似推磨的 The Local God Spins Like A Millstone
你道他問誰？即捻一個訣，念一個咒，拘得個土地老兒在廟裡似推磨的一般亂轉。土地婆兒道：「老兒，你轉怎的？好道是羊兒風發了。」土地道：「你不知，你不知。有一個齊天大聖來了，我不曾接他，他那裡拘我哩。」你道他问谁？即捻一个诀，念一个咒，拘得个土地老儿在庙里似推磨的一般乱转。土地婆儿道：「老儿，你转怎的？好道是羊儿风发了。」土地道：「你不知，你不知。有一个齐天大圣来了，我不曾接他，他那里拘我哩。」
逐句解 Line by line
And whom do you suppose he asked?
Five characters, and the storyteller is back. He asks the room a question he is about to answer, which is the oldest trick in this book's repertoire.
He made a magic sign with his fingers and recited a spell, and had the old local god hauled up — spinning round and round inside his own shrine like a man pushing a millstone.
磨 is mò, the millstone itself, not mó, to grind. 土地 is the local earth god, the lowest rank in the celestial civil service: one per district, with a small shrine, answerable to anyone senior who calls. 得 takes dé — managed to summon.
The local god's wife said, "Old man, what are you turning about for? Looks to me as if you have come down with the goat-staggers."
兒 takes the full ér three times over here — 婆兒, 老兒, 羊兒風 — because each names a person or a thing rather than working as a suffix. 羊兒風 is a folk name for a fit, from the way a stricken animal spins and staggers. She is asking her husband if he has had a seizure.
The local god said, "You don't know, you don't know."
The same three characters twice. He is flustered, and the repetition is doing the work an exclamation mark would.
"There is a Great Sage Equal to Heaven arrived, and I did not go out to receive him — so he is over there hauling me in."
齊天大聖 is the title Sun Wukong gave himself when he rebelled against Heaven, and it has stuck. 不曾 takes céng, the aspect word — have not yet — and the base gets this right, unlike the 可曾 that is coming.
The chapter stops dead and becomes a domestic comedy. A minor god is being spun around his own shrine by a summons he cannot refuse, and his wife wants to know what he thinks he is doing.
The local earth god is the bottom rung of the celestial bureaucracy — one to a district, a small shrine, no power to speak of, and obliged to answer anyone with rank. The book uses them as the put-upon junior staff of the universe, and it is always funny because the joke is about office hierarchy rather than about gods.
His wife's diagnosis is the best line. The goat-staggers is a folk name for a fit, taken from the way a stricken animal spins in circles. She watches her husband being supernaturally compelled and concludes he is ill.