原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
下回分解 To Be Continued
畢竟不知見那個老魔頭有甚吉凶,且聽下回分解。毕竟不知见那个老魔头有甚吉凶,且听下回分解。
逐句解 Line by line
畢竟不知見那個老魔頭有甚吉凶,且聽下回分解。
毕竟不知见那个老魔头有甚吉凶,且听下回分解。
In the end there is no knowing what fortune, good or ill, awaited him on meeting that old demon chief; and for that you must listen to the next chapter to have it explained.
畢竟 is in the end, when all is said. 甚 here is shèn, what sort of, against the shén it takes inside the two-character question word a few passages back — both bands one last time. 吉凶 is auspicious-and-inauspicious, the pair standing for the outcome whichever way it falls. And 下回分解 is the formula that closes every chapter of this novel: the next instalment will take it apart and explain.
The chapter ends where it began, with somebody about to walk into something they have been warned about. Tripitaka was told not to go on and went on; Pilgrim has been told what the three kings can do and is going in anyway.
The closing formula is a professional storyteller's, and it is doing what it always did: stopping at the door. Everything the chapter set out to establish has been established — the mountain, the cave, the numbers, the road, the three sets of powers — and the one thing nobody has yet seen is a demon.