嘓的嚥下 Every Cup Caught Below
那怪嘓的嚥下,被行者嘓的接吃了。第二鍾嚥下,被行者嘓的又接吃了。一連吃了七八鍾,都是他接吃了。那怪啯的咽下,被行者啯的接吃了。第二钟咽下,被行者啯的又接吃了。一连吃了七八钟,都是他接吃了。
逐句解 Line by line
The creature swallowed it down with a gulp, and Wukong with a gulp caught it and drank it.
嘓 is a sound-word for a swallow, and the sentence uses it twice — once for each of them. The joke is entirely in the repetition: the same noise, one after the other, a few inches apart.
The second cup went down, and Wukong with a gulp caught and drank that too.
The same sentence again with one character changed. Chinese narrative is happy to repeat a structure verbatim to show a process continuing, where English wants variation.
Seven or eight cups in a row went down, and he caught and drank every one.
都 is dōu, all of them. And the count is the point: the demon believes he has drunk seven or eight cups of poisoned wine and is waiting for it to work on somebody else.
The comedy is mechanical and perfectly timed. Three sentences, each one a small variation on the last, and the reader watches a demon methodically drink himself into trouble while believing he is administering a dose.
There is a nice piece of physics in it too. The wine is doing exactly what wine does — going down a throat — and the only thing that has changed is that there is now a funnel at the far end. Nobody has been outfought. The plumbing has simply been altered.