Now at Tuoluo Village old Li and the rest were saying to the Tang Monk, "Those two disciples of yours have not come back all night. They will certainly have lost their lives."

卻說 — "now, as for" — is the storyteller's hinge for cutting away to somewhere else, the Ming equivalent of "meanwhile." 傾 is the same character Eight Rules used when he thought Pilgrim had been swallowed. The village and the disciple reach for one word.

Tripitaka said, "There will be no harm in it at all. Let us go out and look."

The six-character tail that closes the quotation folds back into this unit, naming no speaker of its own. 藏 reads zàng.

In a moment they saw Pilgrim and Eight Rules coming along, hallooing and shouting, dragging a great python behind them.

間 is jiān, marking a stretch of time, and 著 is the marker zhe. 喝 is hè, to shout. The doubled 吆吆喝喝 is noise made for the pleasure of making it.

Only then were the crowd glad.

卻才 — "only just then" — dates the relief precisely to the sight rather than to the news.

Old and young, men and women, the whole village came and knelt. "Grandfather! This is the very demon that has been harming us here.

爺爺 takes an unstressed second syllable, like the whole class of doubled address terms. It is also the same word Eight Rules cried out when he saw the creature's eyes in the dark.

"Now, by your reverence's good offices, the monster is cut down and the evil rid away, and we may all hope to live in peace."

庶 is shù, expressing hope rather than certainty — "we may perhaps." 得 is the full verb dé, to obtain a settled life.