實實供招 They Confessed It All
今早押赴朝中，實實供招了。那國王就請我師收降，師命我等到此。先一場戰，被九頭蟲腰裡伸出一個頭來，把八戒啣了去。我卻又變化下水，解了八戒。今早押赴朝中，实实供招了。那国王就请我师收降，师命我等到此。先一场战，被九头虫腰里伸出一个头来，把八戒啣了去。我却又变化下水，解了八戒。
逐句解 Line by line
This morning they were brought under guard to the court, and confessed it all truthfully.
供 is gòng, sworn testimony, where pypinyin gives gōng; 供招 is to depose and confess. 朝 at 朝中 is cháo, the court, and 中 is zhōng. Six graphs cover the whole legal proceeding of the previous chapter.
The king then begged my master to put them down, and my master ordered us here.
降 at 收降 is xiáng, to receive a submission, where pypinyin gives the falling jiàng of descending — the fourth site in the chapter to need this correction. 師命我等 puts the whole expedition under an order, which is how Pilgrim prefers to present it to another god.
In the first bout the Nine-Headed Worm put out a head from the middle of his body and carried Eight Rules off in his mouth.
一場 takes 一 at yì before the dipping 場 chǎng and 一個 at yí before the falling 個. 啣 is to hold in the mouth as an animal does, and it is a plainer word than the one the narrator used at the time.
So I changed shape and went down into the water, and got Eight Rules loose.
化 holds huà by the invariant ruling and 解 is jiě, to untie. Eleven graphs cover the crab, the eavesdropping, the pincers and the rake — the whole of two passages, with the disguise not mentioned.
The compression is the interesting thing here. The deposition scene of the previous chapter gets eleven graphs, escort and confession together; the entire crab episode — the deliberation on the bank, the transformation, the road remembered from an old raid, the eavesdropping among the shrimp-sprites, the rope bitten through, the rake stolen back — gets eleven, and none of them mentions a crab.
What he does not compress is the fiend's advantage. The tenth head coming out of the middle of the body gets a full clause of its own, in the same words the narrator used. It is the one detail in the account that Erlang will actually need.
師命我等到此 is worth noticing as diplomacy. Pilgrim is explaining to a god of higher standing why he is fighting a dragon in a foreign kingdom, and the version he gives is that he was sent.