且問他一問 Better Ask Before I Hit It
他即舉棒道：「這一棒，莫說是幾千層，就有幾萬層，也打斷了。」正欲打，又停住手道：「若是硬的便可打斷，這個軟的，只好打匾罷了。假如驚了他，纏住老孫，反為不美。等我且問他一問再打。」他即举棒道：「这一棒，莫说是几千层，就有几万层，也打断了。」正欲打，又停住手道：「若是硬的便可打断，这个软的，只好打匾罢了。假如惊了他，缠住老孙，反为不美。等我且问他一问再打。」
逐句解 Line by line
He raised the cudgel at once and said, "This one blow — never mind a few thousand layers, if there were tens of thousands I would smash straight through."
莫說 sets up the boast: never mind X, even Y. It is the shape of somebody talking themselves into something, and the number goes up by a factor of ten inside one sentence.
He was about to strike when he checked his hand: "If it were hard I could break it, but this soft stuff — all I would do is flatten it."
打匾 — to beat something flat. 罷了 at the end is dismissive: that's all it would come to. He has thought about the physics of the thing, which nobody in this chapter has done yet.
"Suppose I startle them and they wrap up old Sun instead — that would be no good at all."
為 is wéi, to be — it would BE not-good — rather than wèi, for the sake of. 纏住老孫 puts him in the passive for a moment, which is a thing he almost never allows himself.
"Let me put a question or two first, and hit it afterwards."
問他一問 doubles the verb round a 一 — give it a bit of a questioning. Nine characters, and they are the most sensible words spoken by anyone in this chapter so far.
He raises the club, works out that hitting a soft thing very hard achieves nothing, and puts it down again. It takes him four sentences.
Set that beside what Tripitaka did this morning. The master reasoned his way to the conclusion that the place was dangerous and then sat down at the table anyway. Pilgrim reasons his way to the conclusion that force will not work and then does not use force. The difference between the two of them is not intelligence; it is whether the conclusion changes the behaviour.
The risk he identifies is also the right one. Startle them and they wrap him up — which is precisely what will happen to him later if he is careless. He is not being cautious out of temperament. He has read the material properties of the obstacle and drawn the correct inference.