The goading stratagem has a name because it is a recognised item in the Chinese military repertoire, sitting alongside the ambush and the feigned retreat. The idea is to make an opponent abandon a strong position by insulting him out of it, and it works on exactly one kind of person: the kind who cannot bear to be thought less than his reputation. The third demon has taken Wukong's measure in about four minutes.

Look at how the speech is built. Three lines of genuine praise, each naming a real episode from Wukong's past — the assault on Heaven's Southern Gate, the uproar below the celestial throne hall, the record of demons put down on the westward road — and then the reversal in the final clause. Every compliment is true, which is what makes the last line sting. He is not calling Wukong a nobody; he is saying that a somebody is behaving like a nobody.

The charge is hiding, and the word for it is small-time, the vocabulary of reputation rather than of combat. A modern equivalent would be telling a famous boxer that he is ducking the fight. The insult does not touch his ability at all, which is precisely why there is no way to answer it except by coming out.