借扇三事 Three Reasons to Borrow the Fan
若大聖尋著牛王，拜求來此，方借得真扇：一則搧息火焰，可保師父前進；二來永除火患，可保此地生靈；三者赦我歸天，回繳老君法旨。」行者道：「積雷山坐落何處？到彼有多少程途？」土地道：「在正南方。此間到彼，有三千餘里。」若大圣寻着牛王，拜求来此，方借得真扇：一则搧息火焰，可保师父前进；二来永除火患，可保此地生灵；三者赦我归天，回缴老君法旨。」行者道：「积雷山坐落何处？到彼有多少程途？」土地道：「在正南方。此间到彼，有三千余里。」
逐句解 Line by line
"If the Great Sage will seek the Bull King out and entreat him to come here, only so may the true fan be borrowed. First, the flames would be fanned out and the Master might go forward; second, the peril of fire would be done away for ever and the living things of this region preserved; third, I should be pardoned and returned to Heaven, and might hand back Lord Lao's decree."
Four points in one speech. 尋著 takes zháo, the reading for a search that finds. 一則 is the fixed word for "firstly" and holds its 一 at yī, resisting the tone change to yì that would otherwise happen before the rising tone of 則. 搧 is shān, the verb to fan, and stays visibly distinct from 扇 shàn, the object you fan with — this chapter keeps the two apart even when they sit side by side. And 回繳 is office language: handing a warrant back to the department that issued it.
Pilgrim said, "Where does the Mountain of Massed Thunder lie? What distance is it to reach there?"
Pilgrim asks where and how far, in that order and in as few words as possible. It is the same clipped interrogation he ran in the previous chapter — where does the mountain lie, what is it called, how many 里 — from the same speaker in the same manner.
The Local Spirit said, "Due south. From this place to that is somewhat above three thousand lǐ."
餘 after a round number means more than that, not roughly that: three thousand 里 and change. A 里, conventionally about half a kilometre, is a distance measure with no English equivalent, so it stays in Chinese.
The Local Spirit lays out his three reasons in the form of a petition to the throne. 一則, 二來, 三者 are the numbering words of formal submission, and the three clauses are cut to identical length: four characters of action, four characters of benefit. This is not advice. It is a filing, and he has arranged it the way a clerk would.
The order repays attention. The pilgrims' passage comes first, the welfare of every living thing in the region second, and his own release third and last — and he states it openly rather than hiding it. He wants to go home. Five hundred years of tending someone else's mess end, on his account, only when that someone puts it right. Putting his own interest last is not modesty; it is the oldest and most effective arrangement in persuasion, and it is the reason with all the personal weight behind it.
The closing detail is the most characteristic thing in the passage. What the Local Spirit looks forward to is 回繳老君法旨 — handing Lord Lao's written decree back to the office that issued it. Release from a five-century exile is imagined as returning a document. The heavens of this novel are a civil service from top to bottom, and salvation, when it comes, comes as paperwork correctly filed.