原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
更不打話 Not A Word Between Them
他兩個各懷惱怒，氣呼呼，更不打話；咬著牙，各要相爭。他两个各怀恼怒，气呼呼，更不打话；咬着牙，各要相争。
逐句解 Line by line
他兩個各懷惱怒，氣呼呼，更不打話；
他两个各怀恼怒，气呼呼，更不打话；
The two of them, each with his anger in him, breathed hard and did not so much as speak;
更 reads gèng here, meaning still less — not the gēng of the night watch two lines above. 打話 is to exchange words before a fight.
咬著牙，各要相爭。
咬着牙，各要相争。
they set their teeth, and each meant to have the other.
著 reads zhe, the teeth set and kept set. 相 keeps xiāng — striving against one another.
Not a word. That is the whole point of these two segments, and it is a deliberate reversal of everything in the chapter so far. This has been a story conducted almost entirely in speech — flattery, goading, bargains, proverbs, lies — and it ends with two fighters who have nothing left to say to each other.
The novel is precise about what has changed. Every earlier fight opened with a boast or a challenge; the third fiend even has a stratagem built out of talking. Here the talking is over because the trap has already worked, and there is nothing further to arrange.