毒藥茶 Poisoned With Their Tea
行者道:「早間救了師父,前去不遠,遇一座黃花觀,我與師父等進去看看,那觀主迎接。才敘話間,被他把毒藥茶藥倒我師父等。我幸不曾吃茶,使棒就打。行者道:「早间救了师父,前去不远,遇一座黄花观,我与师父等进去看看,那观主迎接。才叙话间,被他把毒药茶药倒我师父等。我幸不曾吃茶,使棒就打。
逐句解 Line by line
"This morning I rescued my master," said Pilgrim, "and we had not gone far when we came on a Yellow Flower Abbey. My master and I went in to have a look round, and the abbot came out to meet us."
Both 觀 here are guàn, the abbey — the name of the house and then 觀主, its master. Of the chapter's twenty 觀, sixteen are this reading and only four are guān, to look. 看看, doubled, is the casual "have a look" — which is precisely how he is still framing it.
"We had barely got talking when he drugged my master and the others down with poisoned tea."
藥倒 again — 藥 as a verb, to drug, and 倒 as dǎo, the falling result. The phrase occurs five times in this chapter and every one of them is a report by somebody to somebody else; the event itself was described only once, and without it.
"By luck I did not drink mine, so I set about him with the cudgel."
Ten characters, and 幸 — by good fortune — is carrying more than it looks. It was not luck. He saw the black dates, asked three times to swap, was overruled by his master and covered the cup with his hand. He is telling the story with himself left out of it.
Pilgrim gives his statement, and it is a good one: short, chronological, and almost entirely accurate. Rescued my master, came on an abbey, went in, got talking, was poisoned, fought back. Any officer taking a report would be pleased with it.
The one word that is not accurate is 幸, by luck. There was no luck involved. He noticed a cup that did not match, asked to exchange it three separate times, was told by Tripitaka to stop being difficult, and then held the thing sealed under his own hand for the rest of the conversation. He compresses all of that into one character meaning fortunately.
That is very much this character. Pilgrim boasts constantly about things he has not done and passes over the things he has, and the book lets the reader keep the score. We watched the cup. He says he was lucky.