When the Bodhisattva had heard this, she at once ordered the pilgrim Huiyan: "Go quickly down from the Heavenly Palace to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, and find out how the campaign stands.

惠岸 (Huiyan) is dispatched as Guanyin's scout — and, as it turns out, her first probe of the monkey's strength. 打探軍情 ("reconnoitre the military situation").

If you meet him in battle, you may lend a hand and do your part; but be sure to bring back the truth of it."

的實回話 ("report the real facts"; 的 = dí, "truly") — Guanyin wants an honest reckoning, not a flattering one. The leave to "lend a hand" (相助一功) is what licenses Huiyan's coming duel.

The pilgrim Huiyan straightened his robes, took up an iron rod, mounted his cloud, left the palace gates, and went straight to the foot of the mountain.

離闕 ("departed the palace towers"; 闕 are the gate-towers of an imperial seat). His weapon, an 鐵棍 (iron rod), marks Huiyan as a fighting monk.

He saw the Heaven-and-Earth nets ranged dense and layer on layer, each camp gate ringing its bells and calling its watchwords, the mountain ringed so tight that not a drop of water could leak through.

水泄不通 ("so tight not even water leaks through") is a stock idiom for an airtight cordon. 提鈴喝號 ("ringing bells and shouting watchwords"; 喝 = hè) evokes the discipline of a besieging army.

Huiyan halted and called out, "You heavenly soldiers at the camp gate — I trouble you to pass the word:

天丁 ("heavenly conscripts, soldiers"). Huiyan announces himself formally, as a herald would at the gate of a hostile camp.

I am Mokṣa, second prince of Heavenly King Li — Huiyan, chief disciple of Guanyin of the Southern Sea — come expressly to learn how the campaign fares."

Huiyan gives both his identities: by birth 木吒 (Mokṣa), son of the besieging general; by vocation 惠岸, Guanyin's disciple. That he is the commanding general's own son gains him immediate entry.

The Five-Peaks divine soldiers of the camp relayed it within the headquarters gate.

五岳神兵 ("soldiers of the Five Sacred Peaks"; 岳 = yuè) — the mountain-gods' levies among the besieging host. 轅門 (the "shaft-gate") is the gateway of a military camp, formed anciently of upturned chariot-shafts.

Presently the Star-Lords Xu the Rat, Mao the Cock, Xing the Horse, and Fang the Hare carried the word to the central command tent.

These are four of the 二十八宿 (Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions), each paired with a day-sign and an animal: 虛日鼠 (Emptiness/Rat), 昴日雞 (Pleiades/Cock), 星日馬 (Star/Horse), 房日兔 (Room/Hare). They serve the celestial host as messengers.

Heavenly King Li sent down his command-flag, ordered the Heaven-and-Earth nets opened, and let him through.

令旗 ("command-banner") is the token of a general's order. The verb 教 here (jiào) means "to order, to cause."

By now the east was just growing light. Huiyan followed the flag inside, and on seeing the Four Heavenly Kings and Heavenly King Li, made his bows.

四大天王 (the Four Heavenly Kings) are the lokapālas, guardians of the four quarters. The dawn light marks a new day of the siege.

When the bows were done, Heavenly King Li said, "My boy, from what quarter do you come?"

孩兒 ("my child") — the general greets his son. 那廂 here is interrogative, "from where?" (那 = nǎ) — one of the 世德堂 text's characteristic uses of 那 for the question-word.

Said Huiyan, "Your foolish son attended the Peach Festival with the Bodhisattva. Finding the grand feast desolate and the Jasper Pool forlorn, she led the immortals and your son to see the Jade Emperor.

愚男 ("your foolish son") is the humble self-reference of a son to his father. Huiyan recapitulates, from his own vantage, the events of the chapter's opening.

The Jade Emperor related in full how my royal father and the rest had gone down to subdue the fiendish monkey, and how — no report having come in a whole day — the outcome was unknown; and so the Bodhisattva ordered your son here to learn the truth of it."

打聽虛實 ("to find out the true state of things"). 虛實 ("the empty and the solid") is a military term for the real strengths and weaknesses of a position.

Said Heavenly King Li, "Yesterday we came here and pitched camp, and ordered the Nine Luminary Stars to give challenge; but the creature worked his magic so mightily that the Nine Luminaries were all routed and fled back.

The 九曜星 (Nine Luminaries — Sun, Moon, the five visible planets, and the eclipse-nodes Rāhu and Ketu) were among the first wave to attack the monkey in Chapter 5. The verb 著 here (zhuó) means "to order"; 挑戰 (tiǎo-zhàn) = "to give challenge."

Then we led the troops in person, and the fellow drew up his battle-lines as well.

提兵 ("to lead troops"). 排開陣勢 ("deployed in battle array") — even the monkey's rabble of beasts can form ranks.

Our hundred thousand heavenly soldiers fought him in a melee till nightfall, when he used a body-dividing trick and broke off the fight.

分身法 ("the art of dividing the body") — by multiplying himself the monkey both confuses the host and slips away; the same magic will return in the great transformation-duel to come.

And when we mustered the troops and took stock, we had caught only the likes of wolves and tigers, leopards and vermin — not so much as half a single monkey-fiend.

狼蟲虎豹 ("wolves, vermin, tigers, leopards") are the monkey's animal levies, left behind when his real troops escaped. 不曾捉得他半個 ("did not catch even half of one") — the bitter comedy of a vast army netting only beasts.

Today we have not yet given battle."

The recap brings the siege up to the present moment — the lull that Huiyan's arrival, and the monkey's imminent challenge, will end.