以心問心 He Questioned His Own Heart
獨自一個，嗟嘆多時，復又寧神思慮，以心問心道：「這妖魔不知是個甚麼搭包子，那般裝得許多物件？如今將天神、天將，許多人又都裝進去了。我待求救於天，奈恐玉帝見怪。我記得有個北方真武，號曰蕩魔天尊，他如今現在南贍部洲武當山上，等我去請他來搭救師父一難。」独自一个，嗟叹多时，复又宁神思虑，以心问心道：「这妖魔不知是个甚么搭包子，那般装得许多物件？如今将天神、天将，许多人又都装进去了。我待求救于天，奈恐玉帝见怪。我记得有个北方真武，号曰荡魔天尊，他如今现在南赡部洲武当山上，等我去请他来搭救师父一难。」
逐句解 Line by line
Alone by himself, sighing a long while, he settled his spirit and thought again, questioning his own heart: "There is no telling what sort of bag this demon has, that it packs away so many things like that."
以心問心 — questioning his own heart with his heart — is the phrase the novel keeps for the mind-monkey reasoning with itself, which is what the whole passage is. 寧 is níng, to settle or calm, not the nìng of preferring one thing to another.
"And now the gods of heaven and the generals of heaven, a great many of them, have been packed in there too."
將 stands twice inside five characters, both times jiāng, and means two entirely different things — the little marker that puts an object in front of its verb, and a general of an army. The sentence carries both and makes nothing of it.
"I mean to ask heaven for help, but I am afraid the Jade Emperor will take it amiss."
Twelve characters, and the first admission of its kind he has made in the chapter. He asked Heaven for help two thousand characters ago and lost the entire force it sent; going back is not a question of pride but of accounting.
"I remember there is the True Warrior of the North, styled the Demon-Quelling Heavenly Honoured One, and he is at present on Mount Wudang in the Southern Jambūdvīpa Continent. Let me go and ask him to come and deliver my master out of this calamity."
難 is nàn, a calamity — which in turn forces 一 to yí rather than the yì the automatic reading gives, because the character after it now falls in the fourth tone. 當 is dāng in 武當.
The chapter's last movement is a man talking himself round. He sighs a long while, settles his spirit and thinks; states the problem — a bag that holds anything — states what makes it worse, admits what he does not want to do, and then remembers somebody else to ask.
The reasoning is honest about its own difficulty. He is afraid the Jade Emperor will take it amiss, and that is not modesty. He was sent twenty-eight star lords, five Guardians, and the Six Ding and Six Jia — and every one of them is now in a cellar under a locked lid.
So he goes elsewhere. The True Warrior of the North is a Daoist deity on a Daoist mountain, and asking him rather than the Jade Emperor is a change of jurisdiction as much as of address. Which is the shape the whole chapter has had: one authority after another arriving and failing.