Before he had finished speaking, someone came reporting at the headquarters gate: "The Great Sage is leading a band of monkey-spirits and challenging us outside!"

說不了 ("before the words were done") is the storyteller's cue for an interruption — Heavenly King Li's recap is cut short by the monkey's challenge. 叫戰 ("to call for battle, to challenge").

As the Four Heavenly Kings, Heavenly King Li, and the prince were debating whether to send out troops, Mokṣa said, "Father, your son received the Bodhisattva's charge to come down and gather news — and she said that, should it come to a fight, I might lend a hand.

吩咐 ("instruction, charge"). Huiyan reminds his father of the leave Guanyin gave him — the pretext for volunteering himself.

Now this unworthy one begs to go and see what sort of 'Great Sage' he is."

不才 ("the talentless one") is a humble self-reference. 看他怎麼個大聖 — the contemptuous phrasing ("what kind of a Great Sage") betrays Huiyan's youthful overconfidence.

Said the Heavenly King, "My boy, you have followed the Bodhisattva in her cultivation these several years, so you must have gained some powers; but be sure to take care."

切須在意 ("be sure to be careful") — the father's anxious warning, which the coming defeat will justify.

Fine prince that he was, he brandished the iron rod two-handed, hitched up his embroidered robe, leapt out the headquarters gate, and cried aloud, "Which of you is the Great Sage Equal to Heaven?"

好太子 ("fine prince!") is the narrator's approving exclamation, a formula of the oral storyteller. 掄著 ("brandishing"; 掄 = lūn).

The Great Sage levelled his As-You-Will cudgel and answered, "Old Sun is the one. And who are you, that you make so bold to ask?"

老孫 ("Old Sun") is the monkey's swaggering self-designation. 輒敢 ("how dare you presume") matches Huiyan's challenge with equal scorn.

Said Mokṣa, "I am Mokṣa, second prince of Heavenly King Li; I now serve before the Bodhisattva Guanyin's throne as a disciple and protector of the Teaching, my dharma-name being Huiyan."

Here the formal name 木叉 (Mokṣa) is given in full — the 世德堂 text keeps 叉 for the dignified self-introduction, reserving 吒 for the narrative tags. 護教 ("defender of the Teaching") names his role as Guanyin's guardian-disciple.

Said the Great Sage, "If you are not at your cultivation in the Southern Sea, what do you come here to see me for?"

The monkey's blunt question — why has a disciple of Compassion left his island to meddle in a war?

Said Mokṣa, "My master sent me to spy out the campaign, and seeing you rampage so, I have come on purpose to seize you."

猖獗 ("rampant, unbridled") — Huiyan stakes his claim. 差來 ("dispatched"; 差 = chāi).

Said the Great Sage, "Since you dare to talk so big, don't run off — take this cudgel of Old Sun's!"

大話 ("big talk, boasting"). The exchange of taunts, escalating to blows, is the conventional prelude to combat in the novel.

Mokṣa, not the least afraid, used his iron rod to meet the blow head-on. There the two of them stood, half-way up the mountain, outside the headquarters gate — and what a fine fight it was:

劈手相迎 ("met it square, hand to hand"). The lead-in 這場好鬥 ("this fine bout"; 場 read cháng, the measure-word for a spell of action) cues the battle-rhapsody that follows.

Rod though met rod, the iron of each was different;

The rhapsody opens by pairing the two weapons — Huiyan's plain iron rod against the monkey's magic cudgel. 鐵各異 ("the iron differs") sets up the contrast elaborated below.

weapon though crossed weapon, the men were not the same.

The parallelism 棍…棍／兵…兵 is the rhetorical engine of the battle-rhapsody: identical frames whose contents diverge, mirroring two matched but unequal combatants.

The one, a Free Immortal of the Grand Monad, styled the Great Sage;

太乙散仙 ("Free Immortal of the Grand Monad," Tàiyǐ) casts Sun Wukong as an unaffiliated adept of the highest Daoist order; 散仙 (sǎn-xiān) is an immortal who holds no celestial office — apt for the rank-spurning monkey.

the other, Guanyin's disciple, a true Dragon of the Primal Origin.

正元龍 ("true Dragon of the Primal Origin") exalts Huiyan in matching Daoist terms, though he is a Buddhist disciple — the rhapsody freely blends the two idioms to dignify both fighters.

