敗陣回奏 The Rout and the Report
這大聖與惠岸戰經五六十合，惠岸臂膊酸麻，不能迎敵，虛幌一幌，敗陣而走。大聖也收了猴兵，安扎在洞門之外。只見天王營門外，大小天兵接住了太子，讓開大路，徑入轅門，對四天王、李托塔、哪吒，氣哈哈的喘息未定：「好大聖，好大聖！著實神通廣大，孩兒戰不過，又敗陣而來也！」李天王見了心驚，即命寫表求助，便差大力鬼王與木吒太子上天啟奏。二人當時不敢停留，闖出天羅地網，駕起瑞靄祥雲。須臾，徑至通明殿下，見了四大天師，引至靈霄寶殿，呈上表章。惠岸又見菩薩施禮。菩薩道：「你打探的如何？」惠岸道：「始領命到花果山，叫開天羅地網門，見了父親，道師父差命之意。父王道：『昨日與那猴王戰了一場，止捉得他虎豹獅象之類，更未捉他一個猴精。』正講間，他又索戰，是弟子使鐵棍與他戰經五六十合，不能取勝，敗走回營。父親因此差大力鬼王同弟子上界求助。」菩薩低頭思忖。这大圣与惠岸战经五六十合，惠岸臂膊酸麻，不能迎敌，虚幌一幌，败阵而走。大圣也收了猴兵，安扎在洞门之外。只见天王营门外，大小天兵接住了太子，让开大路，径入辕门，对四天王、李托塔、哪吒，气哈哈的喘息未定：「好大圣，好大圣！著实神通广大，孩儿战不过，又败阵而来也！」李天王见了心惊，即命写表求助，便差大力鬼王与木吒太子上天启奏。二人当时不敢停留，闯出天罗地网，驾起瑞霭祥云。须臾，径至通明殿下，见了四大天师，引至灵霄宝殿，呈上表章。惠岸又见菩萨施礼。菩萨道：「你打探的如何？」惠岸道：「始领命到花果山，叫开天罗地网门，见了父亲，道师父差命之意。父王道：『昨日与那猴王战了一场，止捉得他虎豹狮象之类，更未捉他一个猴精。』正讲间，他又索战，是弟子使铁棍与他战经五六十合，不能取胜，败走回营。父亲因此差大力鬼王同弟子上界求助。」菩萨低头思忖。
逐句解 Line by line
The Great Sage and Huiyan fought some fifty or sixty rounds, until Huiyan's arms grew sore and numb and he could fight no more: with a feint of his rod he broke off and fled the field.
五六十合 ("fifty or sixty bouts"; 合 = hé, a round of combat) is the conventional count of an even but inconclusive duel. 虛幌一幌 ("a feinting flourish") is the stock move by which a beaten fighter covers his retreat.
The Great Sage too called in his monkey troops and made camp outside his cave gate.
安扎 ("to pitch camp"; 扎 = zhā) — the monkey, having driven off another champion, holds his ground before the Water-Curtain Cave.
Outside the Heavenly King's camp gate, soldiers great and small received the prince, opened a way for him, and let him straight through the headquarters gate,
The defeated Huiyan is helped back into camp — the army closing protectively round its routed champion.
where, before the Four Heavenly Kings, Li the Pagoda-Bearer, and Nezha, panting and still out of breath, he gasped: "What a Great Sage, what a Great Sage! Truly his powers are vast — your son could not best him, and has come back beaten again!"
李托塔 ("Li the Pagoda-Bearer") is Heavenly King Li, who holds a miniature pagoda — his epithet from the legend of subduing his own rebellious son, Nezha. 著實 (zhuó-shí, "truly, indeed"). Huiyan's breathless praise of his enemy is itself a tribute to the monkey's might.
Seeing this, Heavenly King Li took fright and at once ordered a memorial written asking for aid, dispatching the Mighty-Strength Demon King together with Prince Mokṣa to report it in Heaven.
大力鬼王 (the "Mighty-Strength Demon King") is a celestial courier-officer. 寫表求助 ("write a memorial begging help") — the general admits the campaign has failed and appeals back up the chain of command.
