只消一滾 One Boiling Would Be Enough
乾柴架起，烈火氣焰騰騰。大聖在雲端裡嗟嘆道：「我那八戒、沙僧，還捱得兩滾；我那師父，只消一滾就爛。若不用法救他，頃刻喪矣。」干柴架起，烈火气焰腾腾。大圣在云端里嗟叹道：「我那八戒、沙僧，还挨得两滚；我那师父，只消一滚就烂。若不用法救他，顷刻丧矣。」
逐句解 Line by line
Dry firewood was stacked beneath, and the fierce flames went roaring up.
乾 is gān here, dry — not qián, the first hexagram of the Book of Changes, which is the reading it takes sixty-seven characters later. Same character, two jobs, no warning.
From the cloudland the Great Sage sighed and said, "My Bajie and Sha Monk can stand two boilings yet;
捱 is to endure or drag through, and 得 after it is de, marking what they are able to bear. 滾, a rolling boil, is being used as a unit of time — the way a cook measures.
but for my master, one boiling would be enough to make him fall apart.
只消, it takes only, is doing brutal arithmetic. The difference between the disciples and the master is being measured on the same scale as the cooking.
If I do not use some art to save him, he will be gone in a moment."
頃刻 is a very short time indeed — the standard phrase for the space of a breath. The sentence has no exclamation in it, which is what makes it land.
Wukong is doing triage from the air, and doing it in cooking terms. His brothers have two boilings in them; his master has less than one. The estimate is cold and it is correct.
It also settles something the chapter has been circling. Wukong has spent the night insisting nobody would come to harm, and now that he is out and looking down at the fire, he says plainly that his master will be dead within minutes. The confidence was for the audience in the ropes.
Notice too that he has already escaped. He could go. He is a free spirit hanging in a cloud over a demon kitchen, and the whole of the next passage exists because he does not.