千里客 The Traveller Known Afar
行者道：「我何為小輩？」三怪道：「『好看千里客，萬里去傳名。』你出來，我與你賭鬥，才是好漢。怎麼在人肚裡做勾當？非小輩而何？」行者道：「我何为小辈？」三怪道：「『好看千里客，万里去传名。』你出来，我与你赌斗，才是好汉。怎么在人肚里做勾当？非小辈而何？」
逐句解 Line by line
Wukong said: "How am I small-time?"
為 reads wéi, the verb to be, not the wèi that means for the sake of.
The third fiend said: "There is a saying: a fine traveller goes a thousand li, and his name travels ten thousand.
里 is kept as lǐ on both surfaces. A Ming lǐ runs about 576 metres, so a thousand of them is some 576 kilometres.
Come out and match yourself against me. That is what a real man does.
賭鬥 — to wager and fight, a contest with something staked on it. The demon is offering terms, not merely a brawl.
What sort of business is it to work away inside a man's belly?
勾當 reads gòu dàng — a piece of business, and almost always a shabby one.
If that is not small-time, what is?"
而何 closes a rhetorical question in the literary manner, and is the one formal touch in an otherwise spoken taunt.
The proverb the demon quotes is about how reputation works: a man of quality travels, and word of him travels further. Quoting it here is a deliberate needle. He is reminding Wukong that his fame is a possession, that possessions can be damaged, and that this particular one is being damaged right now by where he has chosen to stand.
The word for what Wukong is doing is dismissive and slightly grubby — a piece of business, the sort of thing done in back rooms. Set against the ringing proverb about names carrying ten thousand li, the contrast is the argument. Out there, glory; in here, something you would not admit to.
The demon has also framed the choice so that only one answer is available. Either Wukong comes out, or he concedes that the description fits. There is no third reply, and the passages that follow show Wukong looking hard for one and failing to find it.