The solid iron rod was forged with a thousand hammer-blows,

渾鐵棍 ("rod of solid iron"); 千鎚打 ("beaten with a thousand mallets"; 鎚 = chuí, a hammer, variant of 錘) stresses the craftsmanship of Huiyan's weapon.

with the Six Ding and Six Jia plying their divine art;

The 六丁六甲 (Six Ding and Six Jia) are twelve spirit-generals of Daoist ritual, here imagined as having tempered the rod — divine smiths lending it power.

the As-You-Will cudgel was the Stiller of the Heavenly River,

The monkey's 如意棒 ("As-You-Will cudgel," which grows or shrinks at his wish) was, by its own legend, the rod with which Yu the Great fixed the depths of the 天河 (the celestial river) — hence "Stiller of the River."

the Sea-Quelling Divine Treasure, mighty in magic power.

鎮海神珍 ("Sea-Quelling Divine Treasure") is the cudgel's full title, recalling its origin (Chapter 3) in the treasury of the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, where it had served to anchor the ocean's tides.

When the two met, they were true match for each other,

真對手 ("genuine adversaries, well matched") — the rhapsody now turns from the weapons to the fight itself.

and back and forth their fighting moves were truly without end.

解數 (xiè-shù, "martial moves, the figures of combat") is a term of the fighting arts; the inexhaustible exchange marks the two as equals — for now.

This one's back-handed rod was savage past all counting,

陰手棍 ("the back-handed, reverse-grip rod") is a specific cudgel technique; 萬千兇 ("ferocious ten-thousandfold") piles on the violence.

looping the waist, threading through, swift as the wind;

繞腰貫索 ("circling the waist, stringing through like a rope") traces the whirling path of the rod — a vivid notation of choreography.

that one's clamping spear-staff let nothing through,

夾槍棒 ("the clamping spear-and-staff," jiā) names the monkey's combined thrust-and-strike; 不放空 ("never striking empty") — every blow finds its mark.

warding left and blocking right — how could either give way?

怎相容 ("how could they suffer one another?") closes the figure on the deadlock of two equally skilled fighters.

On that side the banners flashed and flashed,

The rhapsody now widens from the duel to the two armies. 旌旗閃閃 ("banners flashing") — the heavenly host arrayed behind Huiyan.

on this side the alligator-drums went boom and boom.

鼉鼓 ("alligator-skin drums," from the 鼉, the Yangtze alligator) beating 鼕鼕 (dōng-dōng, the boom of the drum) — the monkey's troop answering the heavenly banners.

Ten thousand heavenly generals ringed them round and round,

萬員天將 ("ten thousand heavenly officers"; 將 = jiàng, "general") — the encircling host.

a whole cave of monkey-fiends clustered thick and close.

一洞妖猴 ("a cave-full of monkey-fiends") — the defenders of the Water-Curtain Cave, packed in dense ranks (簇簇叢).

Strange mists and grieving clouds spread over the earth's domain,

怪霧愁雲 ("uncanny fog and sorrowing cloud") — the cosmic disturbance the battle stirs up, a stock device of the war-rhapsody.

wolf-smoke and baleful vapour shot up to the Heavenly Palace.

狼煙 ("wolf-smoke," the beacon-smoke of war, anciently said to be fuelled with wolf dung) and 煞氣 (shà-qì, "baleful aura") reach all the way to Heaven — the fight shakes the cosmos.

Yesterday's melee was bearable still,

昨朝 ("yesterday"; 朝 = zhāo, "morning") recalls the previous day's general engagement; 還猶可 ("was still tolerable") sets up the escalation.

today's contest was fiercer yet again.

The couplet measures the rising stakes — single combat proves more savage than the mass battle that preceded it.

Worthy of wonder, the Monkey King's true prowess —

堪羨 ("worthy of admiration") — the rhapsody, like the narrator, openly delights in the monkey's skill, even as Heaven's champion is driven off.

once more Mokṣa was beaten, and fled again for his life.

The closing line delivers the result with deadpan brevity: Huiyan, like the Nine Luminaries before him, is routed. 復敗又逃生 ("defeated again, again escaped with his life") rhymes this failure with the earlier wave — no single champion can take the monkey.