小須彌山 The Little Sumeru Mountain
大聖長嘆一聲道：「好利害婦人！怎麼就把老孫送到這裡來了？我當年曾記得在此處告求靈吉菩薩降黃風怪救我師父。那黃風嶺至此直南上有三千餘里，今在西路轉來，乃東南方隅，不知有幾萬里。等我下去問靈吉菩薩一個消息，好回舊路。」大圣长叹一声道：「好利害妇人！怎么就把老孙送到这里来了？我当年曾记得在此处告求灵吉菩萨降黄风怪救我师父。那黄风岭至此直南上有三千余里，今在西路转来，乃东南方隅，不知有几万里。等我下去问灵吉菩萨一个消息，好回旧路。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Great Sage let out a long sigh and said, 'What a formidable woman!'
長 is zhǎng in 長嘆, a drawn-out sigh, where the autumn poem used cháng for physical length. 利害, "formidable, terrible," is admiration and complaint in the same breath, and it is the first thing out of his mouth.
'However did she send old Sun all the way out here?'
怎麼, "however, how on earth." He is not injured and not frightened; he is working out the geography, which is what the rest of the passage does.
'I remember that in that year it was here that I petitioned the Bodhisattva Lingji to subdue the Yellow Wind Fiend and rescue my master.'
降 is xiáng, to subdue and bring to submission, not the jiàng of coming down. The chapter uses the character four times, and this is one of three in the subduing sense. The episode belongs to chapters twenty and twenty-one. 當 is the dāng of time.
'Yellow Wind Ridge lies some three thousand lǐ due south of here; and now, coming round from the westward road, this is the southeastern quarter, and there is no telling how many tens of thousands of lǐ it may be.'
方隅 is a quarter or corner of the compass. The Great Sage navigates by recalling a known bearing from a previous adventure and reasoning outward from it, which is a considerably more careful procedure than anything else he does in this chapter.
'Let me go down and ask the Bodhisattva Lingji for news of the way, so that I may get back to the old road.'
He wants 一個消息, "a piece of news." 好回舊路 states the whole of his purpose: he wants directions, not help — and the help he is about to be given is not something he thought to ask for.
好利害婦人 — what a formidable woman. It is the first thing he says, and it is admiration as much as complaint. He has been beaten by an instrument rather than by an arm, and he acknowledges it without any of the sulking a lesser character would be given.
What follows is a genuine piece of navigation. He recalls that Yellow Wind Ridge lies three thousand lǐ due south of this mountain, from the episode of chapters twenty and twenty-one; he notes that he has come round from the westward road, putting him in the southeastern quarter; and he concludes that the distance must run to tens of thousands of lǐ. The reasoning is careful, and it is the only sustained piece of it he does all chapter.
His plan, though, is modest to the point of understatement: go down, ask Lingji for news, get back to the old road. He wants directions. What he will be given is the thing that wins him the fan, and it will be offered before he thinks to ask for it.