偏打老年人 He Hits Old People For Preference
婆兒道：「你去見他便了，卻如何在這裡打轉？」土地道：「若去見他，他那棍子好不重，他管你好歹就打哩。」婆兒道：「他見你這等老了，那裡就打你？」土地道：「他一生好吃沒錢酒，偏打老年人。」婆儿道：「你去见他便了，却如何在这里打转？」土地道：「若去见他，他那棍子好不重，他管你好歹就打哩。」婆儿道：「他见你这等老了，那里就打你？」土地道：「他一生好吃没钱酒，偏打老年人。」
逐句解 Line by line
His wife said, "Then go and see him and have done. What are you doing turning circles in here?"
了 is liǎo here, the full reading — 便了 means and that's that, have done with it — not the light le that marks a completed action. The distinction is invisible in the writing and audible in speech.
The local god said, "If I go and see him — that cudgel of his is a fearful weight, and he will hit you whether you have done anything or not."
好不重 uses the same trap as earlier in the chapter: 好不 looks negative and means very. The cudgel is very heavy. 管你好歹 — never minding good or bad — is a fixed phrase for acting without regard to whether it is deserved.
His wife said, "He can see how old you are. Would he really hit you?"
那裡 is nǎ lǐ here — how could he, surely not — the interrogative use, the same double reading the chapter played on back at the farmstead gate.
The local god said, "All his life he has liked drinking on other people's money, and he hits old people for preference."
沒錢酒 — wine that costs you nothing, drink somebody else paid for. 偏 means precisely, of all things — he singles out the elderly. Thirteen characters, and it is the most damaging character reference anybody gives the Great Sage in this chapter.
Four exchanges of a married couple arguing about whether the terrifying visitor will actually hit him. She thinks he is being dramatic. He knows better.
The wife's question is the reasonable one and it gets the funniest answer in the chapter. Surely he would not hit an old man? All his life, says her husband, he has liked free drink and hitting old people. It is delivered flatly, as settled knowledge about a public figure.
There is real information in the joke. This is what the celestial small fry think of Sun Wukong: not a hero, not a pilgrim, but a known menace who turns up, demands things, and lashes out at whoever is least able to object. The book has spent seventy chapters rehabilitating him and lets a local god puncture it in one line.