原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
往他鼻孔裡 Straight Up The Nostril
行者原無此意，倒是八戒教了他。他就把棒幌一幌，小如雞子，長有丈餘，真個往他鼻孔裡一搠。那妖精害怕，沙的一聲，把鼻子捽放。行者原无此意，倒是八戒教了他。他就把棒幌一幌，小如鸡子，长有丈余，真个往他鼻孔里一搠。那妖精害怕，沙的一声，把鼻子捽放。
逐句解 Line by line
行者原無此意，倒是八戒教了他。
行者原无此意，倒是八戒教了他。
Wukong had had no such intention; it was Bajie who taught it to him.
倒 reads dào — on the contrary, it was the other way about. Two characters earlier the same character meant to fall over, dǎo; here it does not.
他就把棒幌一幌，小如雞子，長有丈餘，真個往他鼻孔裡一搠。
他就把棒幌一幌，小如鸡子，长有丈余，真个往他鼻孔里一搠。
So he gave the cudgel a shake, made it small as a hen's egg and something over a zhang in length, and jabbed it fairly up the monster's nostril.
長 reads cháng, the noun length. 丈 stays as zhàng — about 3.2 metres, so the staff is a little over three metres of egg-thin iron.
那妖精害怕，沙的一聲，把鼻子捽放。
那妖精害怕，沙的一声，把鼻子捽放。
The monster took fright, and with a hiss let the trunk drop.
沙的一聲 is a noise word for the rush of air. 捽放 — to shake loose and let go.
The narrator interrupts to make sure the credit goes to the right place. Wukong had no such plan; Bajie taught it to him. That single line reverses the whole scene — the one standing uselessly on the hill has just won the fight, and the one doing the fighting was showing off until somebody told him what to do.
The dimensions are precise and worth converting: thin as a hen's egg, a little over three metres long. That is not a weapon any more, it is an instrument, and Wukong has resized his cudgel for the job the way a workman picks a different bit.
It is also the second time in this chapter that a monster's nose has ended the engagement. The first old fiend sneezed Wukong out of his own head; this one lets go of him for the same reason. The novel found a joke it liked and has now used it twice, on two different brothers, in two entirely different directions.