敝地火焰 The Mountain Of Flames Named
老者見三藏丰姿標致，八戒、沙僧相貌奇稀，又驚又喜。只得請入裡坐，教小的們看茶，一壁廂辦飯。三藏聞言，起身稱謝道：「敢問公公：貴處遇秋，何返炎熱？」老者道：「敝地喚做火焰山，無春無秋，四季皆熱。」老者见三藏丰姿标致，八戒、沙僧相貌奇稀，又惊又喜。只得请入里坐，教小的们看茶，一壁厢办饭。三藏闻言，起身称谢道：「敢问公公：贵处遇秋，何返炎热？」老者道：「敝地唤做火焰山，无春无秋，四季皆热。」
逐句解 Line by line
When the old man saw how handsome and well-favoured Tripitaka was, and how rare and strange the features of Eight Rules and Sha Monk, he was alarmed and delighted at once.
Startled and pleased at once, and in that order — the disciples' faces alarm him, Tripitaka's reassures him. 丰姿標致 means of fine bearing and good-looking. 相 is xiàng, "appearance," in 相貌, not the xiāng of doing something to each other.
He could do nothing but invite them inside to sit, tell the servants to bring tea, and have a meal put in hand at the same time.
只得, "could only," takes 得 as dé. 小的們, "the little ones," is what a household calls its servants. 一壁廂 is a colloquial "meanwhile, on the other side of things." 看茶 is to serve tea, not to look at it.
Hearing this, Tripitaka rose and gave thanks. 'May I venture to ask, sir: your honoured district has come round to autumn — how is it that instead it should be burning hot?'
公公 is a respectful way of addressing an elderly man. 貴處, "your honoured place," is the matching half of the 敝地, "this poor region," that the old man is about to answer with — the humble-and-honorific pair is ordinary period courtesy, and neither phrase carries any information at all. 處 is chù.
The old man said, 'This poor region is called the Mountain of Flames. It has no spring and no autumn; all four seasons are hot.'
The place the chapter is named for gets named here, in one flat sentence, by a farmer rather than by the narrator. And 無春無秋 flatly cancels the seasonal frame the autumn poem spent forty-four characters putting up.
Alarm and delight get equal weight in a single four-character phrase, and the order is right: he is startled by how strange Eight Rules and Sha Monk look, and reassured by how impressive Tripitaka does. The party has always worked on strangers this way, with Tripitaka as the credential and the disciples as the problem.
What follows is conducted entirely in matched courtesies. Tripitaka enquires after 貴處, the honoured district; the old man answers of 敝地, this poor region. Neither phrase carries any content, and both are necessary — the etiquette is what allows a stranger to ask a local about his own weather.
And then the name arrives with no ceremony whatever. The Mountain of Flames is introduced in a flat statement by a farmer who lives next to it, in the same breath as the remark that there is no spring or autumn here. Coming forty lines after a poem that spent its whole length proving it is deep autumn, that denial does more work than any amount of description could.