去此不遠 Not Far From Here
八戒道：「此物在於何處？才往那方去了？」三藏道：「去向之方，不知何所；但只談詩之處，去此不遠。」八戒道：「此物在于何处？才往那方去了？」三藏道：「去向之方，不知何所；但只谈诗之处，去此不远。」
逐句解 Line by line
Eight Rules said, "And where are these creatures? Which way did they go just now?"
Two units joined: 才往那方去了？」 closes the quotation at six characters, inside the ceiling of eight. The opener runs to exactly nine characters and so was not folded forward — the folding threshold is under nine — which puts the eighth and seventh threshold cases of the chapter in adjacent units. 那 is the questioning nǎ in 那方, as it was in the disciples' own shout from the ridge.
Tripitaka said, "As for the direction they went, I do not know where;
去向之方 answers Eight Rules' second question and declines it. The unit ends on a semicolon with the quotation still open.
"but the place where we discoursed on poetry is not far from here."
A join was considered across the semicolon and declined: 但只 marks a turn against what came before rather than a matching member, and the two formulas differ. The unit runs to ten characters and is past the ceiling in any case.
Eight Rules asks two questions and gets an answer to the second only. Where are they? — no reply. Which way did they go? — I do not know. But the place where we made poems is close by.
That answer decides the rest of the chapter. Tripitaka has not been asked to lead anyone anywhere; he simply reports that the hermitage is near, and the report is enough. Eight Rules has a rake and has spent two days learning what it is for.