吐放絲繩 They Spat Out Silk
他卻說出盤絲洞化齋，濯垢泉洗澡之事，我就知那廝是怪。才舉手相敵，只見那七個女子跑出，吐放絲繩，老孫虧有見識走了。他却说出盘丝洞化斋，濯垢泉洗澡之事，我就知那厮是怪。才举手相敌，只见那七个女子跑出，吐放丝绳，老孙亏有见识走了。
逐句解 Line by line
"But then he brought up the business of begging a meal at Gossamer Cave and bathing at the Filth-Cleansing Spring, and I knew at once the fellow was a monster."
廝 here is a noun, not the reciprocal prefix of 廝打 six passages back: it means a fellow, a chap, and it is contemptuous. Same character, wholly different job. 化齋 is begging alms food; both place names are callbacks to the previous chapter, and each is named four times in this one.
"We had only just come to blows when those seven women ran out and spat out silk cords, and old Sun had the sense to get away."
吐 is tǔ here — deliberate emission, putting something out on purpose — where the same character describing a poisoned man frothing at the mouth was tù. 康熙 keeps the bands apart: 說文 寫也 for one, 廣韻 歐也 for the other. This chapter has seven, and both readings are live. 相敵 takes 相 as xiāng, engaging each other. 老孫, old Sun, is what Pilgrim calls himself when he is pleased.
The two place names are the pivot of the whole chapter and Pilgrim reports them as the moment he worked it out. Gossamer Cave and the Filth-Cleansing Spring mean nothing to the earth god and everything to the reader: they are last chapter's business, and they are why three men are on a floor.
虧有見識 — luckily I had the sense — is Pilgrim's second modest formulation in as many passages, and it is doing the same work as 幸 was. He escaped a silk canopy by turning a somersault through it. He files that under having had the sense to leave.
And note that 老孫 has appeared. Pilgrim calls himself old Sun when he is enjoying himself, and he has started enjoying himself again — which, given that he still has no antidote and no way into the building, is either bravado or the reason he wins.