原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
如再變卦 If You Change Your Mind
叫道：「唐老爺，若肯饒命，即便擡轎相送。」行者道：「我師徒俱是善勝之人，依你言，且饒你命。快擡轎來，如再變卦，拿住決不再饒。」叫道：「唐老爷，若肯饶命，即便抬轿相送。」行者道：「我师徒俱是善胜之人，依你言，且饶你命。快抬轿来，如再变卦，拿住决不再饶。」
逐句解 Line by line
叫道：「唐老爺，若肯饒命，即便擡轎相送。」
叫道：「唐老爷，若肯饶命，即便抬轿相送。」
It called out: "Venerable Tang, if you will only spare my life, I will fetch the chair at once and carry you."
相 reads xiāng, marking the carrying as done for the other party.
行者道：「我師徒俱是善勝之人，依你言，且饒你命。
行者道：「我师徒俱是善胜之人，依你言，且饶你命。
Wukong said: "My master and I are all of us people who favour mercy. On your word, I spare your life for now.
善勝 — inclining to the good, disposed to kindness.
快擡轎來，如再變卦，拿住決不再饒。」
快抬轿来，如再变卦，拿住决不再饶。」
Bring the chair up quickly. If you change your mind again, we will take you and there will be no sparing a second time."
變卦 — to change the hexagram, and so to go back on an arrangement. The image is of recasting a divination to get a different answer.
Wukong's warning is exact and it is entirely wasted, since the reader has already heard the demons agree in private that every promise is a lie. He is negotiating in good faith with people who settled the question two blocks ago.
The word for changing one's mind is a diviner's: to change the hexagram. You cast the yarrow stalks, you get an answer, and if you do not like it you cast again for a different one. Applied to a broken promise it carries a nice suggestion of someone shopping around for the result they wanted.
And Wukong's phrase for himself is worth catching — people who favour mercy. He has spent this chapter clawing at an enemy's liver, dropping a king into a pit, and extorting his own brother's savings at the point of an imaginary rope. The novel lets him say it without a word of comment.