許久不回 Master I Have Come Back
大聖聽得這般言語，更加努力，收斂雲光，近前叫道：「師父，我來了。」長老攙住道：「悟空，勞碌。你遠探高山，許久不回，我甚憂慮。端的這山中有何吉凶？」大圣听得这般言语，更加努力，收敛云光，近前叫道：「师父，我来了。」长老搀住道：「悟空，劳碌。你远探高山，许久不回，我甚忧虑。端的这山中有何吉凶？」
逐句解 Line by line
When the Great Sage heard words like these he put out all the more effort, gathered in his cloud-glow, came near and called, "Master — I have come back."
聽得 keeps the full dé, as every verb of perception does. 更加努力 — he tries harder because of what he overheard, which is a strange thing to say about a journey already finished. The effort is not travel. It is composure.
The elder took hold of him: "Wukong. You have had a hard time of it."
攙住 is to catch and support somebody by the arm, the gesture you make toward a person who might fall. Xuanzang does not ask anything first; he takes hold of him.
"You went far to scout that high mountain and were so long in coming back — I have been very anxious."
甚 is shèn here, meaning very — against the shén of what a few characters earlier. One character, two readings, three sentences apart, and only context tells them apart.
"What in truth is in this mountain, for good or ill?"
端的 puts 的 at dì, standing in for 實, real — a vernacular really, truly, in point of fact, and nothing to do with the everyday toneless de. It is the same question he asked in the previous chapter when he first sent Wukong up the slope.
Xuanzang gets one of his better moments here. He does not scold, he does not ask about the mission first, and he catches hold of his disciple before he says anything at all. The book has spent seventy-odd chapters showing this relationship failing in both directions; occasionally it shows it working.
And the question he ends on is exactly the question he asked before Wukong left. Nothing he has been through in the meantime is available to Xuanzang, who has been standing on a hillside making a pile of dirt. From where he stands the entire ordeal is a gap in the afternoon.