不會收小 He Could Not Make It Small
是我跟他到那亂石山碧波潭底，變作一個螃蟹，探了消息，偷了他辟水金睛獸，假變牛王模樣，復至翠雲山芭蕉洞，騙了羅剎女，哄得他扇子。出門試演試演方法，把扇子弄長了，只是不會收小。正掮了走處，被他假變做你的嘴臉，返騙了去。故此耽擱兩三個時辰也。」是我跟他到那乱石山碧波潭底，变作一个螃蟹，探了消息，偷了他辟水金睛兽，假变牛王模样，复至翠云山芭蕉洞，骗了罗刹女，哄得他扇子。出门试演试演方法，把扇子弄长了，只是不会收小。正掮了走处，被他假变做你的嘴脸，返骗了去。故此耽搁两三个时辰也。」
逐句解 Line by line
"So I followed him to the bottom of Green Wave Pool on Scattered Rock Mountain, turned into a crab, spied out the news, stole the water-parting golden-eyed beast that he rides, took the Bull King's own shape, went on to Banana-Leaf Cave on Emerald Cloud Mountain, cheated the Rākṣasī, and gulled the fan out of her.
The whole of the previous chapter in one fifty-five character sentence of eight verbs. 哄得 takes 得 at dé, the verb of obtaining with its object actually got. Three readings here differ from the easy guess: 辟 is bì, 剎 is chà and 模 is mú.
"Outside the door I tried the method over and over, and got the fan made large; only I cannot make it small again.
And here is the admission the whole chapter has been waiting for. 長 is cháng, long — 弄長了 is to have made a thing long, not to have made it grow. This is the fourth site of the character in the chapter and the third at that reading, against the single zhǎng of 金錢長 in the alchemical poem. 試演試演 doubles the verb to mean trying it over and over.
"And just as I was carrying it away on my shoulder, he took your face and cheated it back off me.
返騙了去 closes the account with the Bull King's own word for the plan, which the reader heard him form in the chapter's second passage. 處 again marks the point of time rather than a place, and 掮 is the shouldering verb from the chapter's opening clause, returning here exactly.
"That is how two or three double-hours were lost."
耽擱 is to be held up or delayed, 擱 taking gē. The answer closes on the very phrase Eight Rules used in his question — 兩三個時辰 — which makes the account formally complete: he was asked where the hours went and has said where each of them went.
Fifty-five characters and eight verbs carry the whole theft: followed, transformed, spied, stole, disguised, travelled, cheated, gulled. The novel is recapitulating for a listener who was not there, and it does so at a speed that would be unreadable if the reader had not just watched all of it happen.
只是不會收小 — only I cannot make it small again — is the sentence the chapter has been waiting for since its first line. The Great Sage asked how to make the fan large and never asked how to make it small, and here he says so plainly, to his brother, as a flat admission of incompetence rather than an excuse. Everything that has gone wrong follows from those six characters.
The account closes on 兩三個時辰, the exact phrase Eight Rules used to ask the question. He was asked where two or three double-hours had gone, and he has now said where each of them went. The examination is formally complete, and the answer is that they were spent winning the fan and then losing it.