不得乾淨 No Getting It Settled
行者笑道：「這等說，吃了虧也。」老者道：「他只拚得一命，還是我們吃虧：與他買棺木殯葬，又把些銀子與他徒弟。那徒弟心還不歇，至今還要告狀，不得乾淨。」行者笑道：「这等说，吃了亏也。」老者道：「他只拚得一命，还是我们吃亏：与他买棺木殡葬，又把些银子与他徒弟。那徒弟心还不歇，至今还要告状，不得干净。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim laughed and said, "By that account, he came off the worse."
吃虧 is to come off badly in a deal — a commercial figure again, and a light one for a man who has been beaten to death.
The old man said, "All he staked was his one life. It was we who came off the worse: we bought the coffin and saw to the burial, and gave a sum of silver to his disciple besides.
拚得 takes the light de: the "willing to give up" sense rather than the full verb. The chapter settles this itself — a hundred and eighty-two characters further on it writes 捨得一命 in the very same slot, and there the reading is not in doubt. 還 is hái.
"And that disciple's heart is not quiet yet. He still means to go to law, and there is no getting the thing settled."
Here the same two characters mean the opposite thing, and a comma decides it. The edition prints 告狀，不得乾淨 — so 不得 stands in front of its own predicate and takes the full verb dé. Read from the characters alone, with the punctuation stripped out, it looks like 告狀不得, which would take the light toneless de instead. 乾淨 is gān jìng.
A man has been beaten to death and Pilgrim's summary is that he came off worse in the bargain. The old man accepts that framing and improves on it: the monk lost only his life, whereas the village lost a coffin, a funeral and a cash settlement.
The accounting is offered without apology and it is not meant as callousness. It answers the costing Pilgrim laid out three passages ago: this is what the village has actually spent, and this is what it bought.
The lawsuit is the detail that makes the whole thing feel modern. A disciple who will not let the matter drop and keeps threatening to take it to court is the ordinary aftermath of a hire that went wrong, and it is why the village is now careful whom it asks.