塔頂舍利 The Relic From The Pagoda Crown
行者道：「他近日招了一個駙馬，乃是九頭蟲成精。他郎丈兩個做賊，將祭賽國下了一場血雨，把金光寺塔頂舍利佛寶偷來。那國王不解其意，苦拿著僧人拷打。是我師父慈悲，夜來掃搭，當被我在塔上拿住兩個小妖，是他差來巡探的。行者道：「他近日招了一个驸马，乃是九头虫成精。他郎丈两个做贼，将祭赛国下了一场血雨，把金光寺塔顶舍利佛宝偷来。那国王不解其意，苦拿着僧人拷打。是我师父慈悲，夜来扫搭，当被我在塔上拿住两个小妖，是他差来巡探的。
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said, "Not long ago he took in a son-in-law, who is a Nine-Headed Worm come to spirit-hood.
了 is the perfective le. 招 here is to take a husband into one's own house, the arrangement in which the man joins the wife's family rather than the reverse — which is why every threat in this chapter has been against the dragon's household and not the fiend's.
The two of them, son-in-law and father-in-law together, turned thieves: they sent down a rain of blood on the kingdom of Jisai and stole away the Buddha-relic from the crown of the pagoda of the Temple of Golden Light.
舍利 is a registered transcription taking shè lì, the śarīra — the hard bright grains left in a master's ashes, which a pagoda exists to house. It is the chapter's first of five, and the spec given here matches the registration rather than overriding it. 佛 stands at fó and 賽 at sài. 郎丈 pairs son-in-law and wife's father in two graphs.
That king could not make out what it meant, and cruelly laid hold of the monks and had them beaten.
拿著 takes the durative 著 zhe. 解 is jiě, to understand, and its value settles the graph before it: mechanical sandhi keeps 不 at bù before a dipping syllable, which is what jiě is. 苦 is used adverbially, bitterly or relentlessly.
It was my master's compassion that set him sweeping the pagoda by night; and I caught two lesser fiends up in the tower then, sent out by him on patrol.
差 is chāi, to dispatch, where pypinyin gives chà, which is not a live reading for this graph in this frame at all. 當 is dāng, at that time. 搭 is written for 塔 here, and the graph in the very next clause is the ordinary one; encoded as printed.
Pilgrim's account is the chapter telling itself over, and the first thing he supplies is the piece of information that makes the whole affair intelligible: the Nine-Headed Worm was taken into the dragon's house as a son-in-law. That is why the treasure sits in a dragon palace and why every threat made in this chapter has been aimed at the dragon's family.
The summary is accurate and it is ordered by cause. The marriage, the partnership, the rain of blood, the theft; then the king's incomprehension and the beating of innocent monks; then Tripitaka's compassion and the night's sweeping. Nothing is left out and nothing is put in.
One small textual point sits in the last segment. 掃搭 is written with the hand-radical graph where the pagoda is meant, and the ordinary 塔 appears four graphs later in the same sentence. The reading is encoded as printed and the inconsistency left visible.