金剛套 The Ring Of Lord Lao
逐句解 Line by line
"The two sides faced off to settle who was the better; he had his Meishan brothers with him.
分高下 is to decide which of two is higher — the standard phrase for a duel meant to settle rank. 儕 is a company of equals, a set of fellows.
"Each showed his mettle and worked transformations; at the gate of Heaven three sages parted the clouds to watch.
變化 here is the shape-changing contest — Erlang and Wukong turning into bird, fish and temple in turn. 撥雲開 is to push the clouds apart, which is what gods do to get a better view.
"Lord Lao threw down his diamond ring, and the assembled gods dragged me to the golden stair.
金剛套 is the ring of adamant — a hoop the patriarch throws to knock an opponent down, and one of the running gags of the novel, since it works on almost everybody. 了 is the neutral le.
"There was no need for review or approval or a written deposition; the sentence was death by slicing, beheading, the lot.
供 is gòng, a deposition or confession — not the reading for supplying something. The line lists the stages of a proper capital trial (詳允, review and approval) in order to say that none of them happened. 凌遲 is death by slow slicing, the heaviest sentence in the imperial code.
The Erlang episode gets two lines, and both of them are about the supporting cast. 梅山兄弟 are Erlang's six sworn brothers from Mount Mei; the 天門三聖 are gods leaning out of the gate of Heaven to watch. Wukong is not describing a fight. He is listing the audience.
The third line is the one that stings. He was not beaten by Erlang — he was knocked down from behind by an old man throwing a metal hoop. 金剛套 is Lord Lao's diamond ring, and it turns up repeatedly in the novel doing exactly this, which is a joke the reader is expected to be in on.
不須詳允書供狀 is a small piece of legal bitterness. 詳允 is the review and approval a capital case had to pass through, and 供狀 is the signed deposition of the accused; naming them and then saying none was needed is a way of saying he was condemned without a trial. Then 凌遲 — death by slicing — is named, which was the heaviest sentence the imperial code carried.