隱姓埋名 I Hid My Name
我隱姓埋名，更無一人得知，你卻怎麼知道？」行者道：「我是個地裡鬼，不管那裡，自家都會訪著。」毘藍道：「也罷，也罷。我本當不去，奈蒙大聖下臨，不可滅了求經之善，我和你去來。」我隐姓埋名，更无一人得知，你却怎么知道？」行者道：「我是个地里鬼，不管那里，自家都会访着。」毘蓝道：「也罢，也罢。我本当不去，奈蒙大圣下临，不可灭了求经之善，我和你去来。」
逐句解 Line by line
"I have hidden my surname and buried my given name, and not one soul knows of me. How is it that you do?"
隱姓埋名 is a four-character idiom still in use: to conceal your identity and live unknown. 得知 keeps 得 as dé, because here it is a verb of its own — to come to know. She is not asking out of modesty. She is asking who broke a three-hundred-year silence.
"I am a ground-ghost," said Pilgrim. "Wherever it is, I can always find it out for myself."
⚠ 地裡鬼 — a ghost of the local ground — is vernacular for somebody who knows a district inside out, every lane and every householder. Pilgrim is claiming to be one, which is a boast and a dodge in the same six characters. 訪著 takes 著 as zháo, the resultative band: not merely enquire but succeed in finding out. He has kept the Old Mother's secret with a piece of cheek.
"Very well," said Vairambha. "Very well."
也罷 doubled is a shrug — let it pass, never mind then. She has not believed him and she is not going to press it, and the doubling is the sound of somebody deciding to let a thing go. The eleventh doubled utterance in the chapter.
"By rights I should not go. But since the Great Sage has come down to me in person, I cannot extinguish so good a work as the fetching of the scriptures. I will go with you."
本當 is by rights, properly speaking, with 當 as dāng, ought. 奈 is the concessive but-since. And notice the verb: 滅了求經之善 — extinguish the good of the scripture-quest — is the same 滅 Pilgrim used for putting out the golden light. She is being asked to put out one thing and declining to put out another.
She knows he is lying and she goes anyway. That is the shape of the scene: she asks who told him, gets a piece of cheek about being a ground-ghost, says 也罷，也罷 — very well, very well — and agrees. Three hundred years of hiding set aside on the strength of an answer she does not believe.
The reason she gives is the interesting one, and it is not that Pilgrim persuaded her. 不可滅了求經之善 — one cannot extinguish so good a work as the scripture-quest. The pilgrimage outranks her privacy, and the moment she is told it is at stake the discussion is over. The Old Mother had said the same thing about the same errand, in the same word: 免他一死, to spare him from dying.
And the verb is the one that has been running under the whole chapter. 滅, to extinguish, is what Pilgrim came to ask her to do to the golden light, and it is what she refuses to do to the quest. The light will go out. That is what she is for.