不冷不熱 Neither Cold Nor Hot
那男子笑道：「怕熱，莫來這裡，這裡是這等熱。」行者道：「你這漢子好不明理。常言道：『不冷不熱，五穀不結。』他這等熱得很，你這糕粉自何而來？」那男子笑道：「怕热，莫来这里，这里是这等热。」行者道：「你这汉子好不明理。常言道：『不冷不热，五谷不结。』他这等热得很，你这糕粉自何而来？」
逐句解 Line by line
The young man laughed and said, 'If you're afraid of heat, don't come here. Here it is as hot as that.'
The reply is perfectly circular — it is hot here because it is hot here — and the circularity is the joke. He has lived beside the mountain all his life and can see nothing here that needs explaining.
Pilgrim said, 'You fellow, how little sense you talk.'
漢子 takes the light unstressed zi, "fellow, chap," against the dignified zǐ of 男子 that the narrator used a moment ago. The politeness drops the instant Pilgrim addresses him directly.
'The common saying has it: neither cold nor hot, and the five grains will not set.'
A farmers' proverb, and the source marks it as a quotation with its own nested brackets. Weather has to swing between cold and heat or the grain will not set — which is exactly the objection Pilgrim is about to build on.
'If it is as fiercely hot here as all that, then where does the flour for your cakes come from?'
熱得很 uses 得 to attach a degree to the adjective, so it is the light toneless de. The question is a good one, and it is what actually opens the plot: Pilgrim has noticed that a place where nothing can grow is nevertheless selling cake.
The vendor's answer is perfectly circular. Afraid of the heat? Then do not come here, because here it is this hot. He offers no cause and sees no puzzle, which is exactly right for somebody who has lived beside the thing since birth. The pilgrims have spent two passages theorising about the sun and the seasons; the local explanation is that it is hot.
Pilgrim's retort is the turning point of the chapter, and it is an argument from evidence rather than from theory. He quotes a farmers' proverb — no cold and no heat, and the five grains will not set — and then points at the cake in his own hand. If nothing can grow here, where did the flour come from? Neither Eight Rules nor Sha Monk thought to ask, because both were reasoning downward from a system.
It is worth noticing what kind of cleverness this is. Pilgrim is not learned; Sha Monk is the one who can cite the Book of Rites. What Pilgrim does is notice that a fact in his hand contradicts what he has been told. The whole business of the fan, the Rākṣasī and the Bull Demon King is reached from a question about flour.