將我網住 They Netted Me In Silk
惟我不曾吃他茶，將茶鍾摜碎，他就與我相打。正嚷時，那七個蜘蛛精跑出來吐放絲繩，將我網住，是我使法力走脫。問及土地，說他本相。惟我不曾吃他茶，将茶钟掼碎，他就与我相打。正嚷时，那七个蜘蛛精跑出来吐放丝绳，将我网住，是我使法力走脱。问及土地，说他本相。
逐句解 Line by line
"Only I did not drink his tea. I dashed the cup to pieces, and he set on me at once."
相打 takes 相 as xiāng, the reciprocal — fought each other. Six of this character fall in this one speech and five of them are this reading. 不曾 comes out as céng unaided, as it has every time in this chapter, while 可曾 does not.
"While we were still shouting, out ran those seven spider spirits, spat out silk cords and netted me in — and I got clear by working a spell."
吐 is tǔ, the deliberate band — putting something out on purpose — where the same character describing a poisoned man frothing was tù. Both readings are live in this chapter and 康熙 keeps them apart: 寫也 for one, 歐也 for the other. 網住 uses the noun for a net as a verb.
"I put the question to the local earth god, and he told me their true shapes."
Eight characters for a whole scene the reader has already watched. 本相 keeps 相 as xiàng, an appearance — the one occurrence in this speech that is not the reciprocal xiāng.
Pilgrim's account is compressing hard, and where it compresses tells you what he thinks matters. The interrogation of the earth god — two full passages of comedy, a deity on his knees in the road, an audit report — gets eight characters. What he dwells on instead is the cup he did not drink.
That is not vanity. It is the load-bearing fact: he alone is upright, and everything he has done since follows from it. He said the same thing to the earth god with the same word, 不曾吃茶, and both times he leaves out that he spotted the poison, asked three times to swap and was overruled.
And 吐 appears here in its other reading. The spiders spitting silk and the Tang Monk frothing at the mouth are the same character doing opposite work — one deliberate, one helpless. The chapter has seven and uses both bands, which is why the character was put under guard before a word of it was written.