原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
殿閣崢嶸 Halls And Towers Beyond Telling
不一時，已到五鳳樓前。說不盡那殿閣崢嶸，樓臺壯麗。不一时，已到五凤楼前。说不尽那殿阁峥嵘，楼台壮丽。
逐句解 Line by line
不一時，已到五鳳樓前。
不一时，已到五凤楼前。
In no time at all he stood before the Tower of Five Phoenixes.
不一時 puts two tone-shifting characters back to back, and the chain resolves on the underlying tones rather than the surface ones. 不 is worked out against the citation tone of 一 and so stays bù, while 一 itself shifts against the level tone of 時.
說不盡那殿閣崢嶸，樓臺壯麗。
说不尽那殿阁峥嵘，楼台壮丽。
There was no telling the loftiness of those halls and chambers, the splendour of the towers and terraces.
不 reads bú here, against the falling tone of 盡. The automatic tone shift is worked out from that character's base reading, which is jǐn and level, so it returns bù; the reading is afterwards raised to jìn, and the 不 in front of it has to be corrected by hand to match.
Two sentences, and the city's whole architecture is disposed of. Where the earlier showcase spent seven couplets on gate-towers and moats, this one simply declines: 說不盡, there is no telling it.
The refusal is a real technique, not laziness. The pilgrims have already been given one full rhapsody on this kingdom and a second would flatten the first. What the narrator wants here is speed — Tripitaka is hurrying, and the prose hurries with him.