幾乎打死 Almost Beaten to Death
被我說了兩句，他倒罵了我一場，將一根棍子趕著我打。若不是走得快些，幾乎被他打死。這不是招你為禍？害殺我也。」牛王聞言，卻與他整容陪禮，溫存良久，女子方才息氣。被我说了两句，他倒骂了我一场，将一根棍子赶着我打。若不是走得快些，几乎被他打死。这不是招你为祸？害杀我也。」牛王闻言，却与他整容陪礼，温存良久，女子方才息气。
逐句解 Line by line
"I said a word or two to him, and instead he railed at me roundly, and took a cudgel and came after me to beat me."
倒 is dào here, the adverb of the-other-way-round — he did the opposite of what he owed her — against the dǎo of 倒在懷裡 three passages earlier. 著 is the continuous zhe, and 棍子 takes the swallowed suffix zi.
"If I had not run the faster, I should have been beaten to death by him."
走得 takes the toneless complement marker de — ran-so as to be-fast. The construction is doing the work an English adverb would do, and it is the same shape as the 跑得 and 諕得 of two passages earlier.
"Is this not to have taken you in and got a calamity by it? You have been the death of me!"
為 is the copular wéi here — taking him in has become a disaster — where two passages earlier the same character was wèi, "on account of." And note that 害殺我也 repeats her opening cry word for word, closing the complaint on the note it started on.
Hearing this, the Bull King composed his countenance and made his apologies to her, and soothed her a good while before the woman's temper at last subsided.
整容 is to arrange the face: the outward composure comes first and the inward may follow. 息氣 is to let the breath, and with it the anger, settle.
Her account of the beating is a considerable improvement on the facts. The Great Sage did draw his cudgel and did shout, but he struck no blow and followed her no further than her own front door, which she reached and shut. She reports a chase with a weapon and a narrow escape from death. We watched the scene five passages ago and are in a position to measure the exaggeration exactly.
The shape of the complaint is worth attention. It opens with 害殺我也 and closes with 害殺我也, and everything in between is the evidence offered for that verdict. In the middle sits the one clause that actually matters to her — 這不是招你為禍 — where the grievance turns from the monkey to the husband. The monk is a pretext. The charge is that marrying him has brought trouble into the house.
The Bull King's response is entirely procedural: he arranges his face, apologises, and waits. Four verbs and a duration. The novel gives him no reported speech at all here, which leaves us unable to tell what he has concluded until he opens his mouth in the next passage — and what he says then is not what the soothing would have led anyone to expect.