原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
左耳朵眼兒 Inside My Left Ear
行者暗笑道：「這獃子褲子也沒得穿，卻藏在何處？咄！你銀子在那裡？」八戒道：「在我左耳朵眼兒裡揌著哩。我綑了拿不得，你自家拿了去罷。」行者暗笑道：「这呆子裤子也没得穿，却藏在何处？咄！你银子在那里？」八戒道：「在我左耳朵眼儿里揌着哩。我捆了拿不得，你自家拿了去罢。」
逐句解 Line by line
行者暗笑道：「這獃子褲子也沒得穿，卻藏在何處？
行者暗笑道：「这呆子裤子也没得穿，却藏在何处？
Wukong laughed to himself: "This fool has not even a pair of trousers to wear. Where can he have hidden it?
得 is the light de in 沒得穿: cannot manage to wear, rather than to obtain.
咄！你銀子在那裡？」
咄！你银子在那里？」
Hey! Where is your silver?"
咄 is a bare shout with its own punctuation, folded forward onto the question. 那 reads nǎ.
八戒道：「在我左耳朵眼兒裡揌著哩。
八戒道：「在我左耳朵眼儿里揌着哩。
Bajie said: "It is stuffed inside the hole of my left ear.
揌 — to stuff into. 著 reads zhe, the stuffing staying done. 兒 keeps ér.
我綑了拿不得，你自家拿了去罷。」
我捆了拿不得，你自家拿了去罢。」
I am tied up and cannot reach it. Take it yourself."
得 is again the light de — cannot manage to take it.
The location is the punchline and it has been waiting since the start of the scene. Wukong changed into a gnat and landed at the root of Bajie's ear; the silver is in the hole of the left one. The text never says which ear he settled on, and it does not need to — he has run this whole interrogation from an inch away.
Wukong's aside gives the reason the question needed asking at all: a man with no trousers has nowhere to keep anything. That is a joke about Bajie's poverty and also a genuine observation — the ear is a sensible strongbox for someone who owns no clothes and is regularly tied up.
The last line is the one that ought to sting. Take it yourself: he is bound, helpless, in a pond, handing over everything he owns to a creature he believes has come to kill him, and he does it without further argument. Wukong has got what he wanted. The novel leaves it to the reader to decide what it cost.