照妖鏡 The Demon-Revealing Mirror
真君前前後後亂趕，只見四太尉、二將軍一齊擁至，道：「兄長，拿住大聖了麼？」真君笑道：「那猴兒才自變座廟宇哄我。我正要搗他窗櫺，踢他門扇，他就縱一縱，又渺無蹤跡。可怪，可怪！」眾皆愕然，四望更無形影。真君道：「兄弟們在此看守巡邏，等我上去尋他。」急縱身駕雲，起在半空。見那李天王高擎照妖鏡，與哪吒住立雲端，真君道：「天王，曾見那猴王麼？」天王道：「不曾上來，我這裡照著他哩。」真君把那賭變化，弄神通，拿群猴一事說畢。卻道：「他變廟宇，正打處，就走了。」李天王聞言，又把照妖鏡四方一照，呵呵的笑道：「真君，快去，快去。那猴使了個隱身法，走出營圍，往你那灌江口去也。」二郎聽說，即取神鋒，回灌江口來趕。真君前前后后乱赶，只见四太尉、二将军一齐拥至，道：「兄长，拿住大圣了么？」真君笑道：「那猴儿才自变座庙宇哄我。我正要捣他窗櫺，踢他门扇，他就纵一纵，又渺无踪迹。可怪，可怪！」众皆愕然，四望更无形影。真君道：「兄弟们在此看守巡逻，等我上去寻他。」急纵身驾云，起在半空。见那李天王高擎照妖镜，与哪咤住立云端，真君道：「天王，曾见那猴王么？」天王道：「不曾上来，我这里照着他哩。」真君把那赌变化，弄神通，拿群猴一事说毕。却道：「他变庙宇，正打处，就走了。」李天王闻言，又把照妖镜四方一照，呵呵的笑道：「真君，快去，快去。那猴使了个隐身法，走出营围，往你那灌江口去也。」二郎听说，即取神锋，回灌江口来赶。
逐句解 Line by line
The True Lord chased back and forth in confusion, when the four Marshals and two Generals all came crowding up, asking, "Elder brother, have you caught the Great Sage?"
前前後後亂趕, dashing about every which way. The shrine trick has left even Erlang at a loss, and the hunt has stalled with his brothers crowding round for news he does not have.
The True Lord laughed and said, "That monkey just turned himself into a temple to fool me.
才自 is just now. He tells the story of the shrine with rueful amusement — you can hear him admiring the trick even as he plans to smash it.
Just as I was about to smash his window-lattices and kick in his door-leaves, he gave a leap and vanished without a trace again. How strange, how strange!"
縱一縱, gave a bound (縱 is zòng); 渺無蹤跡, vanished without a trace. The frustration is comic: the god who sees through everything keeps mislaying his quarry.
All were astonished, and looked all around, but there was no sign of him anywhere.
愕然 is dumbfounded. Even the six brothers, between them, cannot account for where he has gone.
The True Lord said, "Brothers, keep watch and patrol here, while I go up to look for him."
Erlang gives up on searching the ground and goes to borrow Heaven's instrument instead — the demon-revealing mirror he had the foresight to ask for before the fight began.
Quickly he sprang up on a cloud and rose into mid-air.
The chase leaves ground level for the aerial vantage, where the mirror has been watching the whole time.
He saw Heavenly King Li holding the Demon-Revealing Mirror aloft, with Nezha standing at the edge of the clouds, and said, "Heavenly King, have you seen the Monkey King?"
The 照妖鏡, the demon-revealing mirror, strips off any disguise and shows a creature's true form. It belongs to Heavenly King Li — the pagoda-bearer who led the first failed expedition, and who has been floating above this battlefield holding it since before the duel began. It is the one device in the chapter the monkey's transformations cannot touch. 哪吒 (Né zhā), his son, stands beside him.
The Heavenly King said, "He hasn't come up here — I've got him fixed in the mirror right now."
照著他, have him fixed in the mirror's light (著 is zhe). The reply is wonderfully offhand, and it changes everything. While Erlang has been chasing shapes across a mountainside, the mirror has been holding the monkey's true image the entire time.
The True Lord finished telling of the contest of transformations, the working of magic powers, and the capture of the monkey horde.
A compression: the whole chase, from giant duel to bird and fish, summed up in one clause so the narrative can get on.
Then he said, "He turned into a temple, and just as I was about to strike, he got away."
His report ends on his single failure, the shrine — the one the mirror is about to make good.
Hearing this, Heavenly King Li swept the Demon-Revealing Mirror around in all four directions, and laughed aloud, saying:
四方一照, swept it once around the four quarters. One pass of the mirror finds in a moment what Erlang's eyes could not find in an hour.
"True Lord, go quickly, go quickly! That monkey used a body-concealing spell, slipped out of the encirclement, and has made for your own Guanjiang Mouth."
隱身法 is a spell of invisibility — which is how he got through the cordon unseen. And note where he has gone: 灌江口, Guanjiang Kou, is Erlang's own home temple. Cornered and hunted, the monkey has fled to his pursuer's house.
Hearing this, Erlang took up his divine blade and turned back toward Guanjiang Mouth in pursuit.
The chase now moves onto Erlang's own ground — which sets up the most audacious scene in the chapter, and possibly in the book.
After the dazzling improvisation of the shrine, this passage marks a decisive shift in the contest's terms. Through the whole chase the monkey has had one persistent advantage: his transformations baffle the eye, and even Erlang's piercing sight has twice lost him. Here that advantage is quietly cancelled. Erlang, dashing about every which way in frustration, abandons the ground-level pursuit and rises to Heaven, where Heavenly King Li has been holding the 照妖鏡, the Demon-Revealing Mirror, trained on the monkey the entire time. Whatever shape the fugitive takes, the mirror holds his true image — and with one sweep around the four quarters it locates him at once. The device no disguise can fool is the structural answer to a creature who is nothing but disguise.
There is a fine comic insolence in where the monkey has fled. Slipping out of the encirclement by a spell of invisibility, he has made straight for 灌江口, Erlang's own home temple — the hunter's sanctuary. It is exactly the kind of audacious provocation the Great Sage delights in, and it sets up the bravura scene to come, in which he will sit enthroned in Erlang's temple wearing Erlang's own face. Even in flight the monkey cannot resist turning the chase into a piece of theatre at his pursuer's expense; his irrepressibility is undiminished as the net closes.
The mirror is worth dwelling on in the allegory. The chapter has staged the 心猿, the mind-monkey, as the principle of endless transformation — the restless consciousness that slips every fixed form. What the narrative now introduces is the corresponding principle of clear seeing: an instrument of perfect discernment that perceives the true nature beneath all appearances. In the inner-alchemical reading this is no accident of plot but the heart of the matter — the unruly mind cannot be subdued by force, since the duel of giants failed, nor outrun, since the chase failed, but only by a seeing that penetrates its disguises. The mirror does not yet capture the monkey; it only locates him. But it shifts the contest onto ground where he can at last be taken — and the instruments of his final subduing, Laozi's ring here and the Buddha's palm two chapters hence, will be of the same order: not greater strength, but a higher clarity. (On Heavenly King Li and the Demon-Revealing Mirror, and on Nezha, see the celestial-bureaucracy notes; Guanjiang is Erlang's cult-centre in Sichuan.)