活雷公 Just Like A Living Thunder
那公公不識竅，只管問他。他就把臉抹一抹，即現出本像，咨牙徠嘴，兩股通紅，腰間繫一條虎皮裙，手裡執一根金箍棒，立在石崖之下，就像個活雷公。那公公不识窍，只管问他。他就把脸抹一抹，即现出本像，咨牙徕嘴，两股通红，腰间系一条虎皮裙，手里执一根金箍棒，立在石崖之下，就像个活雷公。
逐句解 Line by line
The old man did not know what was coming, and kept on pressing him.
不識竅 is not to know where the catch is — 竅 is an opening or a knack, the hole in a thing through which you understand it. He has no idea what he is asking for. 只管 is the word for going on doing something regardless, and it is the last thing the old man does before the roof falls in.
So he gave his face a rub and showed his true shape: fangs bared and mouth jutting, both thighs flaming red, a tiger-skin kilt tied at the waist, a gold-banded cudgel in his hand, standing at the foot of the stone cliff — the very image of a living god of thunder.
把臉抹一抹 is all it takes: one wipe of the hand. The portrait that follows is built the same way the old man's own was, in matched clauses — 咨牙徠嘴 and 兩股通紅 — then longer ones for the kilt and the cudgel. 活雷公 is the punchline: the thunder god in Chinese folk art has a beaked face, red limbs and a mallet, and every child would have seen him painted on a temple wall.
The transformation back takes six characters. There is no ritual, no spell, no shaking of the body — just a hand across the face, the way you would wipe off sweat.
The description that follows is the third portrait in this chapter and it uses the same construction as the first two: matched clauses, feature by feature, nothing still. What has changed is the content. The old man was assembled out of white hair and prayer beads; this is fangs, red thighs and a tiger skin.
The comparison at the end does the work. A living god of thunder is not a description of a monkey, it is a description of a picture — and the old man is now looking at something he has only ever seen on a temple wall, standing on his hillside, three feet away.