Canonical Classics ← 第六十回
第六十回
niúwángzhànhuáyán
sūnxíngzhěèr調tiáojiāoshàn

The Bull Demon King Breaks Off the Fight for a Splendid Banquet · Sun the Pilgrim Contrives the Second Fetching of the Banana-Leaf Fan

下回分解
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

下回分解 To Be Continued

jìngzhīxiōngqiětīngxiàhuífēnjiějìngzhīxiōngqiětīngxiàhuífēnjiě


逐句解 Line by line

jìngzhīxiōngqiětīngxiàhuífēnjiě jìngzhīxiōngqiětīngxiàhuífēnjiě

In the end there is no knowing whether this going out will prove for good or ill; and you must listen to the explanation in the next chapter.

is fēn and is jiě. The closing formula here is slightly clipped: the chapter ends on 畢竟不知此去吉凶如何 rather than the commoner shape that names the next chapter as well. A small variation on the storyteller's stock ending.


總評 Commentary

The chapter closes on the standard formula, and what it leaves hanging is the third chase of the sequence: the Great Sage walking home with a fan he cannot fold, and the Bull Demon King coming after him in his wife's clothes with his wife's swords.

It is worth setting the ending against the opening. Chapter sixty began with a Local Spirit naming the Bull Demon King as the answer to a question, and it ends with that King in pursuit, stripped of armour, mount, dignity and the goodwill of both his households. The chapter has taken him from a name in somebody else's sentence to a man in his underclothes on a borrowed errand of revenge.