，莫念 is the same cry they raised on Potalaka.
That elder was compassionate at heart, and so shut his mouth and stopped reciting — but neither could he tell the true from the false.
本心慈善, kind-hearted at bottom, explains why he stops; the 卻 that follows says what stopping cost him. 長老 takes zhǎng; 認得 takes dé, managing to do a thing.
The test fails the same way it failed on Potalaka, and the novel does not pretend otherwise. What is new is why it stops early: 那長老本心慈善. Tripitaka gives up the recitation not because it has been disproved but because he cannot bear to listen to them scream.
That is a description of the master the chapter has been building toward since its first page. His compassion is real, and it is also exactly the quality that got him into this: he expelled Wukong for killing bandits, and he now abandons the only test he has because it hurts. One clause gives both the virtue and its cost — 遂住了口不念，卻也不認得真假.
The two protests are worth setting side by side. Before the Bodhisattva they cried 莫念，莫念 and rolled on the ground. Here they add a grumble — 你還咒我怎的, why curse us on top of everything else — appealing to the master's sympathy rather than to his judgement. They have worked out which of his faculties is the more reachable.