The two dared not linger: they burst out through the Heaven-and-Earth nets and rose on auspicious mists and propitious clouds.
瑞靄祥雲 ("auspicious haze and propitious cloud") is the standard celestial conveyance — the rolling vapours on which gods travel between Heaven and earth.
In a moment they reached the foot of the Hall of Communicating Brightness, saw the Four Grand Preceptors, were led to the Treasure Hall of Divine Mists, and presented the memorial.
表章 ("a memorial, a formal report to the throne"). The petition for help follows the same bureaucratic path Guanyin trod at the chapter's opening.
Huiyan then saw the Bodhisattva and made his obeisance.
Huiyan returns to his own mistress, Guanyin, to render his account — the scout reporting back to the one who sent him.
Said the Bodhisattva, "How went your reconnaissance?"
Guanyin asks for the very report she charged him with — the frame closing on the errand of the earlier passage.
Said Huiyan, "When first I received your command and reached the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, I had the gate of the Heaven-and-Earth nets opened, saw my father, and conveyed the purport of your charge.
Huiyan begins a faithful, compressed recapitulation of all that has passed — yet another of the chapter's nested retellings. 差命之意 ("the intent of the order I was sent with").
My royal father said, 'Yesterday we fought the Monkey King a bout, and caught only the likes of his tigers, leopards, lions, and elephants — we did not take so much as one monkey-spirit.'
Huiyan quotes his father's own words back to Guanyin — a report within a report. The tally of beasts but no monkeys echoes Heavenly King Li's earlier lament.
While we were still speaking, he came demanding battle again; so your disciple took up the iron rod and fought him fifty or sixty rounds, but could not prevail, and fled back to camp defeated.
索戰 ("to demand combat, to press for a fight"). Huiyan reports his own defeat plainly, without excuse — to his credit, he does not gloss his failure.
For this reason my father dispatched the Mighty-Strength Demon King with your disciple to the upper realm to beg for help."
The report ends where the scene began — the appeal for reinforcement now laid before both the Jade Emperor and Guanyin.
The Bodhisattva bowed her head and pondered.
低頭思忖 ("bowed her head and reflected") — a quiet, pregnant beat. Guanyin's pondering will, in the next passage, produce the chapter's decisive proposal: the summoning of Erlang.
This passage closes the Huiyan episode and turns the chapter toward its solution. Structurally it completes a small arc begun two passages back: the scout was sent, the scout fought, the scout returns to report — and his return is staged as the mirror image of his departure, back up through the nets, the auspicious clouds, the Hall of Communicating Brightness, to the very throne-hall where Guanyin sits. The symmetry is deliberate, and it lets the chapter measure its own failure: a second champion has tried the monkey, and a second champion has come back beaten.
The heart of the passage is Huiyan's report to Guanyin, worth pausing over as a specimen of the novel's narrative method. It is a retelling nested two and three deep: Huiyan relates to Guanyin what his father related to him, quoting the Heavenly King's words verbatim (昨日與那猴王戰了一場…). Wú Chéng'ēn uses such layered report both for economy — the reader is brought current without a fresh scene — and for characterisation. Huiyan reports his own defeat without flinching or excuse (不能取勝，敗走回營), a small mark of the honesty Guanyin cultivates in her disciples; the contrast with the boastful youth who leapt out the camp gate is quietly telling.
The passage ends on a single charged line — 菩薩低頭思忖, "the Bodhisattva bowed her head and pondered" — and the whole machinery of the chapter pivots on that silence. Heaven's brute force has failed twice over; the question is no longer how to overpower the 心猿 but whom to set against it. Guanyin's reflection is the hinge between the chapter's first movement (the failed assaults) and its second (the coming of Erlang). Fittingly the turn comes not from the Jade Emperor's court but from the Bodhisattva of Compassion, thinking in silence — the chapter's wager being that the unruly mind is mastered less by the apparatus of power than by a subtler discernment. (For Heavenly King Li and Nezha, and the legend behind the epithet "Pagoda-Bearer," see Chapter 4 and the traditional Nezha cycle.)