吹口仙氣 A Breath Of Immortal Air
那春嬌即轉前面,叫了七八個怪鹿妖狐,打著兩對燈籠、一對提爐,擺列左右。娘娘欠身叉手,那大聖早已飛去。好行者,展開翅,徑飛到那玉面狐狸頭上,拔下一根毫毛,吹口仙氣,叫:「變!」那春娇即转前面,叫了七八个怪鹿妖狐,打着两对灯笼、一对提炉,摆列左右。娘娘欠身叉手,那大圣早已飞去。好行者,展开翅,径飞到那玉面狐狸头上,拔下一根毫毛,吹口仙气,叫:「变!」
逐句解 Line by line
Chunjiao went round to the front at once and called seven or eight monstrous deer and fiendish foxes,
The staff, in a phrase: deer and foxes, all of them spirits. 了 is the neutral le. Seven or eight is not a count so much as the storyteller shrugging.
carrying two pairs of lanterns and a pair of hand censers, and drew them up on either side.
著 is zhe, the little word that keeps an action going while something else happens — they are carrying the lanterns as they form up. 提爐 is a censer on a handle, carried in procession rather than set on a table.
The Queen rose a little and clasped her hands, and the Great Sage had already flown off.
Two things at once, and the second is a joke at the first's expense. 欠身叉手 is the formal salute — half rising, hands folded — and while she is performing it he has gone. 那 is nà.
Fine Pilgrim! He spread his wings and flew straight to the jade-faced fox's head,
好行者 is the storyteller cheering his own hero, one of the novel's stock exclamations. It is followed by a comma rather than a full stop, which keeps it inside the sentence instead of standing on its own. 徑 is jìng, straight there without stopping.
plucked out a hair, blew a breath of immortal air on it, and cried, "Change!"
The trick everybody knows. 毫毛 is the fine body hair, not head hair, and it turns up five times in this chapter, every one of them a transformation. 一 takes yì by ordinary tone change before the level tone of 根.
Nothing in this passage is hurried and everything in it is fast. The maid fetches the staff, the lanterns and censers are distributed, the queen begins her formal salute — and in the middle of that sentence, 那大聖早已飛去, the Great Sage has already gone. The narration keeps the ceremony and the theft running in the same clause.
好行者 is the storyteller putting his head round the curtain to cheer. It is one of the novel's stock exclamations and it always marks the same thing: our man is about to do something clever. Here it is worth noticing that it is followed by a comma, not a full stop, which keeps the cheer tucked inside the sentence rather than standing outside it.
The hair trick needs no explanation to anyone who has met Wukong before, and the text gives none. He pulls one strand, breathes on it, says the word. What he makes with it is the subject of the next passage, and it is not a weapon.